The Arkansas Oklahoma Astronomical Society is proud to be among the founding member societies of the Night Sky Network, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), which is administered and coordinated by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP). The Night Sky Network's purpose is in "Astronomy clubs bringing the wonders of the universe to the public" and that's exactly what we strive to do.
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We accomplish this by using things like the NSN activity "Telescope Treasure Hunt", where participants receive a hand out sheet with six different types of astronomical objects. A telescope attendant helps the participant work through the objects on their list by showing them at least one of each type of object. Following the order of the objects listed holds a secondary, yet deeper purpose. Participants will come to understand how dying stars such as supernovae and planetary nebulae "seed" their environs with the building blocks needed to produce newer, more evolved stars at some later time as new clusters of stars are born from clouds of gas and dust, the so-called "stellar nurseries". The formation of planets is believed to be a common by-product of stellar formation, and one of the five naked-eye planets qualifies as another of the objects on the Treasure Hunt. Finally, the viewer and attendant locate a star outside our solar system where extra-solar planets have been found. This ties in with the activity "Where Are the Distant Worlds?" More than 120 new planets have been detected around some 100 distant stars since the first was found in late 1995. That star and planetary system, known as 51 Pegasi, is one of the many available for viewing for the sixth and final object on a participants list. The person leaves with a sense of accomplishment having seen with their own eyes a distant star with newfound worlds, along with all the types of objects involved in the formation of new stars and planetary systems. They will also receive the knowledge that there is likelihood that a majority of stars in the universe should contain planetary systems, some just like our own, and with some number of those possibly harboring life. (see also on this site, Welcome to the Night Sky Network)
The Next Step
New materials are currently being tested and evaluated by 10 member clubs around the country for release to the entire Night Sky Network later this fall. AOAS is very proud to have been chosen to receive one of the new toolkits for testing entitled "Our Galaxy, Our Universe". This future set of materials helps bring to the public a better understanding of the scale of our solar system as it compares to our Milky Way Galaxy and our place within it in the activity entitled, "Our Place in Our Galaxy". Then, "A Universe of Galaxies" allows us to reach farther out to more distant "neighbor" galaxies and understand how they compare and contrast with the locations and distances of the most distant galaxies visible in our corner of the universe up to a billion light-years or more away.
Another important activity reveals how we know what we know about astronomy through the study of the Electromagnetic Spectrum in "The Universe in a Different Light". Every form of light energy from radio waves to gamma rays must be studied and understood to provide us with the full story of how the universe operates and continually evolves. "Where Are the Black Holes?" is another activity that will again mate a participant to a telescope attendant to actually view the location of some of the known "Black Holes" in our galaxy and beyond. "Telescopes as Time Machines" explains how distances to distant objects is measured in "light-years", the distance light travels in one year at a speed of 186,283 miles per second (about 6 trillion miles). This means that no matter what object is viewed through a telescope, the light took seconds, minutes, hours, even years, millions or even billions of years to reach us until the moment when we observe them. Moonlight is 1.3 "light-seconds" old; sunlight 8.3 "light-minutes" old; the dim glow of Pluto is 5 ½ "light-hours" old. This effectively makes all telescopes or even our naked eyes "time machines" as we see objects as they were when the light left them.
Our testing of the new toolkit along with the first PlanetQuest Toolkit will be featured at all of AOAS' events throughout the summer and from now on. As the years progress, our club and Night Sky Network will evolve right along with our Earth and the amazing universe we inhabit. You in the public will be invited along for the ride of a lifetime every time you visit one of our events. Many scheduled public events are viewable here on our web site, and we look forward to seeing you at the next one. As always and forever, there's never any fee to whet your appetite for knowledge through AOAS.
Come on out and see what you didn't realize you've been missing.
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