The sun and moon aligned over the Earth in a rare astronomical event on Sunday – an annular eclipse that dimmed the skies over parts of Asia and North America, briefly turning the sun into a blazing ring of fire.

As the eclipse reached its peak, a crowd of several thousand viewers gathered in a Utah field took a collective gasp and erupted into applause, cheers and even some howling.

“The wonder of it, the sheer coincidence that this can happen, that totally amazes me,” said Brent Sorensen, a physics professor at Southern Utah University, who brought a half-dozen telescopes to the rural town of Kanarraville for the public to peek through. “It never ceases to amaze me.”

Eclipses of some type occur almost every year, but stargazers have not seen an annular – shaped like a ring -eclipse on U.S. soil since 1994, and the next one is not to occur until 2023. That is because the phenomenon requires a particular set of orbital dynamics, NASA Space Scientist Jeffrey Newmark said.

An annular eclipse occurs when the moon’s orbit is at its furthest point from the Earth and closer to the much larger sun. That juxtaposition allows the moon to block more than 90 percent of the sun’s rays when the two orbs slide into alignment.

“It’s like moving your fist in front of your eyes,” Newmark said. “You can block out the view of a whole mountain. It’s the same kind of effect.”

The eclipse was first visible over southern Asia and then moved across the Pacific. Travelling on a diagonal path, it later crossed parts of Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico before disappearing in Texas with the sunset.

Day did not turn into night. But light faded as the moon slid in front of the sun, much like turning down a dimmer switch, and then slowly returned as the moon moved away.

A view of the so-called “ring of fire” spectacle at the eclipse’s peak, however, lasted about four minutes, and even then was only visible to viewers positioned along the centreline of the eclipse’s path.

UTAH ‘SWEET SPOT’ FOR VIEWING

In Utah, the “sweet spot” for viewing the full eclipse was Kanarraville, a community of just 355 residents about 230 miles (375 km) south of Salt Lake City. Accessed by an old two-lane highway, the town has just two businesses – a campground and a nursery – plus a church, town hall and tiny post office.

Patrick Wiggins, who is part of the NASA ambassador outreach program, was overcome with emotion once the moon slipped into place. Wiggins had previously seen five total solar eclipses, but had never before witnessed an annular eclipse. He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’ve been planning this since the 1980s,” he said, his voice breaking. “You’re seeing the solar system in motion.”

Robin Kopaunik, 38, of Sandy, Utah, brought four of her children, ages 6 to 16, to see the eclipse in Kanarraville.

“It’s so amazing. I think for them it’s a chance of a lifetime,” said Kopaunik, who home-schools her kids. “The best way to learn is to come out and see it.”

A T-shirt salesman said his customers hailed from as far away as Brazil and Japan. Domestically, Edward and Jean Eadurka drove out from Virginia for the eclipse, after Ed’s last attempt to see an annular eclipse, in 1994, was thwarted by cloud cover.

Jean said her 66-year-old husband was so enamoured with the skies that he built himself a personal observatory – a backyard shed with a retractable roof – and often spends the whole night looking through his telescope.

“I’m an astronomy geek, I guess,” said the retired court administrator, who once took an Atlantic Ocean cruise to see a solar eclipse. “I’ve been doing this so long it’s compulsive.”

Area officials said thousands more astro-tourists had been expected to attend so-called “star parties” at other locations across the region, including Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Despite the infrequent nature of an annular eclipse, it was part of the normal astronomical cycle, said Inese Ivans, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Utah. Still, she said it was bound to pique curiosities and inspire awe.

“It reminds us that the Earth is spinning. That everything is constantly in motion,” Ivans said. “This sort of gives you a chance to step out and remember ‘Oh yeah’ there (is) a lot of stuff out there that we don’t know anything about.”

A stargazer stands in awe as comet Lovejoy skims across the night sky over Australia last December. Officially known as C/2011 W3, the comet was predicted to dive into the sun and be destroyed. Instead the icy body survived its solar encounter and went on to offer Southern Hemisphere sky-watchers rare views of its bright tail in the predawn skies.

