NEWS ITEMS

The International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) provides images and software for schools to participate in a large asteroid-finding research project.
Lists of their recent asteroid discoveries are at http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index_files/Page786.htm.
Their 2008 near Earth asteroid discoveries are at http://iasc.hsutx.edu/Discoveries.

June 2009. Video news report (from our local San Francisco Bay Area ABC station) on the HOU Universe Quest astronomy game development.

2009 May 15. Online games spark girls' interests in science & technology. By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley Media Relations. Excerpt: BERKELEY — Ruby Knight and Tiffany Farmer, sixth and seventh grade Girl Scouts at the ASA Academy in West Oakland, ... Susan Murabona, an educator and astronomer in Nairobi, Kenya... Lech Mankiewicz, an astrophysicist in Warsaw, Poland ...all got together via the Internet earlier this month to begin assembling an online game that will help girls around the world explore the cosmos and perhaps steer them toward careers in software development and information technology. "The Universe Quest Game," an immersive game similar to the popular multi-user virtual world called "Second Life," is being made possible by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the University of California, Berkeley. ...From his home in Warsaw, Mankiewicz coached Murabana, taking her step by step through the intricacies of using the telescope and acquiring images. Murabona then taught the girls to use a free French software program known as SalsaJ to combine three images, taken with red, green, and blue filters, to make a true color image of the galaxy.
... the girls are making great games, they're engaged, they are enthusiastic, they are learning things. ..."I think it is fantastic that girls our age get to make a game," said seventh grader Tiffany. ...So far, a dozen girls meet to work on the game two afternoons a week for two hours at the ASA Academy & Community Science Center, a small, urban, hands-on school that helps traditionally underrepresented youth prepare to move into the ever-changing scientific and technological world. The 3-D online environment the girls are now constructing will eventually be open to girls around the world to explore and build upon. See full article.

2009 May. From Dr. Roger Ferlet of EU-HOU, France HOU, and GHOU:
In the framework of the Czech Presidency of the European Union, a conference, Innovation and Creativity in the Lifelong Learning Programme: Create, Innovate and Cooperate, was held on 6 and 7 May 2009 in Prague. Part of the conference was dedicated to awarding outstanding European projects and best innovative practices which will serve as good motivating examples to wider public, in order to accomplish the goals set by European leaders in Lisbon to become "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010 in the field of Education and Training. In the category "Information and Communication Technologies", our project, Hands-On Universe, Europe – Bringing frontline interactive astronomy to the classroom, has been awarded the silver medal by the European Commission. It was given to me by the Czech Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, Ondrej Liška and the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, Ján Figel.

2009 Mar 11. The latest round of virtual impactor observations (VIOs) and observations of near-Earth objects (NEOs) are now fully listed at the IASC web site. Go to http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index_files/Page786.htm for the complete list. To date there have been 4 Main Belt asteroid discoveries, 1 NEO discovery, 7 VIOs, 4 NEO confirmations, and 148 NEO observations. The NEO observations are reported to the Minor Planet Center (Harvard) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) as part of the NASA Near-Earth Object Program. This is truly an impressive list of discoveries and observations!!
Dr. Patrick Miller

2009 Feb 2 Patrick Miller of the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) reports that Steven Kirby, a high school science teacher at Ranger High School (Ranger, TX), discovered a near-Earth object during the Texas Region 14 Big Country Math & Science Symposium. To be more precise, it was co-discovered by the ARI Observatory director Bob Holmes, Steven Kirby, and Kolyo Dankov (a graduate student at the Bulgarian Academy of Science and a participant of the IASC NEO Confirmation Campaign). This is the first time anyone in IASC has discovered an asteroid crossing or near Earth's orbit. Two other observatories have confirmed the sighting and the orbit for this object is being built by the Minor Planet Center at Harvard - http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09C09.html. It is not unusual to discover a Main Belt asteroid because they number in the hundreds of thousands. The NEOs number in the thousands, and are a much rarer find. Bob Holmes of the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI) observatory adds: "This is not just and NEO. You might be interested to know that the discovery is a 'Virtual Impactor.' ...It was placed on the NASA/JPL risk page...." This discovery has received national attention on both the Sky & Telescope and Universe Today web sites. For more information, you can check out the story on the Universe Today site. This asteroid is 0.3 km in size and in 2042 will pass within 32,000 km of Earth (5.5 Earth radii), and even closer in 2046. Keep in mind that 32,000 km is actually closer to Earth than the geosynchronous satellites. At 0.3 km in size, it is as large as 3 football fields, and has a mass of 3.5 x 1010 kg. If it were to hit the Earth it would release the energy equivalent to 1000 MT of TNT (i.e., 1000 simultaneous hydrogen bomb explosions). So...you never know what your students may discover as they analyze the many image sets available in their school folders.

HOU is resource of the Digital Library for Earth Science Education (DLESE).   You may submit a review of HOU resources for inclusion in the DLESE Reviewed Collection at DLESE. Thank you for taking the time.

NOTEWORTHY HOU IMAGES

Two views of M8 - Lagoon Nebula taken June 26, 2009, by Glenn Reagan at the Hands-On Universe conference at Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay WI, acquired remotely using the AP 206 Refractor at Tzec Maun Observatory in New Mexico. This image taken with H-alpha filter. Glenn Reagan is HOU TRA, Astronomy-Physics Teacher at Cordova High School, District Curriculum Lead Secondary Science Teacher, and professor at Folsom Lake College - El Dorado Center - Sacramento City College.

M8 - Lagoon Nebula taken June 26, 2009, by Glenn Reagan at the Hands-On Universe conference at Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay WI, acquired remotely using the AP 206 Refractor at Tzec Maun Observatory in New Mexico. This image is a color composite made from 3 separate images with color filters.

NGC 2070 (the Tarantula Nebula) image by Glenn Reagan, HOU TRA, Cordova H.S., Rancho Cordova, CA. Telescope: RCOP. Located some 179,000 LY distant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, NGC 2070 represents the largest and most active new star formation region we know about in the Local Group of galaxies. With image FOV about 15 arc min by 15 arc min, students could measure the dimensions of some of the HII region knots.

2009-01-23 NGC2070 rgb RCOP2 Glenn Reagan

[Click for larger image]

IC443 H-S-O-Hi 2009-01-03 Glenn Reagan

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