Send a message to space

I stumbled across this site on Twitter the other day. http://www.sentforever.com/index.cfm

Their ad reads, "SentForever transmits your personal message into deep space. Once that message starts traveling, it will continue for an eternity. If you've ever wanted to give someone special a personal and very unique gift, why not send them a message that will last forever."

The way it works is, you write your personal message and submit it to their website. Then they transmit the message into space via a large radio telescope. They send a certificate to the person you want to dedicate or send the message to, along with a personal tracking number so you can track how far the message has traveled into deep space. You can also receive e-mail updates to find-out when your message passes key milestones if you want.
This service normally costs �9.95 (approximately 20 US Dollars). Right now they are offering free messages, so I tried it out just so see how it works and what you get for your money.
It works pretty much as advertised. I wrote a message to send into space "You are not alone. There is life in the universe," submitted it and had it sent to my wife. The following day, they sent me an email notifying me of the transmission, along with a link to view the progress of my message into space at the speed of light. I checked in as I'm writing this and can see how far my message has progressed to date-

This message from Mike Simonsen was transmitted into deep space on 20 February 2009 at 04:47 UK time. Going at the speed of light, your message has traveled 37,639,662,291 miles to date.

I'm usually not in favor of doing stuff like this. I really have a problem with the companies that sell 'name a star' services. If you've ever had the uncomfortable experience of someone coming up to you at an observatory open house and asking to see 'the star named after my dear departed Aunt Mary', you know why. It's a scam, and one that can hurt people when they are told some anonymous star with an obscure catalog name can not really be named after Aunt Mary, no matter how much money they plunk down.

Then there are the people who sell real estate on the Moon or Mars. If this is done in good faith and humor as a fundraising tool for a non-profit, fine. But if it's done to make a profit off of gullible, uninformed people, I think they should be jailed.

This service though, is something different. These people actually can send a message into space that will travel forever. Sending a message that is verified electronically to a loved one as a gift or Valentine's Day card doesn't hurt anyone.

I can see how this could be used to demonstrate the scale of the solar system, our immediate stellar surroundings and the scale of the universe. How many miles are in a light year? How long will our message take to get to Pluto? How long to catch up to the Voyager spacecraft? How long to get to the nearest stars?

You could write a short eulogy for a friend or relative and have it transmitted into space, or write a message from the heart and send it to a girlfriend or spouse. Just remember, if you're going to send a love note, you can't take it back three years from now when you find out she has fangs and a mental disorder. A tattoo you can remove with some difficulty. This is forever...

And if you're going to send it to your wife, you might want to make your message a little more romantic than mine. Admittedly, I was trying to think of what it is I'd actually want to hear if I picked up a signal from deep space. Confirmation of alien intelligence, for sure!!

Now I may have to spring for the twenty bucks to send something romantic.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Quasi-Star

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"Twinkle, twinkle quasi-star
Biggest puzzle from afar
How unlike the other ones
Brighter than a billion suns
Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star
How I wonder what you are."

George Gamow, "Quasar" 1964.

The AAVSO recently announced a special observing campaign on several blazars, including the unusual variable object 3C 66A. So, what the devil is 3C 66A, and what is a blazar?

In the 1960�s advances in radio and x-ray astronomy opened our eyes to new classes of objects we�d never even imagined before. Some of these early discoveries were radio sources we believed were associated with stellar objects. The Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources (3C) is an astronomical catalogue of celestial radio sources. It was published by the Radio Astronomy Group of the University of Cambridge in 1959. Entries in this catalogue use the prefix 3C followed by a space, then the sequential discovery number, such as 3C 48. In the case of 3C 66A there are two sources very close together in the sky, so they are given an additional letter suffix, resulting in the names 3C 66A and 3C 66B.

3C 66A was one of these radio stars. As hints of their true nature began to unfold, astronomers began calling them Quasi Stellar Radio Sources, which was eventually shortened to �quasars�. The spectrum of 3C 273 taken during an occultation by the moon finally revealed that these radio stars were actually galaxies. Even more remarkably, these were the most distant galaxies known, billions of light years away.

