[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 1 - 09:59:11 ]
Welcome to another NASA Quest chat with Astronomer Sten Odenwald! Today's chat will begin in one hour! Chat with you then :-)

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 3 - 10:46:33 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] Hi. This is my first time on a chat here. I have a few questions regarding astronomy.
Hi Angel! Welcome to your first Quest chat! We're very happy to have you. Sten Odenwald will be here to chat in about 15 minutes. Hold onto your questions for a bit longer...

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 5 - 11:04:29 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] I am back with my 4th/5th grade class for our second chat. We really enjoyed the first one last week. We're really glad to be here.
Hi again!! What kinds of great questions do you have this time? A lot has happened in space in the last week or so!!

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 10 - 11:06:56 ]
Welcome Charles and Jon! Glad you could join us again! Sten is ready to answer your questions!

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 13 - 11:08:25 ]
RE: [Jon-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Jon asks: How fast was Hale-Bopp traveling when it was here?
Hmmm...By the time that most comets enter the inner solar system, they are traveling about 20-30 kilometers/sec which is about 70,000 miles/hour. I dont know the exact number for HaleBopp

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 14 - 11:09:12 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Hi! This is the first time I am chatting with you Mr. Odenwald.
Sean, it's great to see you involved in yet another Quest chat :-)

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 18 - 11:10:31 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] Hi Sten. I have a few questions. Is the black hole in the center of the Milky Way a theory of a fact?
All of the data that astronomers have gathered over the last 20 years indicate that only a black hole with a mass of about 1-2 million times the sun can account for everything that is seen. You have to be careful when you ask for 'proof' in astronomy because we can never actually GO to the center of the galaxy to be absolutely, positively, indisputably sure. All we can say is that, for now, only a black hole meets all of the data we have so far.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 19 - 11:11:32 ]
RE: [Chris-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Chris asks: Have you met any astronauts?
Yess, I have met two astronauts; one Apollo astronaut and one Shuttle Mission Specialist.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 20 - 11:12:01 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Hi! This is the first time I am chatting with you Mr. Odenwald.
Cool...That means this is the first time I am chatting with you also!

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 21 - 11:12:26 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Can you please tell me the procedure to become an astronomer?
Not really, because i am not an astronaut.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 22 - 11:14:36 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Can you please tell me the procedure to become an astronomer?
Oops...you mean an astronomer! Well...you have to finish high school, go to college and major in physics or astronomy and get awesome grades, then you go to graduate school for 4-6 years to get a Doctors degree. You will be finished with this by the time you are 28-30 or so...you really have to LOVE this stuff, and be willing to take very hard but exciting math and physics courses and stay at the top of your class all the time.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 26 - 11:16:20 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Charles asks: What kind of radio waves do you study?
Hmmm..My research has involved using radio waves with frequencies from 200 Gigahertz to 1 Gigahertz...studying the radio emission from quasars, and searching for specific kinds of molecules in distant interstellar clouds.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 27 - 11:17:17 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Do you know any other way I could get information about becoming an astronomer and the eductaion needed for it?
yeah...visit http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/astro/acareer.html for an FAQ archive I put together.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 30 - 11:18:45 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] usually how far apart are binary stars?
They range in separations from 20,000 times the earth-sun distance ( alpha and proxima centuri) to only a few million miles or less in the case of 'contact' binaries which are stars actually touching each other.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 31 - 11:19:44 ]
RE: [Michael-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Michael asks: What happens to radio wave from Earth? Do they travel beyond our solar system?
yep...they keep going at the speed of light until they mix together with other radio waves at the same wavelengths from the many natural bodies that also produce them in large amounts.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 32 - 11:20:09 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] Could there be more than 2 stars evolving around each other?
Do you mean revolving...or evolving?

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 33 - 11:20:45 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Would you any information about the search for extraterrestrial life?
Hmmm...I dont think I understand the question there seems to be a missing word.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 36 - 11:24:41 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Oop. I meant to say that would you know any information about the search for extraterrestrial life?
A little bit...you can visit the 'SETI' program on the web and see what they are up to using radio telescopes to 'listen' while astronomers are not using the telescope for other things.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 39 - 11:26:22 ]
RE: [Shelby-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Shelby asks: Does the size of an object effect the type or strength of radio waves that it emits?
yes. The bigger an object is, usually the more surface it has to generate radio waves if all other things are equal. Astronomical bodies emit radiation in lots of different ways depending on what they are...dust cloud...star...planet...a whole galaxy.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 42 - 11:28:38 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Charles asks:What types of radio waves are emitted from Jupiter?
Jupiter is filthy. It emits powerful radio signals with wavelengths of 10 meters or so...called the decametric jovian emission. It has very strong radiation belts...more powerful and larger than earths van allen belts, and these work like a huge radio transmitter which can be heard on a ham radio shortwave set if you use the right antenna.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 43 - 11:29:51 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] what is your work focused on?
Its a grab-bag of things...education and research. My research involves studying the infrared light from the distant universe to see if we can detect traces of the earliest populations of galaxies that formed when the universe was less than 1 billion years old.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 45 - 11:31:09 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Kendra asks: Are there any current plans to send a probe beyond Pluto?
Yes...on the drawing boards is a '2000AU' probe which will travel beyond the orbit of pluto ( 40AUs = 4 billion miles) and let us look at what interstellar space really looks like outside the 'heliosphere' which is the zone where the solar wind is still present.

