How two moons caused confusion at Saturn in 1966

 On December 18^th 1966 a moon now called Epimetheus was discovered orbiting Saturn by the American astronomer Richard Walker. A few days earlier on December 15^th the French astronomer Audouin Dollfus observed a moon which he proposed to be called Janus. At the time it was believed there was just one moon being discovered and the discovery was credited to Walker.

However, 12 years later in 1978 it was realised that there were two objects here Janus and Epimetheus. Final confirmation came in 1980 when Voyager 1 flew past Saturn.

The Astronomy show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE tonight and every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country. 

I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

 The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

 

 

 

The Glen Miller mystery 80 years on

 If you think of great band music in the 1930s and 1940s you will probably think of Glen Miller with hits like Moonlight Serenade, Chattanooga Choo Choo and In the Mood.

This is the 80^th anniversary of his disappearance.

It is strange that someone so well-known at the time and so well remembered has a large mystery attached to his last journey.

It was very cloudy, there was heavy rain, and it was foggy, Glen Miller is reputed to have said we will never get off the ground today. His manager Don Haynes said the fog and rain could be cut with a knife. Most airports across Britain were shut that day the 15^th December 1944, however a single engine Noorduyn Norseman takes off and disappears into the clouds. The plane and Glen Miller the great band leader is never seen again.

The Norseman plane was a Canadian designed aircraft and entered service in 1936. They would be used by the Canadian Air Force and United States Army Air Force.

As he was the greatest music star of his day the conspiracy theories quickly started. Even now 80 years on we don’t know why he took off on that day or what happened.

One idea was that he was shot down captured and tortured by the Nazis, another that he was shot down by friendly fire or even that his plane was hit by a jettisoned bomb. A fleet of 139 Lancaster bombers was returning from an aborted mission due to the weather and were dropping their bombs into the English Channel. Could one of these had struck his plane? We don’t know.

The pilot maybe not that experienced, didn’t have the confidence to say that it was too dangerous to fly that day. The mystery will probably never be solved or will it?

Maybe someday in the future we might learn the true story of the last flight of the great band leader Glen Miller. 

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Wold Cottage Meteorite 1795

This is the oldest known British meteorite in ‘captivity’  in a museum. It would prompt the first full scale investigation into meteorites.

The meteorite fell at around 3.00 o’clock on December 13th 1795 in a field near the Wold Cottage in the East Riding of Yorkshire on land which was owned by Major Edward Topham.  The fall was observed by several people and landed a few yards from ploughman John Shipley.

A sound like gunfire was heard by people who thought that French warships were bombarding Bridlington. Britain was at war with France at the time. People described seeing a dark object passing through the air.

The meteorite weighed about 56pounds (25kg) and made a hole 19 inches deep passing through 12 inches of topsoil and 7 inches of chalk. The meteorite is a L6 chondrite the second, most common type of meteorite. It is what astronomers call a stone meteorite although about 25% of the meteorite will still be made of iron.

Topham erected a plinth in 1799 to mark the site of the meteorite fall, he didn’t keep the meteorite. In 1804 he sold it to James Sowerby for 10 guineas or £10.50 in today’s money. That £10.50 today is worth around £1,300. In 1837 Sowerby sold the meteorite to the British Museum for £250. A substantial amount in its day which would be worth £31,300.

The plinth says On this spot December 13th 1795 fell from the atmosphere and extraordinary stone. In breadth 28 inches, In length 30 inches which weighed 56 pounds.

This column in memory of it was erected by Edward Topham 1799

Only 20.6 of the 25 kg made it to the British Museum to be part of their collection. The remainder is believed to have been broken off and given away prior to acquisition.

 

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Nova Hercules 1934

 A few years before All Creatures Great and Small Was set the vets travelling across the moors of Yorkshire might have seen a new bright star or nova appear in the sky.

Nova 1934 discovered by English amateur JPM Prentice on December 13th, 1934, at mag 3.0 and reached its peak brightness on December 22nd, 1934, at mag 1.5.  This would have made it brighter than he north star or the stars that make up the group of stars known as the Plough. It remained visible to the naked eye for several months. The nova was around 1,600 light years away. 

Today the nova is classified as DQ Hercules

A nova the word is Latin for new is a binary star system, there are two stars here. It was a term used in the Middle Ages when people thought it was a star being created. This is why they called it a nova.   The system is formed of a small white dwarf star and a much larger cooler star. The white dwarf star is formed of material that has been squashed together this material astronomers refer to as degenerate material, it is so heavy that a lump of white dwarf material the size of a snooker ball would weigh around 70 tons!!

Material from the large cooler star is pulled gravitationally toward the white dwarf star. It forms a disc of gas which then falls onto the surface of the white dwarf which the throws a shell of gas into space which we see and as a bright dot in the sky and we call this a nova.

 

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The one man football team

 It was grim day up north on December 12^th 1891. In a snowstorm at Turf Moor Stadium, Burnley are playing Blackburn Rovers in a first Division match. It says much about the Victorian period that the Match kicked off at all.

In the second half the weather conditions worsen, and players resolve weakens. The Blackburn Rovers players revolt, walking of the pitch and feeling numb it is too cold to play. Only the Rovers goalkeeper Herby Arthur remains.

The match descends into farce, to derisive cries from the crowd Arthur successfully appeals for offside when one Burnley player passes to another. What can the referee do? With no one to pass to , Arthur engages in a lengthy period of time wasting until the bemused referee is forced to abandon the game 30  minutes before time.

 Burnley win 3-0.

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The Before Full Yule Moon

 The full moon on December 15^th is known as the Before Yule Moon. The feast of Yule occurs on the night of December 21st which is the day of the year when the Sun is at its lowest in the sky and produces the shortest period of daylight of the year. This date can vary from year to year by a day or so. 

A long time ago people watched for the full moon in December; they then had from that date until the feast of Yule to chop down a log from the forest in readiness to burn it from the feast of Yule for twelve nights. Today of course the Yule log has turned from firewood into a cake!!

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