Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

NASA Spacecraft Closes in on Comet Tempel 1

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© Science@NASAStardust-NExT chases a comet, an artist's concept.
"For the first time, we'll see the same comet before and after its closest approach to the sun," explains Joe Veverka, principal investigator for NASA's Stardust-NExT mission.

The comet is Tempel 1, which NASA's Deep Impact probe visited in 2005. Now another NASA spacecraft, Stardust-NExT, is closing in for a second look on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 2011. The two visits bracket one complete orbit of the comet around the sun--and a blast of solar heat.

"Close encounters with the sun never go well for a comet," says Veverka. "Fierce solar heat vaporizes the ices in the comet's core, causing it to spit dust and spout gas. The cyclic loss of material eventually leads to its demise."

Researchers suspect the flamboyant decay doesn't happen evenly all over a comet's surface*, but until now they've lacked a way to document where, exactly, it does occur. Stardust NExT will image some of the same surface areas Deep Impact photographed 6 years ago, revealing how these areas have changed and where material has been lost.

Meteor

Best of the Web: Giant Meteorites Slammed Earth Around A.D. 500?

Double impact may have caused tsunami, global cooling.

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© Illustration by Detlev van Ravenswaay, Astrofoto, Peter Arnold Images, PhotolibraryAn asteroid hurtles toward Earth in an artist's rendering.
Pieces of a giant asteroid or comet that broke apart over Earth may have crashed off Australia about 1,500 years ago, says a scientist who has found evidence of the possible impact craters.

Satellite measurements of the Gulf of Carpentaria (see map) revealed tiny changes in sea level that are signs of impact craters on the seabed below, according to new research by marine geophysicist Dallas Abbott.

Based on the satellite data, one crater should be about 11 miles (18 kilometers) wide, while the other should be 7.4 miles (12 kilometers) wide.

For years Abbott, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has argued that V-shaped sand dunes along the gulf coast are evidence of a tsunami triggered by an impact.

"These dunes are like arrows that point toward their source," Abbott said. In this case, the dunes converge on a single point in the gulf - the same spot where Abbott found the two sea-surface depressions.

Comment: Interestingly, this was described by the Cassiopaeans long before any studies about it were published:
Session 12 September 1998

Q: (L) On the subject of supernovas; I have discovered that three of the supernovas of antiquity which have be discovered and time estimated by the remnants, if they were not observed, occurred in or near Cassiopeia at very interesting points in history.

A: Yes...

Q: (L) Well, one of these periods in history was around 1054. This is a very interesting time. It just so happens that there are no European records of this supernova which was recorded by the Chinese, Japanese, and perhaps even the Koreans. Yet, there are no European records. What happened to the European records?

A: Europe was in a "recovery mode" at the "time."

Q: (L) Recovery from what?

A: Loss of civilized structure due to overhead cometary explosion in 564 AD.

Q: (C) There were certain historical facts you picked up, so that doesn't make sense to me. (L) On the other hand it might, because there is some stuff from Gregory of Tours that is real bizarre. What effect did this have on the civilized structure? Was it a direct effect in terms of material, or did it have effects on people causing them to behave in an uncivilized and barbaric way?

A: Well, the burning fragmentary shower ignited much of the land areas in what you now refer to as Western Europe. This had the results you can imagine, causing the resulting societal breakdown you now refer to as "The Dark Ages."

Q: (L) Well, it damn sure was dark. There is almost a thousand years that nobody knows anything about!

A: Check Irish or Celtic, and French or Gallic records of the era for clues. There were temporary "islands of survival," lasting just long enough for the written word to eke out.



Meteor

Best of the Web: Ancient Crash, Epic Wave: Did an Asteroid Impact Cause an Ancient Tsunami?

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© Dallas AbbottThe Fenambosy chevron, one of four near the tip of Madagascar, is 600 feet high and three miles from the ocean.
At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high.

On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction - toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface.

The explanation is obvious to some scientists. A large asteroid or comet, the kind that could kill a quarter of the world's population, smashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high, about 13 times as big as the one that inundated Indonesia nearly two years ago. The wave carried the huge deposits of sediment to land.

Meteor

Arizona Meteor Fireball

Fireball
© Doug Snyder 2011Arizona meteor 7FEB2011
A fireball was captured on 7 Feb. at about 2256 Mountain Standard Time. The fireball occurred in the constellation Canis Major. The photo was taken in SE Arizona, near the border with Mexico.

Meteor

Best of the Web: Fireball falls from the sky and torches field near Bjelovar, Croatia

A frightened ambulance driver saw it first: "a fireball fell from the sky and lit up the woods near Bjelovar!" 'Driving a patient at night I noticed a fiery flame in the sky. Falling into a valley in the countryside '

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Bjelovar - A comet fell from the sky and set fire to the woods near Bjelovar! On Saturday evening there were also media reports of a fire in a field near the center of Bulinca. The alarm was raised by callers dialing emergency number 112.