This fish-eye picture of Lovejoy won first place in the Third International Earth and Sky Photo Contest’s “Beauty of the Night Sky” category, organizers announced last week. Founded by the World at Night (TWAN) and the Dark Skies Awareness project, the annual contest invites photographers to submit their best shots of landscape astrophotography-pictures that showcase both Earth and the sky-as well as images that capture the battle against light pollution.

Pictures were judged in two categories: “Beauty of the Night Sky” and “Against the Lights.”

To capture this above image, photographer Jia Hao chased Lovejoy to a remote countryside outside Perth. With few housing options due to the holiday season, “I managed to survive for two days, alone, sleeping in a rental car and eating only bread,” Hao told National Geographic News in an email.

“With all the money and efforts thrown into the chase, the comet didn’t let me down,” he added. “Alongside with the southern Milky Way, so bright it cast a shadow on the ground … the view brought me to tears.”

That’s exciting news, but many in the astronomy world are worried that scientists are accumulating more data then we can examine and are turning to new methods such as recruiting civilian stargazers and encouraging the public to take part in helping understand the universe. How can we keep up with ever-improving technology and what discovery potential can we expect from these new telescopes, especially the Hubble’s predecessor, the James Webb?

Conti will join The Daily Circuit Wednesday to discuss the future of space research.

“Until 25 years ago, we were pretty good at building telescopes, but over the last 30 years we’ve become 100 times more efficient, but we’re not necessarily more efficient at analysis,” Conti said. “Not only do you have to take care of the collection of data, but you have to understand how these amounts of data will change research.”

In order to analyze the data collected about space, interested members of the public will be very important, he said.

“We did a test to see if people were interested in producing images from the telescopes on their own and the public always has a huge interest,” Conti said. “It’s shifting in that people want to not just look at pictures but now they want to know what they mean and they want to try to contribute to science.”

Massimo Stiavelli, the James Web Space Telescope mission head and a project scientist at the Space Telescope Institute, will also join the discussion.

Black holes are out there sucking up stars like cosmic vaccuum cleaners. But they’re invisible. We’ve never seen them work in real time… until now. Until a Hopkins-led team found a star caught by a black hole’s gravity.

“And when it got really close, the gravitational force of the black hole literally ripped it apart, stretched it into a thin stream,” Dr. Suvi Gezari, a Hopkins astronomer, said.

Two telescopes scanned hundreds of thousands of galaxies.

“So these two telescopes are scanning the sky, waiting for something interesting to happen,” Dr. Gezari said.

And it did. The light and energy that reached their instruments was created 2 billion years ago when the only living things on earth were microbes.

“These two telescopes discovered this extremely luminous flare from the center of the galaxy,” Dr. Gezari explained.

They translated that data into an animation showing a star being sucked into a black hole, some of it spit out at the other end of it at 20 million miles an hour.

“For the star to be actually destroyed by the black hole, it had to get really, really close to the black hole,” Dr. Gezari said. “It had to get as close as the distance between the sun and mercury. So people are always scared of black holes but in fact, unless you get really close to them, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

Sometimes in astronomy, the trick is knowing where to look. The work by this team should enable future discoveries.

While stars like our Sun are known to eject much of their mass in their final years, it has remained unclear just how the dust is blown away.

In the study, the scientists describe an astronomical study of extraordinary resolution to tackle the mystery.

They found dust grains of nearly a millionth of a metre across, big enough to be pushed out by dying stars’ light.

“The dust grains are like lots of little sails catching the wind, or in this case, starlight,” the BBC quoted Barnaby Norris from the University of Sydney as saying.

The team of astronomers from Australian and European universities took a look at three so-called red giant stars – stars that were once like our Sun is now, but that have exhausted their supply of hydrogen and grown to gargantuan proportions.

In a process that is an extreme case of the kind of solar wind that our own Sun experiences, such stars blow much of their mass away in the form of gas and grains of mineral material on their way to becoming white dwarfs.

