Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Bright Comet Dives Into Radiation Storm


Space Weather
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:01 UTC
A bright comet is diving into the sun. It was discovered just last week by SOHO's SWAN instrument, so it has been named "Comet SWAN." The comet's death plunge ( or "swan dive") comes just as the sun has unleashed a strong flare and radiation storm around Earth. SOHO images of the comet are confused to some degree by energetic protons striking the camera. Nevertheless, you can see Comet SWAN moving through the electronic "snow" in this 3 hour movie:


Couldn't find it? Here's a finder chart.

This is a Kreutz sungrazer, a fragment of the same ancient comet that produced sungrazing Comet Lovejoy in Dec. 2011. According to comet expert Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC, "Comet SWAN is one of the brightest Kreutz-group comets ever observed by SOHO, although not quite as bright as Comet Lovejoy." Battams forecasts a peak magnitude of -1 for Comet SWAN, while Lovejoy was three magnitudes brighter at -4.

Will Comet SWAN survive its plunge through the sun's atmosphere as Comet Lovejoy did? Probably not, but experts also said Comet Lovejoy would not survive, and they were happily wrong. Stay tuned to Karl Battam's blog for updates.
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Sun

Huge Coronal Hole Is Sending Solar Wind Our Way


Universe Today
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:23 UTC
An enormous triangular hole in the Sun's corona was captured earlier today by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, seen above from the AIA 211 imaging assembly. This gap in the Sun's atmosphere is allowing more charged solar particles to stream out into the Solar System... and toward Earth as well.
Image
© SDOSDO AIA 211 image showing a large triangular hole in the Sun's corona on March 13
Normally, loops of magnetic energy keep much of the Sun's outward flow of gas contained. Coronal holes are regions - sometimes very large regions, such as the one witnessed today - where the magnetic fields don't loop back onto the Sun but instead stream outwards, creating channels for solar material to escape.

The material constantly flowing outward is called the solar wind, which typically "blows" at around 250 miles (400 km) per second. When a coronal hole is present, though, the wind speed can double to nearly 500 miles (800 km) per second.
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Meteor

Villain in disguise: Jupiter's role in impacts on Earth


PhysOrg.com
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:13 UTC
Image
© ESOComet C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp, which shone in the night sky in 1997.
Jupiter is often credited for shielding Earth from catastrophic asteroid and comet impacts. But new simulations of the influence of gas giant planets in solar systems casts doubt on Jupiter's reputation as Earth's protector.

Whilst most famous for his catalog of 110 galaxies, nebulae, clusters and double stars, Charles Messier was a comet-hunter at heart. His catalog was simply a list of nuisances, faint fuzzies that looked like comets but were not. The Frenchman found 13 comets in all between 1760 and 1785, but perhaps the most important of them was the streaking comet that he spotted in June 1770. Fast moving on the sky, it was bright enough at magnitude +2 that it could be clearly seen from well-lit towns and cities. A brief spectacle of wonder for eighteenth century astronomers to enjoy, its ramifications could have been much greater.

The comet has since become known as Lexell's Comet, after the Russian (yet Swedish born) astronomer Anders Johan Lexell who first calculated its orbit. He showed that the comet had made a close approach of just 2.2 million kilometers (0.015 AU), which is about six times the distance to the Moon. It was the closest a comet has ever been witnessed to approach the Earth and, in astronomical terms, a very near (and fortunate) miss.
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Meteor

Valuable Space Rock Crashes Into Oslo Cabin

Jason Major
Universe Today
Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:01 UTC
Oslo Meteorite
© Rune ThomassenThis meteorite struck the Thomassen family's cabin in Oslo.

A family in Oslo got a surprise when they visited their allotment garden cabin for the first time this season and found that a 585-gram (20 oz.) meteorite had ripped a hole through the roof. The space rock was discovered "lying five or six metres away," the cabin's owner, Rune Thomassen, told the local newspaper VG.

Such an event is rare in Norway; since 1848 the country has noted only 14 meteorite discoveries.

Astrophysicist Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard from the University of Oslo investigated the report and found it to be genuine.

"You can tell immediately that it's genuine from the burned crust, and you can also recognize it from how rough and unusual it is. It gives me goosebumps," Ødegaard told VG.

