“Infinite Cosmos” is a large, coffee table-sized book. It is published by National Geographic, so the production quality is excellent as are the images and diagrams. For me, it helped me complete my understanding of the JWST from its production to recent operations. Despite the physical size of the book, it does not take long to read it. However, the trim size is helpful so the reader can see the important details in the graphics and photographs. It has been on the market since 2024 and now the price has dropped to below $30 for a new copy. As much as I enjoyed it, I think it makes an even better gift for our family and friends who “kind of” understand what we are talking about when we reference the James Webb Space Telescope.
Astronomy started out as optical, viewing the light emitted by astronomical bodies in space. Our ancestors looked at the night sky and imagined patterns of stars and distant bodies. Several advances occurred in the last four hundred years in identifying stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and finally, our universe. Along the way, the optical limitation was overcome and astronomy branched out to other areas.
Firstly, into radiation-related multi-messenger astronomy: beyond the visible light, radio astronomy, infrared astronomy, X-ray astronomy, and gamma-ray astronomy ensued. Each of them provided different perspectives and images of the Universe compared to the limited visible spectrum. As a whole, a composite mosaic of the Universe started emerging.
Recently, two more candidates were added to the multi-messenger astronomy club: gravitational waves and neutrinos. Neutrinos are elementary particles with no charge that are nearly massless. They travel without interacting with any matter or any radiation, as if the matter did not exist. It is an extremely rare event that a neutrino produces a trace of its interaction with the material universe.
There are copious numbers of neutrinos produced by violent nuclear reactions in the stars, supernovae, neutron star mergers, active galactic nuclei, and even the nuclear reactors on our own planet Earth and our Sun. They were also produced in the Big Bang which created our universe. Trillions of neutrinos pass through our bodies every second and yet we have no clue about them. Many come from cosmic rays which are very energetic and travel great distances to convey a picture of our Universe to us. Neutrinos offer a unique opportunity to observe processes that are inaccessible to optical telescopes.
With a great number of them and their ability to travel astronomical distances without any impediment, they are the perfect messengers from distant astronomical events. From the cores of the stars and passing through intervening objects, they are constantly on the move. But perfection comes at a cost. What makes them ideal to travel long distances unimpeded, also makes them very difficult to detect. Neutrinos were a theoretical prediction by Wolfgang Pauli in the 1930s to explain the case of missing mass-energy in a nuclear reaction called beta decay. Beta decay is the emission of an electron from the nucleus of some radioactive elements. Their existence was confirmed in 1956 by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines.
The largest neutrino detector is called IceCube. Located at the South Pole, it consists of about 5,000 electronic sensors buried at depths between roughly 1,450 meters (4,760 feet) and 2,450 meters (8,040 feet) below the ice surface. This shields the detectors from other radiation. The sensors detect light emitted by charged particles that are produced when a single neutrino collides with a proton or neutron inside an atom. Although a rare event, a quadrillion such neutrinos produce a collision every few days. The resulting nuclear reaction produces secondary particles traveling at high speeds that give off a blue light called Cherenkov radiation. Such a reaction is called “inverse beta decay.” Such tiny flashes of light are multiplied by thousands of photomultiplier tubes to produce a detectable signal.
There are other neutrino detectors which consist of thousands of gallons of a liquid like chlorine or argon or heavy water housed deep underground, like the Super-Kamiokande in Japan or the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada. Kamiokande-II, the predecessor of Super-Kamiokande, detected the first extrasolar neutrinos coming from Supernova 1987A, an explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.
The lexicon of astronomy is getting richer while we get one step closer to understanding our Universe.
A long time ago in the land of India, there lived a boy who couldn’t stop looking up at the skies.
This was in the 5th century CE. At an age when most children are into playing or learning life skills, Aryabhata loved watching the skies. Every night, he would lie on the ground and stare at the sky, wondering, why do the stars move? Why does the Sun rise every day?
Aryabhata used to write down everything he saw. He noticed that the stars seemed to move in a circle across the sky.
Most people at that time believed the Earth was still, and the sky moved around it. But he asked the question challenging this assumption:
“What if the Earth is moving instead?”
Aryabhata thought differently. He observed, calculated and figured out that the Earth spins on its axis! That’s why the stars appear to move.
Aryabhata conducted even more observations and estimated how long it took the Earth to go all the way around the Sun (what we now call a year), and his answer was almost exactly right.
Aryabhata also worked on the number pi, which we still use to calculate circles and orbits today! He wrote all this in a book called the Aryabhatiya when he was just 23 years old. His observations, findings supported with calculations were found to be very powerful, and they even traveled across countries and centuries.