Norris, lead author of the study, said that the stars were “the galaxy’s great recyclers” – the material that they spit out “goes on to make the next generation of stars and planets”.

What has confused astronomers until now is just how that material is expelled; computer models of the process suggest that particles coming from the stars should be so small that they would simply absorb the light around them and undergo significant heating.

To get a look at the dust surrounding the three red giants, they used the Very Large Telescope in Chile, applying a technique called polarimetric interferometry.

The light from the three stars, like that from our Sun, is unpolarised – the light waves undulate in random directions.

But light that strikes the dust surrounding them is preferentially bounced toward us undulating along a particular direction – just as sunlight reflected off of a body of water is polarised along a direction parallel to the water’s surface.

The team refined a method of blocking some of the VLT’s light and combining images of the stars in different polarisations. As a result, they could tell apart distant objects separated by just 15 billionths of a degree in the sky.

“This is equivalent to standing in Sydney and looking at a coffee cup sitting on a desk in Melbourne, and being able to measure its size,” Norris said.

The team saw that the sphere of dust surrounding the red dwarfs was smaller than many models suggest – within two times the radius of the star itself.

Because grains of dust scatter the light differently depending on the colour of the light that hits them, the team was able to analyse their data for different colours and determine an average grain size: not much more than half a millionth of a metre.

That is far larger than anticipated, and as Mr Norris explained, large enough to solve the mystery of how the dust gets expelled.

“The dust grains are like lots of little sails catching the wind, or in this case, starlight.

“The mechanism by which mass is transported away from these stars is one of the biggest questions in stellar astronomy, and underpins our whole understanding of how heavy elements are spread throughout the galaxy. Our study is just one small piece in this puzzle,” Norris added.

The study has been published in Nature.

Originally reported in 2010 to be orbited by seven planets, re-analysed data from the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) now indicates that the star has nine planets.

Mikko Tuomi, from the University of Hertfordshire, carried out his analysis as part of the European Union research network RoPACS.

Located 130 light years away, the star is not within reach of foreseeable human space travel, but in astronomical distances, it is still considered to be in the solar neighbourhood.

This discovery is significant as most planetary systems discovered so far have far fewer planets, the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics reported.

The study verifies the existence of the previously announced seven planets and shows that there are likely to be two additional planets orbiting the star, said a university statement.

The two newly-detected signals are probably those of planets classified as hot super-Earths with orbital periods around the star of 10 and 68 days.

These new planets are closer to the star’s surface than Earth is to the Sun which makes them too hot to be able to maintain water on their surfaces in its liquid form.

They have masses of 1.9 and 5.1 times that of our planet Earth which suggests that they are solid rocky bodies and make them among the smallest planets outside of our Solar system to be detected till date.

It is widely accepted that planets are formed in disks of gas and dust that swirl around young stars. But look into the details, and many open questions remain – including the question of what it actually takes to make a planet. With a sample of, by now, more than 750 confirmed planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, astronomers have some idea of the diversity among planetary systems. But also, certain trends have emerged: Statistically, a star that contains more “metals” – in astronomical parlance, the term includes all chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium – is more likely to have planets.

This suggests a key question: Originally, the universe contained almost no chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium. Almost all heavier elements have been produced, over time inside stars, and then flung into space as massive stars end their lives in giant explosions (supernovae). So what about planet formation under conditions like those of the very early universe, say: 13 billion years ago? If metal-rich stars are more likely to form planets, are there, conversely, stars with a metal content so low that they cannot form planets at all? And if the answer is yes, then when, throughout cosmic history, should we expect the very first planets to form?

Now a group of astronomers, including researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, has discovered a planetary system that could help provide answers to those questions. As part of a survey targeting especially metal-poor stars, they identified two giant planets around a star known by its catalogue number as HIP 11952, a star in the constellation Cetus (“the whale” or “the sea monster”) at a distance of about 375 light-years from Earth. By themselves, these planets, HIP 11952b and HIP 11952c, are not unusual. What is unusual is the fact that they orbit such an extremely metal-poor and, in particular, such a very old star!