NASA Astrobiology Institute's Hans Amundsen noted the meteorite's unusual composition: "This is a very rare meteorite because you can see from the cut of it that it contains fragments from many different kinds of rock that have cemented together, forming a so-called breccia."
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Question

Unexplained explosions heard in Croy Canyon: Mountain Home Air Force Base denies responsibility

Tony Evans
Idaho Mountain Express
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:01 UTC
(Idaho, USA) Blaine County sheriff's deputies responded to reports of loud booming noises in western Hailey last week, but could not find the source of the sounds.

Speculations about the source of the sounds, which were heard across the city and to the west, range from supersonic aircraft to explosive targets.

Sheriff's Lt. Jay Davis said that following reports of the sounds, deputies drove on Friday, March 2, into Croy Canyon and heard them also, but could not find their source.

"We have some suspicions," Davis said, including explosive targets, but he said the investigation is ongoing.

Tannerite is the trademark name for an ammonium nitrate/aluminum powder-based binary explosive used in target practice.
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Meteor

Fireball Spotted Over North Georgia


11Live.com
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:47 UTC

Cartersville - Scientists at the Tellus Science Museum said they observed a fireball in the sky over north Georgia Wednesday evening.

The NASA Meteoroid Environment Office confirmed that a bright fireball streaked across the skies over parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia at 10:19 p.m. Wednesday. The fireball was captured by cameras at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, as well as by cameras in Tullahoma, Tenn., and at the Tellus Science Museum.

NASA says the meteor was first recorded at an altitude of 51.5 miles, just southeast of Tunnel Hill, Ga., moving to the west-southwest at about 33,500 mph. The fireball was last spotted near Rock Spring, Ga., along Ga. Highway 95.
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Meteor

Unexplained "Phoenix Lights" explosion caught live on news broadcast

Eric Pfeiffer
Yahoo News
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:17 UTC

Phoenix's FOX 10 reporter Andrea Robinson was in the middle of an on-air report when an unexplained, bright white explosion appeared in the distance behind her.

The strange blast was caught on tape and aired live during Robinson's report. At first, news station employees thought the explosion was a transformer. But when FOX 10 checked with local utility providers APS and Salt River Project, they were told no transformers had blown in the area.

While the source of the explosion remains a mystery, it comes just before the 15th anniversary of one of the most-famous UFO sightings in recent history. On March 13, 1997, a cluster of glowing orbs moving in a V-shaped formation was spotted in the skies above Phoenix. That incident was also caught on film. The origin of the light formation has since been endlessly analyzed and debated.
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Sun

Geomagnetic Storm From Sunspot AR1429 Weaker Than Expected - Beautiful Auroras!


Space Weather
Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:53 UTC
A widely-reported CME produced by an X5-flare from sunspot AR1429 hit our planet's magnetic field on March 8th. The impact was weaker than expected, producing only a mild geomagnetic storm. Power grids and other sun-sensitive technologies were unaffected.

Update: As March 9th unfolds, conditions in the wake of the CME are becoming favorable for stronger geomagnetic storming. These auroras appeared over Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland:

Aurora Borealis
© Jónína ÓskarsdóttirImage Taken: Mar. 8, 2012
Location: Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland.
"No words can describe the experience of the Northern Lights show tonight," says photographer Jónína Óskarsdóttir. "This is just a 1s exposure!"

High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as Earth's magnetic field continues to reverberate from the CME impact.
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Meteor

Best of the Web: Elenin and the Mystery of Exploding Comets

David Talbott
You Tube
Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:54 UTC
Electric universe proponent David Talbott takes up the Comet Elenin question from a vantage point generally ignored by both the scientific mainstream and the Internet popularizers of Doomsday speculations. What is the relationship of Elenin's catastrophic demise to the larger, unsolved mystery of explosive comet disintegration? 
For a first look at the larger context, see "Seeking the Third Story"



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Meteor

Sightings of meteor reported across the UK


The Independent
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:37 UTC
Police forces across the UK have received numerous calls after a large fireball, thought to be a meteor, was spotted in the sky.

Reports of a "bright light" and an "orange glow" were received by police across Scotland and the north of England around 9.40pm yesterday.

The Met Office tweeted: "Hi All, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."

The Kielder Observatory also reported the sighting of a "huge fireball" travelling from north to south over Northumberland at 9.41pm.

The Observatory posted on Twitter: "Of 30 years observing the sky £fireball best thing I have ever seen period."

Meteors are particles from space that burn up in a streak of light as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, whereas meteorites are larger objects that survive the trip and reach the surface of the Earth.
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