This Day In Space History: August 15

Not much happened today in space, but one especially fascinating thing did happen today. And it has to do with......

      ......ALIENS!

1977

Jerry Ehman, a professor at Ohio State and part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, received records of sounds from space, via "The Big Ear" telescope. On August 15, 1977, however, the sounds were different. 6EQUJ5, to be exact. But what significance does that hold? The sound matched the 1959 predicted frequency by Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi - a 1420 megahertz radio wave, the frequency of hydrogen. So how did Ehman react to the signal? "Wow." The specifics of the signal made it appear to have been produced knowingly. But now the question is what made the noise? Where did it come from? It was tracked back to the Sagittarius constellation. It could have been a natural space sound such as a collision. But since 1977 -40 years ago today- it was never repeated.

We still don't know who or what made that noise, but we know we have not received another seemingly intentional signal from space. Maybe one day we'll come in contact with the sound's source again. Or maybe it will remain a mystery...

Click on the link below to read the NPR article about this amazing story of the WOW Signal.
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2010/05/28/126510251/aliens-found-in-ohio-the-wow-signal

as fun as aliens are, I want to acknowledge one more event today...

1986

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/15/nyregion/news-summary-friday-august-15-1986.html

After the space shuttle Challenger's devastating crash in January, President Ronald Reagan announces changes in the space program to fund a $3 billion project to replace Challenger with a new shuttle.

For a complete list of today’s Space History, see  http://www.astronautix.com/a/august15.html

What are Solar and Lunar Eclipses?

In anticipation of the solar eclipse that is quickly approaching - just about two weeks, I thought I'd give a really brief explanation of both solar and lunar eclipses.

solar eclipse

When positioned just right, the moon {new moon} will completely block the sun in a total eclipse - this is what we'll see on August 21st. (There are also partial solar eclipses).

lunar eclipse

Now with the earth aligned in the middle, the moon {full moon} will not be exposed to the sun at all, blocked by the earth's shadow. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)  used his observation of a lunar eclipse to prove that the earth was round.

Top Colleges For Astronomy Majors

According to the 2017 U.S. News & World Report, the top 5 universities in the U.S. to study space science are:

 

1. California Institute of Technology
2. Harvard University
3. University of California - Berkeley
4. University of California - Santa Cruz
5. Princeton University

If Harvard, Yale, and MIT don’t fall in your range of reach, many state schools still rank in the top 25 U.S. schools for space science, including:

 

1. Ohio State University - Columbus
2. University of Texas - Austin
3. Pennsylvania State University - University Park
4. University of California - Los Angeles
5. University of Massachusetts - Amherst

The following universities have been noted as the top 5 in the U.S. for a physics major:
 

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. University of California - Berkeley
3. Harvard University
4. University of Chicago
5. California Institute of Technology

And still in the top 20 of all American universities, here are some of the best state schools to study physics:

 

1. University of Maryland - College Park
2. Ohio State University - Columbus
3. University of Wisconsin - Madison
4. University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
5. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

I hope this will be found useful to anyone who wishes to work one day as an astronomer, physicist, aerospace engineer, or wherever you Shoot for the Stars!

(and p.s., if you're really passionate about it, next time someone says "it's not rocket science", you can say "oh, but in my book, it literally is rocket science")

Go chase after that shooting star, I'm sure you'll catch it!  Good luck!  :)