So the next time you look at the stars, remember Aryabhata. The curious boy who made detailed observations, asked questions, and changed the way we see our planet!
Artemis II Flight Day 5: Crew Demos Suits, Readies for Lunar Flyby The Artemis II crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, continue their workday aboard the Orion spacecraft. With a demonstration underway of the Orion crew survival system spacesuit, the crew also will prepare for their lunar flyby set for Monday, April 6…more
-space.com
Artemis 2 astronauts are now headed to the moon. Why has it taken humanity so long to go back? For the first time in more than half a century, humanity is on its way to the moon.NASA’s Artemis 2 mission began heading toward lunar realms on Thursday evening (April 2), after its Orion capsule aced an engine burn that took it out of Earth orbit…more
-Nautil.us
Did Scientists Just Detect an Exploding Black Hole? On Feb. 13, 2023, a cosmic bullet of sorts zipped beneath the Mediterranean Sea near Sicily. It was a subatomic particle known as a neutrino, traveling through the depths at virtually the speed of light and carrying a whopping 220 peta-electron volts of energy. Its presence was detected by a new underwater observatory known as the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT…more
-NYT
A ‘Hail Mary’ for Earth, Built on Solid Science Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary,” published in 2021, is a story about humanity’s last-ditch attempt to save Earth from “astrophage,” a fictional, star-eating algae that has infected our sun. The book chronicles the journey of scientist-turned-science-teacher Ryland Grace, who wakes up on a spaceship and ultimately befriends Rocky…more
-Berkeley.edu
For 21 years, enthusiasts used their home computers to search for ET. UC Berkeley scientists are homing in on 100 signals they found. For 21 years, between 1999 and 2020, millions of people worldwide loaned UC Berkeley scientists their computers to search for signs of advanced civilizations in our galaxy. The project — called SETI@home, after the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) — generated a loyal following eager to participate in one of the most popular crowd-sourced projects in the early days of the internet…more
-SETI.org
Why SETI Might Have Been Missing Alien Signals A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests stellar “space weather” could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting planet can broaden an otherwise ultra-narrow signal, spreading its power across more frequencies and making it more difficult to detect in traditional narrowband searches…more
-NASA
Straight Shot: Hubble Investigates Galaxy with Nine Rings NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a cosmic bullseye! The gargantuan galaxy LEDA 1313424 is rippling with nine star-filled rings after an “arrow” — a far smaller blue dwarf galaxy — shot through its heart. Astronomers using Hubble identified eight visible rings, more than previously detected by any telescope in any galaxy, and confirmed…more
-NASA
Spaceflight Started 100 Years Ago in a Massachusetts Cabbage Patch Robert Goddard arrived at his aunt’s farm in Auburn, Mass., on a cold, snowy morning 100 years ago. The wide-open spaces of the farm became on March 16, 1926, a rudimentary Cape Canaveral for an event never witnessed before on Earth: the launch of a rocket that would become a trailblazer for vehicles capable of sending satellites, probes and even humans beyond our planet’s atmosphere…more
-NASA
New Theory May Explain Mysterious “Little Red Dots” in the Early Universe Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have proposed a new explanation for some of the universe’s most puzzling early galaxies, nicknamed “little red dots.” In the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Authors Fabio Pacucci and Abraham (Avi) Loeb suggest that these galaxies are the result of very slowly spinning dark matter halos, an extremely rare cosmic structure…more
-NASA
Sugars, ‘Gum,’ Stardust Found in NASA’s Asteroid Bennu Samples The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists’ biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As part of the ongoing study of pristine samples delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft…more
-NASA
NASA’s DART Mission Changed Orbit of Asteroid Didymos Around Sun New research reveals that when NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022, it didn’t just change the motion of Dimorphos around its larger companion, Didymos; the crash also shifted the orbit of both asteroids around the Sun…more
-space.com
Spectacular fireball over Europe sends meteorite crashing through roof of German homeA meteorite has crashed through the roof of a house in the city of Koblenz in the west of Germany after a spectacular fireball lit up the night sky above western Europe on Sunday evening, March 8. More than 2,800 sightings of the fireball have been reported to the International Meteor Organization (IMO), with dozens of video recordings having been uploaded on social media…more
March 10, 2026 Meeting at Peyton Hall. The approach of the vernal equinox is a great time of year in the northern hemisphere! It reminds us that the cycle of life is deeply intertwined with the celestial calendar, as the re-emergence of the botanical world depends on the orbital geometry of our planet. What is the vernal equinox in purely astronomical terms? It can be reduced to a single moment in time, which at locations near Princeton arrives at 9:46am on Mar 20. At this time Earth’s axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the Sun, so that the sun appears directly over earth’s equator. The lengths of day and night at places across the globe are nearly equal, and both hemispheres receive about the same amount of solar energy.
