Mars As Big As Moon – Never

Published on August 28, 2010 in Astronomical Events. View Comments Tags: , .
Taken by Ron Dantowiz

This image was taken at 24 July 2003 by Ron Dantowiz and it was clear that Mars was by no means as BIG as Moon


MARK YOUR DIARY/CALENDAR

ONLY ONCE IN YOUR LIFETIME

Two moons on 27th August 2010 .

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It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth.

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It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

Many have received this email about the imminent great astronomical scene of the Mars which is claimed to happen tonight and to be as big as our Moon. The email is only right about one things – the distance.

Please let me crack this myth step-by-step if you allow me.

This so-called Mars hoax started since 2003 when Mars was closest to Earth in this century at 27th August 2003 where the distance was only 55 million km, the nearest in 60,000 years. During that time, Mars would look about 75 times smaller than the Moon. According to Science@NASA, in 2003, someone reasoned that if you put in a 75x eyepiece into your telescope, Mars would look as big as the full Moon as to the naked eyes.

What happened next was that someone who decided to pass this message around was a bit lazy and truncated the magnification part and the year. And the result was “It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 ……” which is what you received in your inbox.

So I hope that you are now clear about this fuss. A picture worths thousand words. Check out the photo below to get a better idea of the sizes of Mars and Moon.


The Moon, Venus and Mars by F.Espenak

Moon at the middle of picture, to its one o'clock is Venus and to its five o'clock is Mars.


The only advantage I can think of this message is that it encourages people to get out from their sealed room and check out the gorgeous night skies.

Further reading:  The Mutating Mars Hoax at Science@NASA, Distance From Earth to Mars @ Universe Today

Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of Universe 2

Published on May 31, 2010 in Astro Video. View Comments Tags: .


In this video, Paul talks about his favourite unsolved mysteries and the weirdest question asked.

This video is provided by ANU Public Lecture @ YouTube.

Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of Universe

Published on May 29, 2010 in Astro Video and Public Outreach. View Comments Tags: , .

“At the end of this talk, you won’t know anything new than you knew in the beginning” Dr Paul Francis said. “Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of The Universe” is the title of his first public lecture in 2010. I hope you will enjoy this.

This public lecture was co-organized by ANU Black Hole Society and Australian Institute of Physics. The video is provided by Australian National University Channel at YouTube.


WISE Has Heart and Soul?

Published on May 25, 2010 in Latest Discovery, NASA and Observatory. View Comments

Heart Soul Nebula 457045main wise20100524 516 300x212 WISE Has Heart and Soul?

Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has captured a vast region of space containing the Heart nebula and Soul nebula.The infrared picture above is composed of 1,147 frames totaling exposure time of three and a half hours.

On the left, it is the Heart nebula designated IC 1805, named after its resemblance to human heart. The Soul nebula on the right also known as Embryo nebula designated IC 1848 is named after its resemblance to symbolic heart with two lobes. In my opinion, I think the Soul nebula resemble our hearts better. Anyway, these two nebulae are massive star making factories lying about 6,000 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. They stretch out nearly 580 light-years across. For comparison, Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across.

Continue reading ‘WISE Has Heart and Soul?’

WCS Science Camp 2008

Published on May 10, 2010 in Events. View Comments Tags: .


In 3 August 2008, I escaped chemistry final exam and flew to Taiwan to participate in 11th Wu Chien-Shiung (WCS) Science Camp as  a Malaysian delegate. Not only having great food, great accommodation, magnificent landscapes with beautiful girls, but also fascinating lectures by Nobel Laureates and world leading scientists. Unfortunately, I was having too much fun the first few days I reached Taipei that I almost fell asleep during the first few lectures.

Recently, the scenes that I had during my stay in Taiwan kept on appearing in my mind. Therefore I decided to put down all my work and dedicate my time for uploading the photos (which I should have done 2 years before). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The photos are arranged ascending by time.

Enjoy!

I would like to share my “formula” to win a prize in science camp. As you know, astronomy is my biggest interest ever and the theme of 4th MICSS Science Camp was space science which absolutely fitted my taste. Due to my sheer interest and excitement at astronomy, I was extraordinarily active in learning and approaching professors. When I participated in WCS Science Camp, I was equally active in asking questions and expressing my curiosity. To my surprise, this attitude again led me to an award which I did not expect at all since there were so many competitive peers from greater education background and frankly speaking, I did not put much effort into preparation and understanding of the lectures as I took this adventure as a vacation.


SkyMapper & Internship

Published on May 4, 2010 in Astronomical Instruments and Observatory. View Comments Tags: , , , .

Skymapper - project of Australian National University

SkyMapper at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW, Australia

SkyMapper is designed to create the first comprehensive digital survey (map) of the whole southern sky with its 268-megapixel extraordinary wide field camera. It is one of the key projects managed by Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Australian National University.

The survey will consist of more than one billion stars and galaxies to a depth of one million times fainter that what naked eyes can see. By taking multi-colour and multi-epoch images covering the whole southern sky, it allows astronomers to map the dark matter, uncover first quasars and stars formed in the early universe, which are important to the understanding of our universe model. To probe the key aspects of stars, 6 filters (u, v, g, r, i, z) optimised for temperature, surface gravity and metallicity are installed.

After the survey is done, it will be open to public through the web like Galaxy Zoo. Not only public will be rejoiced by the magnificent images,  amateur astronomers will also be fascinated that they can discover supernovae explosions, planet transits and even microlensing events through the survey.

Internship is also available for 2nd year++ ANU students. The application for 2010 has closed and the deadline for 2011 is 5pm 18 March 2011. According to my seniors, the interns are asked to design algorithms to process the humongous data of which rate is 0.8TB/s when SkyMapper goes online. As a 2010 intern, I will write more about what we do in the future. I can’t wait any longer for such thrilling experience.

And yes, SkyMapper is on Facebook.