[ StenOdenwald/Astronomer - 47 - 11:32:54 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Chris asks: What is the name of the craft orbiting the sun and how close does it come to the surface?
Hmmm...we have several 'crafts' now orbiting the sun at different distances all the way out to saturn...do you mean the SOHO or ACE satellites that are just inside the orbit of the earth.. we dont have anything orbiting inside the orbit of Venus right now.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 50 - 11:38:52 ]
EVERYONE: Sten just lost his connection with the Quest server. Please hang on and hold your questions for a few moments while he tries to log in again...

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 52 - 11:41:43 ]
EVERYONE: Sten can't get into the chat room, but I've got him on the phone. Soooo, I will read Sten your questions over the phone and then will type in his answers for him.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 53 - 11:42:52 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] does that mean that if we try to send radio signals, the signals will not go beyound Jupiter?
Sandy typing for Sten: It just means that if we send radio signals at the same wavelength as Jupiter, the signals will get lost in Jupiter's noise.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 54 - 11:43:44 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Michael asks: Are radio waves effected by the gravity of stars that they pass by?
Sandy for STen: Yes, they are. All kinds of light, including radio signals, get bent by stars' gravity.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 55 - 11:44:50 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Virginia asks: When did you decide to study radio waves.
Sandy for Sten: I got interested in astronomy when I was 10 and that working with radio telescopes is something that I did when I was first starting out as an astronomer when I was about 33 years old.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 57 - 11:46:26 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Kendra asks: What causes bodies in space to emit radio waves.
Sandy for STen: Good question! There are a lot of different things that can cause radio waves, but the basic idea is that if you jiggle an electron, it will emit radiation and depending on how fast yjiggle it, it will either produce optical, infrared or radio signals.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 59 - 11:48:22 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] you are right, I meant revolving. We just had a electricity faliure because of a blizzard here and I had to wait to log on again.
Sandy for Sten: usually binary stars are born as a binary system because they formed out of the same cloud and depending on where they were formed in that cloud they will either be very close together or far apart. Two thirds of all stars in the sky are in binary systems.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 61 - 11:49:12 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] How long does a white darwf live before it becomes a black darwf?
Sandy for Sten: This could take hundreds of millions of years or more!

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 63 - 11:50:46 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Jon asks: How do radio waves travel through space?
Sandy for STen: They are oscillations in an electromagnetic field which travel through space at the speed of light. An example of an electromagnetic field is the field around a magnet or a charged body.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 67 - 11:52:14 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] I don't understand what you mean. If we send radio signals below Jupiter's frequences, then our signals would be able to pass Jupiter's oribit. Or do we have to send signals greater than that of Jupiter's frequences inorder for the waves to go beyound Jupiter?
Sandy for Sten: The waves will always travel beyond Jupiter at the speed of light. The questio is for some wavelengths whether you can detect this signal against the noise produced byJupiter at the same wavelengths.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 68 - 11:53:44 ]
RE: [Charles-Mr.Williamson/JeffersonElementary] Jon asks: Do you convert radio waves to sound, and if so, how are those from Jupiter different from those from Mars?
Sandy for Sten: Radio astronomers don't usually convert radio waves into sound waves. We ususally just measure the strength of the signal directly. Jupiter is the only other planet in our solar system other than Eartth that produces detectible radio waves.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 70 - 11:54:58 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] Can we measure the speed of light in miles/second, if we can how fast is it?
Sandy for Sten: Sure! It's 186,287.5 miles per second.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 71 - 11:55:47 ]
Sandy for Sten: There's only two minutes left in today's chat. I can take one more question...

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 73 - 11:58:28 ]
RE: [Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie] how big will our Sun expand when it becomes a red Giant?
Sandy for Sten: It will probably get out to the orbit of the Earth. It depends upon alot of details that we don't have good understanding of. Some predictions call for an outer surface that is just outsidie the orbit of Venus while others suggest a surface half way to Mars. But either way, the Earth is TOAST AND WE WILL BE GONE A LONG TIME BEFORE THAT!

[ Angel-Angel/D.A.moodie - 74 - 12:00:21 ]
Thanks for for time, Sten and Sandy. I have to go too.

[ Sean-Zeeshan/Home - 75 - 12:00:38 ]
Good bye Mr. Odenwald and Mrs. Sandy. It was nice chatting with you. Is there another chat scheduled like this one? If there is, could you please tell me the time and place(URL) for it? Thanks alot for your time. I hope I get another chance to chat with you in the future.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 76 - 12:00:43 ]
EVERYONE: Sten has to get back to work now, so Adios until next week! Please join us then for a chat with Jim Thieman, Sten's colleague. Sign up at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/sso/chats

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 78 - 12:22:57 ]
RE: [Charles] Thank you. My class really enjoyed today's chat. We had to leave for a few minutes because our computer locked up. By the time we got back the chat was over. We hope to talk with you again soon.
Charles: You and your kids asked very intelligent questions and Sten was most happy to answer them! I hope you can join us next week for a chat with Sten's colleague Jim Thieman.