WELCOME TO THE ASTRONOMY CLUB @ YORK UNIVERSITY

Are you fascinated by the stars and the mysteries of the universe, own a telescope or wish to get one? Join the Astronomy Club! The Astronomy Club is open to all members of the York community and offers a variety of fun and interactive ways for professional and amateur astronomy enthusiasts alike, to celebrate a common interest in the cosmos. Astronomy is a science that has helped to shape human culture over the ages and has influenced our imaginations throughout history, and can be enjoyed by everyone. We thoroughly encourage the distribution of astronomical resources and the education of astronomy to the general public.

News Aggregate

From the very start of the modern planet-hunting era a decade and a half ago, the pioneers in this astronomical subspecialty were up front about saying it wasn't about astronomy; it was about biology. Their colleagues might be happy probing to the edge of the cosmos looking for exotic things like black holes and quasars and dark matter. But the planet hunters were ultimately looking for life on distant worlds. Assuming they were talking about earthlike life — which they were, since it's the only kind we understand — the target planets would have to be earthlike too. That meant they'd have to be about the same size as our home world, orbiting their parent star at about the right distance for water to exist in liquid, life-nurturing form. (Image by ESO)

Full Article at TIME

NASA's Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta after a 2.7 billion kilometre journey and is preparing to begin a study of a surface that may date to the earliest era of the solar system, the space agency said Monday. The entry into orbit occurred while the spacecraft's antenna was pointed away from Earth, so mission controllers had to wait for Dawn to re-establish contact to confirm its success.

Full Article at CBC

A cataclysmic explosion of a huge star near the edge of the observable Universe may be the most distant single object yet spied by a telescope. Scientists believe the blast, which was detected by Nasa's Swift space observatory, occurred a mere 520 million years after the Big Bang. This means its light has taken a staggering 13.14 billion years to reach Earth.

Full Article at BBC

Scientists may be just steps from discovering the first habitable planet beyond our own. Gliese 581d, a planet orbiting the red-dwarf star Gliese, may be the first real candidate for human expansion. That is, if it didn't take 3,000 lifetimes to get there, according to Science Daily. 581d is the third candidate for becoming the first hospitable exoplanet from the Gliese system, but the previous two candidates have both been ruled out. Gliese 581e was ruled too cold, and 581g turned out to be entirely nonexistent.

Full Article at Huffington Post

A new, enormous planet may soon be discovered at the edge of the solar system, say two U.S. astrophysicists searching for proof of the celestial body's existence. John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, created a mathematical model that shows a distant gas planet one to four times the mass of Jupiter could explain the patterns of comets in a particular region of the sky.

Full Article at CBC

Astronomers have cracked the Milky Way like a pinata, and planets are now pouring out so fast that they don't know what to do with them all. In a long-awaited announcement, scientists operating NASA's Kepler planet-hunting satellite reported Wednesday that they had identified 1,235 possible planets orbiting other stars, potentially tripling the number of known planets in the universe.

Full Article at The New York Times

Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea, has a thin atmosphere of oxygen and carbon dioxide, according to a new study. The finding provides new insights into the chemical processes that occurred in the solar system, including the Earth, 3.5 billion years ago. Oxygen has been detected remotely in the atmospheres of moons such as Europa and Ganymede, but this is the first time it has been found "in situ" and near the ringed planet. Earlier this year, the Cassini spacecraft used a spectrometer to "sniff" the atmosphere as it flew within 97 kilometres of the north pole of Rhea.

Full Article at CBC

Come and see Dan Falk talk about his atempt to get the 'Ultimate Solar Eclipse Photograh"

A Canadian instrument designed to analyze elements on Mars is ready to help scientists figure out whether the red planet was ever able to support life. The APXS (alpha particle X-ray spectrometer) will be carried aboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity when it is launched into space aboard the Atlas V 541 rocket in fall 2011. The instrument is one of 10 that will help the rover in its mission to determine the planet's habitability — whether it ever was or still is an environment that could support microbial life such as bacteria. It was designed by University of Guelph physics professor Ralf Gellert and built by Richmond, B.C.-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.

Full Article at CBC

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Club Announcements

The Astronomy Club is good to go for the 2011-2012 season. Remember to purchase/renew your membership!

The Astronomy Club @ York University has an official blog on Wordpress! Please mind the lack of content since it's new. We will post the various goings on of the Astronomy Club including exclusive features by our members.

AC@YU Blog

Our Ontario Science Centre trip is Thursday, Feburary 24th. Meet by the main entrance (Science Centre) at 10:00am for your tickets. Please be on time since we are only waiting for 30 minutes. Any questions, please e-mail us.

The Astronomy Club is an offical sponsor of the 2nd Annual STAR Symposium! Check out the offical website below.

STAR Symposium

During reading week on Saturday, October 16th we are planning to go to the Candaian Air and Space museum at Downsview Parc. Details can be found on our events page.

Our first general club meeting will take place this Wednesday at 5:30pm. The details for the event are posted on the events page. You can download the flyer by clicking the link below.

Download

Check out the club flyer for the 2010-2011 school year!

Download

NEW WEBSITE! Any suggestions? E-mail us!