Let’s celebrate the return of springwith a strong turnout in person at Peyton Hall for the Mar 10 meeting. Keep in mind that our access to this splendid venue is subject to changes on campus. The University has plans for a renovation construction project on Peyton Hall. Our ability to hold meetings there may be affected — we are in contact with the chair of the department about this. So let’s not take Peyton for granted. I am preparing to travel back to NJ after an extreme winter in the Midwest US, and look forward to being on site in person March 10. Of course, the meeting will also be run as a hybrid via Zoom, so join us virtually if you cannot physically attend. Our speaker will be Bob Vanderbei, Emeritus Prof. at Princeton Univ and assistant director of AAAP. For more on his talk see Victor’s section below.
Hot Topics for Mar 10. Our monthly meetings give us the opportunity after the main presentation to review timely and interesting astronomy events and announcements. By going a bit deeper than the media typically do we hope to dispel some of the misinformation that tends to confuse or overhype some celestial events, and to better prepare us all to explain hot astro topics to friends and family. Please offer your thoughts about astro topics for Mar 10 and upcoming meetings and get ready to weigh in on the discussions. Send your ideas by e-mail to: director@princeonastronomy.org.
A Dynamic Presentation The March, 2026 monthly meeting of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton will take place in Peyton Hall on the campus of Princeton University on Tuesday, March 10th at 7:30 PM. As usual, the meeting is open to AAAP members and the public. Participants can join the meeting in-person at Peyton Hall or log in to the Zoom session as early as 7:00 pm to chat informally before the meeting begins. The evening’s guest speaker will be AAAP Assistant Director and Princeton University Emeritus Professor Robert Vanderbei. Dr. Vanderbei will present “Dynamic Astronomical Things: From Supernovae to Moving Stars, Eclipses, Occultations, etc.”
Options for Attending the Meeting You may choose to attend the meeting in person or participate via Zoom or YouTube as we’ve been doing for the past few years. (See How to Participate below for details). Due to security concerns, if you log in before the host has set up internet connectivity in Peyton Hall, you may need to wait in the Waiting Room for a few minutes until the host is prepared to admit you into the meeting. You’ll need to unmute yourself to make comments or ask questions. It’s polite, though not required, for you to enable your camera so other participants can see you. The meeting will be recorded and edited for posting to our club’s YouTube channel.
Join us for our “meet the speaker” dinner Prof. Vanderbei will be joining us for our traditional “meet the speaker” dinner at Winberie’s before the meeting. Our reservation is for 5:45 pm Tuesday, March 10th. Please contact the Program Chair if you plan to attend.
Here’s the anticipated agenda for March 10, 2026’s monthly meeting of the AAAP:
Getting to Peyton Hall The parking lots across the street (Ivy Lane) from Peyton Hall are now construction sites, unavailable for parking. We’ve been advised by the administration of the astrophysics department that we should park in the new enclosed parking garage off Fitzrandolph street and walk around the stadium and athletic fields. Here’s a map of the campus and walking routes from the parking garage to Peyton Hall. The map shows the recently completed East Garage. Not shown is an access road Sweet Gum that connects from Faculty Road to an entrance at the lower left corner of the garage. Stadium Road connects from Fitzrandolph Road to another entrance at the opposite corner (and higher level) of the garage. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from the parking garage to Peyton Hall.
Featured Speaker: Robert Vanderbei, PhD Emeritus Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering
Princeton University rvdb@princeton.edu
Dynamic Astronomical Things: From Supernovae to Moving Stars, Eclipses, Occultations, etc.
Dynamic Astronomical Things: From Supernovae to Moving Stars, Eclipses, Occultations, etc. Most people think of the celestial sphere as a mostly static thing made of unmoving stars, nebulae, and galaxies. But, of course many people also know that the Earth rotates around its polar axis once a day, and that can be thought of as a dynamic process. But there’s a lot more motions besides Earth’s rotation:
We’re standing on a planet that’s evolving, And rotating at nine hundred miles an hour. It’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power.
The Sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see Are moving at eleven million miles a day, In an outer spiral arm at four hundred fifty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light-years from galactic central point, We go ‘round every two hundred twenty-five million years. And our galaxy is only one of trillions In this amazing and accelerating universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whiz. As fast as it can go, the speed of light you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed for matter that there is.
