Where:

Frosty Drew Observatory

When:

Friday September 30, 2016 CLOSED

Cost:

$1 Suggested Donation per Person

Tonight is Stargazing Night at Frosty Drew Observatory and the dismal forecast for clouds, rain, wind, and fog will keep the Observatory closed tonight. This is quite unfortunate since tonight would have presented two passes of the International Space Station (ISS) and the New Moon which would have left super dark skies to revel in all night long. Once the skies clear, check out the Frosty Drew Observatory home page for additional ISS sighting opportunities every night over New England through October 21st. We will return to our regular Stargazing Nights schedule on Friday, October 7, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.

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Weekly Happenings
Scott MacNeill

At 7:19 EDT this morning, the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission came to an end when the spacecraft impact Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (Comet 67P) in a planned descent. The Rosetta mission began in 2004, a launch that carried the spacecraft on a near 5 billion mile journey around the Solar System, eventually arriving near the orbit of Jupiter, where it slept for 31 months. In January 2014 Rosetta awoke and began its approach of Comet 67P, with a successful rendezvous and orbital acquisition in August 2014, making Rosetta the first spacecraft to orbit a comet. In November 2014, Rosetta deployed the Philae lander module to the surface of Comet 67P. Though a rough landing, Philae captured the attention of the entire world with its scant communication attempts from a previously unknown location. Since achieving orbit, Rosetta has spend 786 days with Comet 67P studying the evolution of the comet as it traveled to perihelion (closest point to the Sun) and back out towards the orbit of Jupiter. The Rosetta mission has been a truly fascinating experience with archives of amazing science data, images, and discoveries. Though the spacecraft will no longer communicate with us back here on Earth, secrets hidden in the archives returned from the spacecraft will fascinate us for years to come. Check out some of the amazing images captured by the Rosetta mission. Way to go ESA!

Check out this amazing time-lapse video made by Gerald Eichstädt, a citizen scientist, of Jupiter captured by the NASA Juno mission JunoCam over a period from July 5th – August 27th. Since July 4, 2016, the NASA Juno mission has been orbiting Jupiter in a wide 53.4 day polar orbit, called capture orbits. August 27th saw a very close approach to Jupiter, the closest of all planned orbits in the primary mission. This close approach gave us an awesome hint at the amazing things to come. The Juno mission is tasked with studying the immense magnetic field of Jupiter as well as the polar regions and state of the planet’s core. Catch up on all the amazing things on Junos agenda and maybe try your hand at some citizen science with all the amazing images coming back from Juno.

Save the Date:
AstroAssembly 2016 is happening tomorrow, October 1, 2016 at Seagrave Memorial Observatory in N. Scituate, RI. Stop in for a day of fun, informative astro-geek-outs with our Skyscraper fiends at the Seagrave Observatory campus.

International Observe the Moon Night is coming back to Frosty Drew Observatory on Saturday, October 8, 2016. Join in the global celebration for the Moon with all of us astro-geeks at Frosty Drew as we showcase the Moon in all of our telescopes.

-Scott