THE SKY THIS JANUARY: 1998 WAS A BANNER YEAR FOR ASTRONOMY

Greetings and Happy New Year!

1998 was a banner year for astronomy. We discovered water on the Moon, on one of Jupiter's moons, and in comets. Astronomers now believe that the Universe will expand forever and believe they have evidence of anti-gravity.

"Anti-Gravity" is represented by Albert Einstein's cosmological constant in his general theory of relativity. It acts as a repulsive force instead of an attractive force. It apparently is causing the universe to expand faster and faster instead of slowing down. This means that the ultimate fate of the universe will be death by ice as we consume all the available energy and slowly cool to a frozen universe. Evidence for black holes continues to increase and new photos from Mars show the famous "Face" of Mars to be an isolated mountain rage seen under specific lighting conditions.

If last year seemed to drag on a little longer than expected it is because the U.S. Naval Observatory added an extra leap second to the year in order to synchronize our human clocks with the celestial clocks.

Otherwise, we could be celebrating New Year's Day in the middle of summer in the next few centuries. Residents of the future would then think us inferior for not correcting our clocks.

The reason for all this confusion is that the Earth refuses to orbit around the Sun in nice whole number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

The year is actually slowly getting longer. As the Earth and Moon continue their gravitational dance they cause tides to form upon each other which causes the Earth to speed up (thus the longer year) and the Moon to orbit closer. Eventually the Earth and Moon will be locked to each others movements so that the same side of the Earth faces the Moon just like the same side of the Moon now faces the Earth. Half the population will get to see the Moon and the other half will be left in the dark.

The Earth is at its closest distance to the Sun on January 3rd. Obviously the distance from the Sun has little effect on the seasons as these are really caused by the fact that the Earth is tipped on its axis of rotation by 23.5 degrees.

The constellation Orion now rules over the denizens of Earth while he fights off Taurus the Bull and his faithful dog Canis Major follows behind. The planet Jupiter is still very bright in the southwest and Saturn follows further east.

New to our skies this month is the planet Venus low in the west (not yet on our star chart). See if you can spot it right after sunset. The Big Dipper finally makes a comeback in the northeast so we can all find the North Star again. The fainter winter milky way can be seen running from the northwest to the southeast.

We live about 2/3 of the way out in a galaxy which has a flattened disk shape. As we look toward the center we see the luminous band of gas, dust, and stars which we call the summer milky way. If we look away from the center towards the outer edge we see a fainter version of the luminous band called the winter milky way.

A new man-made "star" can now be seen in the early night or morning skies. The International Space Station (ISS) can now be located by checking the following NASA web site for visibility data http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html.

Although not in as inclined an orbit as MIR, the ISS can still make good passes over the heartland area.

Dr. Ernie Kern of the Linda Godwin Center for Science and Mathematics Education has recently been awarded a grant to purchase an inflatable planetarium for use by area school districts. If you can't bring the people to a planetarium, then take the planetarium to the people. The planetarium will be available in early February and can be checked out to area teachers who attended a workshop last December or the staff may be available to provide a show for your class or civic group. For more information call (573) 651-2516 or visit their web page at http://www2.semo.edu/mast/godwin.html.

~Dr. Michael Cobb is an astronomer and chairman of the physics department at Southeast Missouri State University.