Like quasars, blazars appear star-like optically. They emit energy in radio wavelengths as well as all other wavelengths up to gamma-rays. Due to their variability in optical and other wavelengths, these objects have all come to be known as Active Galactic Nuclei, or AGNs. Blazars are the most variable of all the AGNs and can change in brightness by up to a factor of 100 in a few months. BL Lacertae is the prototype of this class, and as you can guess by the name was first thought to be a variable star.

AAVSO 1000 day light curve of 3C 66A

The engines that power these active galaxies are believed to be supermassive black holes residing in the nucleus of the galaxy. These super compact objects can possess the mass and gravitational pull of a million to a few billion Suns. Surrounding the massive central region is an accretion disk. Beyond that is a doughnut-shaped torus of dust and gas extending out another couple of light-years, which glows in the infrared.

Due to the physics of accretion disks, the inner disk rotates more quickly than the outer portions. The inner parts near the black hole are spinning so rapidly and are so hot that very high-energy wavelengths are generated. Gas and dust spiral in towards their eventual doom, like water circling a giant cosmic drain. A massive amount of energy is emitted when matter accretes onto the black hole via the accretion disk, and vast amounts of gravitational energy are released as the matter gets sucked down the drain and disappears from the universe.

In some AGNs, radio jets are produced which protrude perpendicular from the disk, spewing energetic particles at nearly the speed of light. Our point of view relative to these jets is what distinguishes the different types of AGN.

Looking at the jet straight on, right down the barrel of the beast, we see blazars and quasars. However, if the jet is not pointed in our direction, the dusty disk of the galaxy lies in our line of sight, and we see what are called Seyfert galaxies.

So the answer to our initial question, what is 3C 66A?
It is an active galactic nucleus, a quasar, a blazar, and a variable source of radiation in optical and other wavelengths, powered by a supermassive black hole in a galaxy billions of light years away.

Why has the AAVSO asked observers to monitor this crazy cosmic catastrophy?

Observations have been requested by Dr. Markus Boettcher, from Ohio University, in a study he and his colleagues are making of several blazars. These AGN are being intermittently monitored by VERITAS (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System), a four-telescope collection designed to detect sources of very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays. If a VHE gamma-ray outburst is detected by VERITAS, target-of-opportunity observations with the Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror (XMM) telescope will be triggered.

The VERITAS telescope array

Since VERITAS is not regularly monitoring the targets, optical monitoring by observers on the ground is crucial to alert the VERITAS collaboration if any one of the blazars on their list enters a high state of activity. AAVSO observers will essentially act as fire spotters, and if we see smoke, professional astronomers will turn the big guns on these blazing beasts.

Details of the campaign and the list of targets can be found in AAVSO Alert Notice 353.

I have observed 3C 66A for years. Partly because it is a variable object, but also because it is remarkable as the most distant thing I can actually see in my 12� telescope. Now I have an even better reason to watch it closely in the coming months. My observations, from my humble back yard observatory, could trigger target of opportunity observations of the XMM Newton satellite. You have to admit, that�s cool.

It Just Keeps Going, and Going...

In February I sent a message into space via a large radio dish. This is a commercial endeavor called Sent Forever.com, but it has a certain appeal to me. I won't buy a star name or property rights on the Moon because that's not something you can actually do, no matter who takes your money.

But, my message, which I wrote and submitted, has been traveling through space now for about 6 months, and as promised, Sent Forever just sent me an update as to how far my message has gone.

"Hi Mike, just to let you know that the message we transmitted from you for Irene on 20 Feb 09 is about to pass another key milestone. Tomorrow, it will have travelled 5,000,000,000,000 kilometres (approximately 3,107,000,000,000 miles) from Earth on its journey into eternity. To see your message and precisely how far it has travelled, enter your tracking number xxxxxxxxxxx in the Track your Message box on our website's home page."

First, is there one 'l' or two in traveled? Hmm...I hope I did a spell check on my message.

Next, I wonder how long it will be before they absolutely have to convert this distance into some other unit. This is a perfect demonstration of why astronomers use light years and parsecs. Can you imagine how many zeros will be in the next message?!

Another thing I'm beginning to wonder is how long they will be able to continue this. I'd rather enjoy a message from them 10 years from now telling me my message has just passed Vega or some bright star within 10 light years of us.

But most of all, I wonder how many planets around stars with life on them we will know about by then, and if we'll be any closer to telling whether there is anyone out there who may actually get my message some day.

"Hello, is anybody out there?"