What’s Up in the Sky – January, 2017
2016 – An Historic Year for Astronomy
This is a time of year traditionally known for reflection and anticipation and last year was also been a year of milestones for astronomers. It seems appropriate to look back on major events and discoveries that will make 2016 historic.
Thought by many to be the greatest discovery of the year, as well as one of the greatest in history, was the detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime and the result of a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. Although the gravitational waves were detected in September of 2015, it took until February of this year for scientists to verify the observation after much painstaking analysis of the data.
The gravitational waves were a result of a merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive, black hole, 1.3 billion years ago. The observation confirmed a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and gives astronomers a completely new method by which to study the universe. The discovery was made using the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors, located in Hanford WA and Livingston, LA.
On July 4th, the Juno spacecraft entered into orbit around the giant planet, Jupiter. Although not the first spacecraft to study Jupiter (there have been eight others) nor even the first to orbit the planet (that was Galileo in 1995), Juno is unique in that its orbit is polar rather than equatorial and brings it far closer to the giant planet’s cloud tops than any other spacecraft. With its mission still in its early stages, we can look forward to many great discoveries when Juno probes Jupiter’s deep structure, studies its atmospheric circulation and attempts to learn more about the high-energy physics of its magnetic field.
In September, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission with a soft landing on the surface of Comet 67P. After two years of study that included ground-breaking observations at extremely close distances, Rosetta has provided scientists with a wealth of data that should keep them busy for years.
The New Horizons spacecraft was still in the news as it finished returning all the data from its flyby of Pluto. One major discovery was that of a massive ice sheet whose top lies 2.5 kilometers below Pluto’s mean elevation. Most likely an impact basin, it may have been formed by a glancing impact of a 200-kilometer body.
And the new year promises to be an exciting one here in the U.S. with next August’s “Great American Solar Eclipse”, an event you will NOT want to miss. It will be the greatest thing you have ever witnessed up in the sky.