Monty Python (Eric Idle), Galaxy Song
There are also supernovae, stars whose brightness vary on a regular basis, and many other dynamical events. In this talk, Prof. Vanderbei will discuss many of these motions and events, why they exist, and how to see and photograph them.
Note: Eric Idle’s Galaxy Song was surprisingly accurate for its time, but recent discoveries since it was written in 1983 have made it inaccurate beyond rounding errors. I (Victor) have changed some numbers, and apologize for the disruptions in rhyme and rhythm.
Prof. Robert Vanderbei Bob Vanderbei grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He first became interested in the stars at the age of six, when he and his family took a camping trip around Lake Superior. Late one night on that trip, Bob looked up at the sky and was astonished by the beauty of the stars. He was enthralled by the idea of space exploration, but a high school teacher convinced him that the Apollo era would be short-lived, and that a career with NASA was a suboptimal career path. Nevertheless, he joined a local astronomy club and immersed himself in math and science. Bob earned a BS in chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in applied math at Cornell. A few postdocs later, he took a job at AT&T Bell Labs, where he emerged as the lead developer behind Korbx, a groundbreaking optimization tool. He received an offer to come to Princeton in 1990. Among the courses Bob taught were undergraduate and graduate courses that were required for Operations Research and Financial Engineering students. His textbook for the course is currently in its fifth edition. He collaborated with Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott on several publishing projects, including “Sizing Up the Universe” published by National Geographic. The book has become the basis for a freshman astronomy course Bob continues to teach. More recently, Bob and Richard, along with Michael Strauss and Neil DeGrasse Tyson coauthored “Welcome to the Universe in 3D.” The day it was released, Tyson promoted the book on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The next day, the book was the number one bestseller on Amazon.com.
Bob’s sense of adventure and curiosity have been constants. He became a National Ski Patrolman in his senior year of high school. At Cornell, he trained as a glider pilot, later becoming the chief flight instructor at the Central Jersey Soaring Club. A friendship with a colleague and former director of AAAP and a visit to a star party led Bob to join our club and eventually to become its Assistant Director. Bob is a prolific and expert astro-photographer. His work is on view at vanderbei.princeton.edu.
How to Participate (Links) Zoom& YouTube Live Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting Topic: AAAP March Meeting-Robert Vanderbei, Princeton Univ, Stellar Dynamics Time: March10th, 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Meeting ID: 853 2157 6662 Passcode: 001601 Join instructions
AAAP’s library of monthly meetings is available on the club’s YouTube channel. February’s edited meeting featuring a presentation by Dr. John Bochanski, member of the LSST Discovery Alliance “From Sloan to Rubin: A Journey Through the Age of Sky Surveys” can be viewed at https://youtu.be/3PwJ3MirNOo. Runtime is 1:40:46.
A look ahead at future guest speakers:
Date
Featured Speaker
Topic
Apr. 14, 2026
Astronomer Brian Lacki Berkeley SETI Research Center astrobrianlacki@gmail.com
Dr. Lacki, affiliated with Breakthrough Listen, a SETI initiative, recently submitted for publication a catalog of objects he and his team consider to be realistic and valuable observation targets. Dr. Lacki will talk about the catalog, “One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog” and opine on the prospects of finding technosignatures and extraterrestrial intelligence.
Mr. Horgan will discuss his controversial 1996 book The End of Science, in which he argues that pure science, defined as “the primordial human quest to understand the universe and our place in it,” may be coming to an end. Horgan claims that science will not achieve insights into nature as profound as evolution by natural selection, the double helix, the Big Bang, relativity theory or quantum mechanics. In the future, he suggests, scientists will refine, extend and apply this pre-existing knowledge but will not achieve any more great “revolutions or revelations.” Shades of Auguste Comte, perhaps?
We expect to have copies of his book(s) for sale for the author to sign at the conclusion of his presentation.
As usual, the June meeting will take place in the planetarium at the NJ State Museum in Trenton. There will be no streaming of this live-only sky show and PowerPoint presentation. Topic to be announced.
Dr. DiMario will present a primer on astro-imaging.
Oct. 13, 2026
Becka Phillipson Assistant Professor in Physics Villanova University
Prof. Phillipson, originally scheduled to be October 2025’s guest speaker, is an unconfirmed prospect to try again in 2026.
As always, members’ comments and suggestions are gratefully accepted and much appreciated. Thanks to Ira Polans and Dave Skitt for setting up the online links and connecting the meeting to the world outside Peyton Hall.
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Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton 