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Welcome to "Ask the White House" -- an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House. Visit the "Ask the White House" archives to read other discussions with White House officials.
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October 14, 2004
Paul H. Geithner
Hello everyone. It's truly fun for me to be here and try to answer your
questions. Most of the time I'm embroiled in the details of one of our
upcoming space missions, so it's fun to break away for a moment and take
the opportunity to listen to people outside of NASA and the astronomy
community and talk about space and astronomy.
Liff, from Ohio writes:
Paul Geithner If you watched the sky all night, it would appear to rotate about the North Star, called Polaris. By chance, Polaris sits almost exactly above the geographic north pole in the sky, so as the Earth rotates, the stars appear to rotate around the North Star. You can locate the North Star by extending an imaginary straight line through the end of the Big Dipper and the medium-bright star you run into after a few fist-widths is Polaris. Hope this helps. Regards- Rita, from Fort Lupton writes:
Paul Geithner Jack, from Green Bay writes:
Paul Geithner Gunther, from NYC writes:
Paul Geithner Sarah, from Michigan writes:
Paul Geithner Jon, from Texas writes:
Paul Geithner Richie, from Tucson writes:
Paul Geithner Mars is closer to the sun in our view of the sky than is Jupiter, and in fact is too close to really be visible right now. Saturn rises around midnight in the east in the constellation Gemini. Uranus is barely visible to the naked eye under the best conditions, so from the desert outside of Tucson, you might be able to just barely make it out. Uranus is in the constellation Aquarius right now, best seen in the early evening in the southeastern sky.
Mercury is too close to the sun to be seen now, and the others are not visible to the naked eye. So, Venus and Saturn are your best subjects among the planets right now.
Tony, from Illinois writes:
In the early evening, the one I most recognize is Cygnus, the swan. It is directly overhead around 7 or 8 o'clock at night in the temperate northern latitudes (like the continental U.S.). It's one of my favorites because it "flies" along the Milky Way, and points the say the Milky Way streaks across the sky. Next to Cygnus is Lyra, the harp, a small constellation that has one of the brightest stars in the whole sky in it, namely the blue star Vega. Further toward the western horizon is Hercules. It looks like an "H" and has one of the nicest globular star clusters in it to look at--M13. It looks like a little fuzz ball to the naked eye, but a good telescope will really resolve it nicely. Also visible low in the southwestern sky after sunset is Sagittarius, the centaur archer. This constellation, sometimes referred to as the "teapot" because of its appearance in the sky, is chock full of star clusters and galaxies--a feast for anyone with a good telescope. Later in the evening and into the pre-dawn hours, Orion the hunter and his dog Sirius are visible, protecting Gemini the twins from the horns of Taurus the bull, while Leo the lion lurks behind (to the north of) Gemini. Taurus rises around 9 PM and contains the Pleides, also known as the Seven Sisters, an open star cluster in its shoulder. Orion rises around 11 PM and is one of the most recognizable constellation, with its three evenly spaced stars that make up Orion's belt.
A spectacular nebula, the remnants of an exploded star, is the middle "star" in Orion's sword. Those constellations close to Polaris, the North Star in Ursa Minor (the Little Bear, or better known as the Little Dipper) are visible all the time in the mid and high northern latitudes, so constellations like Cassiopeia, which looks like a "W" and Ursa Major (the Big Bear, a.k.a. Big Dipper) can be found easily. Fiona, from New York
writes: Paul Geithner
Over the years I've observed it with my own telescopes and watched how the tilt of the rings changed with time--sometimes at a large angle so almost all of the rings were visible to when they are edge-on and essentially invisible. Of course all the planets fascinate me for one reason or another, and every time we send more missions to learn more, things get more fascinating. Anna, from Peoria writes: Paul Geithner
The Milky Way, which is the edge-on view of our own galaxy, is stunning. And you don't need a telescope to get some great views. Some things like star clusters are best seen with binoculars, and the Milky Way is mind-blowing to see though binoculars as it resolves into countless numbers of individual stars. Esther, from Brooklyn writes: Paul Geithner Scotty, from Lancaster writes: When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, You understand now why you came this way, 'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small, But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day. Paul Geithner Something else that was neat that I noticed when I was there was the fact that the familiar northern constellations looked upside down from the way I was used to seeing them. The other, cool thing was that I had the privilege of seeing the Zodiacal Light, which is sunlight reflected off the dust that orbits the Sun in the inner part of our solar system.
You have to be somewhere extremely dark and clear, like high up in the Andes, to see that. Cindy, from Central Texas
writes: Paul Geithner
I certainly would encourage anyone interested in increasing the presence of space exploration and science in the K-12 curriculum to make a grass-roots effort to include it in your local school. One of the things I enjoy the most related to my job is when I get to talk to kids in school about the stuff I'm involved in. It really wasn't that long ago that I was in grade school myself! Michael, from Azle,Tx writes: Paul Geithner
Dark Matter and Dark Energy, frankly, are not intuitive concepts to me, and I wonder if they aren't the "Ptolemy spheres" of our time and that someone will come up with a new way of thinking about the universe that explains things better. Bob, from Laramie, Wyoming
writes: Paul Geithner Katherine, from Phoenix writes: Paul Geithner Beverly, from Oklahoma writes: Paul Geithner It occurs in mid-November every year when the Earth flies through the dust leftover from comet Temple-Tuttle. Every 33 years or so, the Leonids really puts on spectacular a show. That's when our planet flies through a part of Temple-Tuttle's orbit that has a lot more dust in it than the rest of the orbit. The last time this happened was 2001. I went out on a boat in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay then to get away from light and trees and watch the show, and it was truly awesome.
Still, the Leonids is one of the premier meteor showers any year and there are times when you can see literally thousands per hour--that's more than one every second! This year's Leonids should peak on November 19th, between midnight and dawn. Michael, from Bay Shore, NY
writes: Paul Geithner Many of these objects are very black, so they are really hard to image and detect. Some have been known for many years--before NASA came to be, and they are familiar. Many new ones are discovered all the time, and many of these by amateur astronomers. I'm not sure how many are tracked, but there are some 3000 or so "close approach" objects.
No need to panic for a while, as the odds of us being struck by an object in the foreseeable future, like the one that hit Earth 63 million years ago near the Yucatan that is thought to be a reason (if not the main reason) why the dinosaurs disappeared, are vanishingly small. Rachel, from Smithtown, NY
writes: Paul Geithner However, we can make educated guesses based on information we've gathered so far. We know there are a few hundred million stars in our Milky Way galaxy, so depending on how many of these are "friendly" stars that don't have another star as a companion and that have long lives with stable outputs, and of these how many have planets around them, and of those how many have planets like Earth around them.
So, depending on your assumptions about these frequencies, the number could well be in the thousands or even many millions. We haven't detected life beyond our own precious planet yet, but we do know that primitive life started pretty early on Earth and thrives in some really severe environments, so I would venture to speculate that life is elsewhere, especially primitive life. But we need to explore and use science to really find out. Bill, from Belleville, Illinois
writes:
Paul Geithner Then, the Moon got pelted for another several hundred million years by asteroid "junk" during what some call the "Great Bombardment." So between the process of its formation and its surface being pulverized, the lunar soil has a lot of shocked material in it. Many of the moons of Jupiter have a lot of ice in their makeup, as they probably formed by accretion of ice and dust rather than a collision. But there are some rocky ones out there too, and some really strange moons elsewhere in the solar system.
Personally, I think the 90 plus moons in our solar system are some of the most interesting places that we know of. Dirk, from Long Beach
writes:
Paul Geithner Another that comes close is Sagittarius due to it having so many beautiful clusters and galaxies in it that are great to view through binoculars and telescopes. There are some great ones in the southern sky, visible only if you are near or south of the equator, but I've only been south of the equator on two occasions, so I'm not intimately familiar with that sky as I am with the northern hemisphere. Cygnus is another personal favorite, flying along the Milky Way.
Theo, from Provo, Utah
writes: Thank you.
Paul Geithner It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. NASA controls the spacecraft, and science data is relayed back to Earth by radio waves to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
There, the data is basically sorted-out and scientists the world over
get to analyze it. Some of the most beautiful images make it into
newspapers and magazines the world over. Jorge, from USA writes: Paul Geithner
These are various star clusters, nebulae and galaxies that the 18th
century French Astronomer Charles Messier, the premier "comet hunter"
of his day, catalogued during his observations. Some clubs have
"Messier parties" in springtime to see who can detect all 100 in one
night. Griffin, from Columbia, South Carolina writes: Is there a favorite place in the country of your's that you really like looking at the stars at? Or a favorite star of yours? I am a big fan of Casseopea (maybe because it is easy to pick out) Thanks and have a great day. Paul Geithner The countless stars visible at 12000 feet and dozens of miles from the nearest artificial light was truly moving. I also remember when I got a to go to the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory's 90-inch telescope on Kiit Peak outside Tucson, Arizona.
There's a reason there are telescopes there--what a view.
And the other really memorable time for stargazing for me was not
here but in Chile, in the Andes at the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The sky was so brilliant,
it literally blew me away. Paul, from Topeka writes: Paul Geithner If you try to buy something, don't be fooled by claims of magnifying power, which is poor metric of quality. Try going somewhere away from the city first and bring some binoculars and have fun, and see where that takes you from there.
Paul H. Geithner
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