For classical models of planet formation, which favor metal-rich stars when it comes to forming planets, planets around such a star should be extremely rare. Veronica Roccatagliata (University Observatory Munich), the principal investigator of the planet survey around metal-poor stars that led to the discovery, explains: “In 2010 we found the first example of such a metal-poor system, HIP 13044. Back then, we thought it might be a unique case; now, it seems as if there might be more planets around metal-poor stars than expected.”

HIP 13044 became famous as the “exoplanet from another galaxy” – the star is very likely part of a so-called stellar stream, the remnant of another galaxy swallowed by our own billions of years ago.

Compared to other exoplanetary systems, HIP 11952 is not only one that is extremely metal-poor, but, at an estimated age of 12.8 billion years, also one of the oldest systems known so far. “This is an archaeological find in our own backyard,” adds Johny Setiawan of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, who led the study of HIP 11952: “These planets probably formed when our Galaxy itself was still a baby.”

“We would like to discover and study more planetary systems of this kind. That would allow us to refine our theories of planet formation. The discovery of the planets of HIP 11952 shows that planets have been forming throughout the life of our Universe”, adds Anna Pasquali from the Center for Astronomy at Heidelberg University (ZAH), a co-author of the paper.

The event will run from 4:30-9:30 p.m. at CAC’s Signal Peak Campus located between the cities of Coolidge and Casa Grande.

Naturalist/Humorist Wildman Phil Rakoci and his collection of desert critters also returns to Central Arizona College’s Astronomy Night at the Peak with two of his entertaining presentations as well as open time to get up close and personal with his eclectic mix of pets.

CAC’s biology professors will provide visitors with an opportunity to learn more about DNA, while Katy Wilkins and STARLAB also return with presentations throughout the evening.

There is no charge for any of the family-oriented events.

In addition, CAC and Sodexho, the food service provider for the college, again are teaming up to offer an evening of affordable family dining under the constellations of the Arizona evening sky.

Dinner will be served from 5-6 p.m. at the Central Arizona College Dining Hall. The dining hall is located on the second floor of the Mel A. Everingham Student Center adjacent to The Green near the entrance to the campus.

Dinner is $5.57 plus tax per person for everyone and is served buffet style. The menu includes hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, chicken nuggets, French fries, macaroni and cheese, a salad bar, self-serve ice cream and dessert stations, and a choice of beverages.

The evening begins at 4:30 p.m. when Don Manack opens the Student Art Gallery (Building N) from 4:30-6 p.m. to showcase the tremendous work of Central Arizona College’s student artists.

From 5-7 p.m., the Peaks Performers Concert will take place featuring a variety of solo acts, including J.D. Mercado, Jake Colwell, Ben Blount and Ashley Brown. The show will be held outside the M Building for guests en route to the Astronomy Night.

Wildman Phil will display his critters from 6-8:30 p.m. in T-116, with his unique and comical 30-minute presentations taking place at 6:45 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.

Known for his blend of humor and nature, Rakoci’s iconic programs are filled with fun and facts as he expertly combines hands-on demonstrations with lessons featuring:

• Respect for wildlife and the environment
• Animal defenses and their roles
• Ways to identify dangerous creatures and harmless animals
• Separation of fact and fiction in the world of spiders, scorpions, lizards, snakes, and other such creatures
• Life cycles and the web of life.

Wilkins will inflate STARLAB, the indoor planetarium that provides a detailed view of the nighttime sky. The dean of students at Toltec Middle School, Wilkins will offer her ongoing presentations inside M101 from 6-9 p.m.

“My public presentations usually consist of some short stories and how to locate constellations and some other interesting facts,” she said.

STARLAB will be set up in the Student Services Building (Clock Tower). The inflatable planetarium was purchased when Central Arizona College’s SEMAA (Science Engineering Mathematics Aerospace Academy) program was being offered on campus.

Adjacent to the STARLAB presentation will be CAC’s Visual Arts Gallery that will be open to the public throughout the evening.

When the sun starts to set, Pryor will present Exploring Asteroid Vesta and discuss NASA’s Dawn mission that has been orbiting Vesta since July 16, 2011.

Vesta is one of the largest known asteroids and measures some 330 miles across. Pryor will explain what scientists have learned and answer questions such as – Could astronauts refuel there?

Dawn’s advanced propulsion system will later take it to Ceres, an even larger asteroid, in 2015. Ceres may have more water than the whole Earth, but it remains unexplored.

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is asking Obama and Congress to include a greater variety of small, medium and large space missions across the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science and solar physics. The request comes in response to the proposed 2013 NASA budget, which the White House unveiled on Feb. 13.

“The American Astronomical Society, noting the budgetary challenges that the nation faces, appreciates the President’s commitment to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research in the FY 2013 budget,” AAS members said in a Feb. 23 statement. “Astronomical research, including the study of the sun, the solar system, and the rest of the universe, is a vital part of the research activity of the United States and an area in which the U.S. has been preeminent for many decades.”

Under the budget request, NASA would receive about $17.7 billion for 2013, which is about $59 million less than the space agency’s 2012 funding level. To counter anticipated cutbacks, the space agency is shifting its focus to human exploration and technology, and will slash some science and planetary exploration mission.

The agency’s planetary science department, in particular, would be cut by 20 percent in 2013, and one mission has already fallen victim to the tightened budget. NASA recently announced that it is withdrawing from the European Space Agency-led ExoMars mission, which is aiming to launch an orbiter and then a rover to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018.

“The significant scientific challenges of the future demand reliable cooperation internationally, and NASA, the Administration, and Congress should seek to build up these partnerships in robust and sustainable ways in all of NASA’s science divisions, while not degrading the ongoing success of our nation’s planetary science activities,” AAS members said.

The scientists expressed concern that sweeping cuts could jeopardize the goals that were put forward in the decadal surveys of various field of science by the National Academy of Sciences. These decadal surveys represent the consensus of the broad scientific community’s goals and the reports prioritize objectives over the next 10 years. [NASA's 2013 Budget: What Will It Buy?]

“It is challenging to receive a budget from the President that supports part of our discipline and undercuts another,” Kevin Marvel, AAS Executive Officer, said in a statement. “We will work throughout 2012 to encourage Congress to fully support all of the decadal surveys’ priorities.”

The 2013 budget request does, however, provide funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is being billed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The $8.8 billion observatory is currently under construction, but has come under fire over the years because of its swelling budget.

“We are grateful that the funding for the James Webb Space Telescope puts it on track for a launch in 2018, and we hope we can achieve a balance of large, medium, and small projects in solar physics, planetary science, and astronomy and astrophysics so that U.S. leadership in these fields can be sustained,” AAS President Debra M. Elmegreen said in a statement.

The astronomical society is based in Washington, D.C., and is made up of 7,500 astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, geologists and engineers.

It’s one thing to perform with your heart on your sleeve; it’s another to hold it aloft in triumph, as if presenting baby Simba to the world in The Lion King. Caws is unafraid to think big — the album’s title comes from a favorite saying of his father, a philosophy professor — but he’s even more interested in sketching out blueprints for lives worth living. Picking a best song on The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy takes some doing, but it may just be “Looking Through,” a quotable ode to joy and fearlessness in which Caws sings, “They say you die of shame, not cold, in the wild” shortly before asking, “Are you dancing? Are you dancing at all?”

Now seven albums into a 20-year career, Nada Surf relies on familiar ingredients throughout The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, out Jan. 24: big guitars, beautiful vocal harmonies, generous affirmations. But a new Nada Surf record is formulaic the way springtime is formulaic: It’s always there to be counted on, and always an intoxicating arrival.