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Skywatching

2 good things from 2020

It has been really interesting how much attention the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn attracted in the media.

Maybe one reason for this is that amidst a year of hardship and tragedy, it is reassuring to see the rhythm of the universe just chugging along, predictably.

The two planets will be close together for a while, so there is still time to look at, or even better, point a telescope at those two dots, one bright and one dim, low in the southwest after sunset.

Even in the midst of COVID some noteworthy things happened in astronomy during 2020, and in the year's last article, we can look at a couple of them.

First there is the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. This is a compound with molecules made up of one phosphorus atom combined with three hydrogen atoms.

 Here on Earth the only naturally occurring phosphine is generated by the rotting of vegetable material in boggy water where there is low oxygen.

It bubbles to the surface of the water, and burns spontaneously in the air, forming flickering marsh lights.

In British folklore these lights are attributed to a malicious fairy, called Will-o-the Wisp, who wants to attract you deeper into the bog, where you could drown.

The surface of Venus is too hot for any of the life processes we know of. However, the temperatures in the upper atmosphere are more comfortable, and there is water and a mixture of different chemicals available to react together.

The fact that we know only one natural process for making phosphine, and that involves living things working on biological material, does not prove there is life in Venus's atmosphere. There could be chemical reactions we have yet to learn about.

However, this discovery has certainly attracted a lot of interest. We certainly know of living things, extremophiles, here on Earth, living in near-boiling, acidic water and other hostile places, so the possibility of living things in the atmosphere of Venus does not stretch our imaginations too much.

I'm biased, but I think the astronomical star of 2020 is CHIME, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment.

The instrument consists of an array of four huge trough-shaped antennas with a total signal collecting area of 8000 square metres.

The objective of the experiment was to map the structure of the hydrogen clouds in the young universe. Basically, hydrogen is the starting ingredient for everything in the universe. However, the design of this telescope makes it ideal for a completely different sort of observation.

There are objects far out in space that occasionally emit a short (thousandths of a second) burst of radio emission.

These objects are scattered all over the sky, producing a number of these pulses, known as "fast radio bursts" or FRBs, a day.

They were discovered serendipitously when a dish type radio telescope, which sees a very small patch of sky, happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time.

To do its job, CHIME sees almost all the sky overlying the observatory. So if anything happens in the sky above the horizon, CHIME will almost certainly catch it. So far CHIME has captured hundreds of these strange FRBs.

Since the objects are huge distances away, they must be emitting a prodigious amount of energy. However, to produce a pulse a millisecond in duration, the object cannot be bigger than about 300 kilometres in diameter.

The only known things that might fit the bill are neutron stars or black holes. Underneath that reassuringly smooth-running cosmos there is another less well-understood universe that is much less predictable.

  • Saturn and Jupiter lie very close together, low in the southwest just after dark.
  • Mars is high in the southeast.
  • Venus lies low in the dawn glow.
  • The Moon will be full on the 29th and will reach Last Quarter on Jan. 6.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy 2021.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



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About the Author

Ken Tapping is an astronomer born in the U.K. He has been with the National Research Council since 1975 and moved to the Okanagan in 1990.  

He plays guitar with a couple of local jazz bands and has written weekly astronomy articles since 1992. 

Tapping has a doctorate from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands.

[email protected]



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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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