THANKS Kurt! WOW! This is exactly what I hope I can get my astronomy
students into. Thanks so much for making me aware of this.

Wayne A. Sumner
Math/Physics/Astronomy/Engineering
Boy's Tennis Coach
Northridge High School
Davis School District
(801) 402-8610
>>> Canopus56 01/09/10 11:50 PM >>> 
- Kurt 

Two powerpoints presented at 8th AAVSO Conference - Nov. 2009 Download
from 

http://www.aavso.org/aavso/meetings/fall09/fall09_papers.shtml 

============ 

Hawaii Student/Teacher Astronomy Research (HI STAR) Outcomes 
(presentation in pdf) 

Support grade 7-11 students in Hawaii to conduct authentic astronomy
research projects 
worthy of Science Fair entry. 2. Provide HI STAR alumni pursuing science
and mathematics 
majors in college with summer research opportunities. 3. Establish an
astronomy mentoring 
program to support the students undertaking Science Fair projects. We
will discuss how we 
have been able to realize these goals due to having passionate,
motivated 12-16 year old 
students, dedicated astronomer mentors, committed parents and teachers
and other 
supporters for our program. Our major grant funding is over, but we will
continue HI STAR. 
We continue to expand our program. We will have our HI STAR alumnus,
Mimi Hang, now a 
sophomore at Mt. Holyoke College, discuss her research on Debris Disks
in the AB Doradus 
Moving Group. She was fortunate enough to work at the Space Telescope
Science Institute 
operated for AURA for NASA as an undergraduate researcher this past
summer. Below is 
the abstract of her talk: 

The field of planetary science is quickly developing due to our appetite
to learn more about 
the formation of our solar system and about planets around other stars.
After the Jovian 
planets formed in our own solar system, it is believed that our solar
system underwent a 
period of high dust production. For example, our terrestrial planets are
thought to have 
formed from collisions between planetary embryos which includes the
large collision that 
formed our moon when our solar system was ~50 Myr. These collisions
formed more dust 
which swirled around our sun to become a debris disk. We can apply the
model here to other 
star systems. Collisions between planetary embryos of other star systems
must also produce 
high dust production and the dust grains are warmed by stellar light.
These dust grains emit 
thermal infrared radiation which can be detected using space-based
infrared telescopes such 
as the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST). However, it is important to note
that the majority of 
these debris disks are not spatially resolved with current telescopes. 

The goal of this project was to figure out if there were any debris
disks around the stars in 
the AB Dor moving group. In this project, the moving group AB Doradus
was chosen 
because at 50 Myr and only 20 pc away from Earth, the stars in this
association make for an 
extraordinary laboratory for inquiry of the end-stages of planetary
formation. Data was 
obtained from the Spitzer Space TelescopeÕs FEPS Legacy MIPS
observations. The 
approach was to (1.) reduce Spitzer data to measure the brightness of
the stars at 24 and 70 
microns, (2.) estimate the brightness of the stellar photosphere at
those wavelengths and 
finally, (3.) to look for an excess in the infrared emission which would
indicate thermal 
radiation from dust grains. The study revealed that about 21% of the
stars measured in AB 
Dor have debris disks. However, only the star system of HIP 18859 had an
excess at both 
24 and 70 microns. Therefore, only HIP 18859 is guaranteed to have a
debris disk based on 
the result of this study. 

=============== 

Also of background reading interest for Utah Astros for dealing with the
upcoming 2012 hysteria - 
Kristine Larsen 20 min 

"Scientists Look at 2012": Carrying on Margaret Mayall's Legacy of
Debunking 
Pseudoscience 
presentation in pdf 

In 1941 Margaret Mayall, the future director of the AAVSO, and Harvard
colleague Bart Astrology." They chastised the scientific community for thinking the
debunking of astrology to 
be "below the dignity of scientists." In contrast, they opined that it
is one of the duties of 
scientists to "inform the public about the nature and background of a
current fad, such as 
astrology, even though to do so may be unpleasant." Fast-forward 68
years in the future, and 
the astronomical community now faces a pseudoscientific enemy just as
insidious as 
astrology, yet just as ignored by the general professional and amateur
community as 
astrology had been when Mayall and Bok took up the charge in 1941. The
pseudoscience in 
question is the well-publicized "prediction" that the Mayan calendar
will end on December 21, 
2012, causing the end of civilization in concert with one of a number of
possible astronomical 
calamities, including (but not limited to) the gravitational pull of the
center of the Milky Way 
(somehow enhanced by an "alignment" with our solar system), the
near-approach by a 
mythical 10th planet (often named Nibiru), large-scale damage to the
planet by solar flares 
larger than those ever recorded, or the shifting of the earth’s axis of
rotation (often confused 
with a proposed sudden and catastrophic reversal of the earth’s magnetic
polarity). As a 
scientific and educational organization, the AAVSO and its members have
a responsibility to 
follow in Mayall’s footsteps, shining the light of reason and knowledge
on the dark corners of 
ignorance which far too often permeate the Internet, radio and
television programming, and 
recent films, most notably 2012. This talk will highlight some of the
basic premises of the 
2012 hysteria and suggest ways that the AAVSO and its members can use
variable stars and 
the history of the AAVSO to counteract some of the astronomical
misinformation which is 
increasingly promulgated by proponents of the 2012 pseudoscience. 




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