A man said he was driving the car, saw the comet with a flaming tail that fell from the sky into an area of vegetation. According to information from the Bjelovar Fire Department, a fire broke out in between the towns of Bulinac with Bjelovar.

"I was exiting Patkovca on the left side of the road and noticed a fiery flame in the sky. Since we are in a valley and it was dusk, we could see very well. It was within walking distance of two to three kilometers from me and at first I thought it was a plane crash. I watched the fiery ball until it fell to the ground. It all lasted about ten seconds. A dozen sci-fi scenarios passed through my head and I could not believe what I saw. A few miles away, at the entrance to Bulinac, I saw a big fire near the forest on a nearby area of grass. About this I immediately informed the Emergency Center 112. Unfortunately, I did not had time to stop and see what it was because I was in an ambulance transporting patients," said Daruvarcanin Darko Hresic, an ambulance driver.

When they put out the fire, members of the DVD searched the area looking for a crater or something that would point to a deliberate arson. Nothing was found. The news of the event very quickly spread throughout Bulincem. According to information from the Bjelovar Police, so far the only eyewitness is Hresic.

Meteor

The Times, 1990: A cosmic trail with destruction in its wake

meteorite
© Unknown
Over the next few weeks the Taurid stream, a procession of vast cosmic rubble and dust that snakes around the Sun and out towards Jupiter, will swing through Earth's orbit for the first of its bi-annual crossings.

Within the stream are probably thousands of bodies including asteroids, mountain-and island-sized boulders, smaller meteoroids, Encke's Comet and assorted fragments of celestial refuse.

The exact number, size and location of objects, however, remains a mystery and according to Dr. Mark Bailey, research Fellow in astronomy at Manchester University, it is likely that for every object which is confirmed, there are nine others that have so far eluded detection.

All that is certain is that the rubble, believed by some astronomers to have been formed by a collision in the asteroid belt of a defunct comet which was captured by the solar system up to 30,000 thousand years ago, will bisect Earth's orbit in late June and again in November.

According to astronomers such as Dr. Victor Clube, of Oxford University's Department of Astrophysics, the coming and goings of the Taurid stream should be a source of concern to politicians, planners and anyone who cherishes life on Earth.

Sun

Best of the Web: Major Solar Activity! Did the Sun just shoot an enormous ball of fire?

This is a view of the sun on February 1st from behind COR 2 - it's the most incredible thing I have ever seen! The sun shoots out a fireball that engulfs a planet-sized object! Could this be what they didn't want everyone to see so they manufactured the record breaking snow storm?


Link to see Ahead COR 2 video in the same time frame.

Comment: Alternatively, could this be what manufactured the the record-breaking snow storm?

The image is fascinating, but the commentary on this video is rather uninformed, to be as polite as possible.


Meteor

Best of the Web: Very close shave! NEO to come within 12,000 km of Earth today, February 4!

The newly discovered object, officially designated 2011 CQ1, will make a close Earth approach today February 04, 2011 around 19:40UT at ~0.03(LD)/0.00008(AU) or 11855 km.

2011 CQ1 has been discovered by R. A. Kowalski few hours ago in the course of the "Catalina Sky Survey" with a 0.68-m Schmidt + CCD. The object was moving at roughly 6 "/min and it was of magnitude ~19. According to its absolute magnitude H=32 this is a very small object, in the order of 2-3 meters.

Just few hours after his discovery, we have been able to follow-up this object using remotely a 0.35-m f/3.8 reflector + CCD of "Tzec Maun Observatory" in New Mexico. At the moment of our images (on February 04.46), "2011 CQ1" was moving at 23"/min and its magnitude was ~18.

Comment: Readers are encouraged to watch this video to understand the seriousness of the asteroid threat.

Asteroid Discovery From 1980 - 2010


Meteor

NASA Finds 20 New Comets, 33,000-Plus Asteroids

NASA said its Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE) mission has discovered 20 comets and more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, in addition to 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs).
new asteroids discovered
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE TeamNASA said its Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE) mission has discovered 20 comets, more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, in addition to 134 near-Earth objects
NEOs are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 28 million miles of Earth's path around the sun. A comet is an icy small Solar System body that when close enough to the Sun displays a visible coma - a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere - and sometimes also a tail. Asteroids are actually small solar system bodies orbiting around the sun.

NASA's NEOWISE is an enhancement of the $320 million Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission that was launched in Dec. 2009. WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light about 1.5 times and captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets close to Earth.

Meteor

Photo captured of meteor over Harvard Square-January 29th 2011

meteor, jan,29,2011
© Brad Kelly

Cambridge - A Somerville photographer said he captured a photo of a meteor streaking across the sky over Harvard Square Saturday night.

Brad Kelly was walking from his home in Somerville to Harvard Square to catch a movie. He was late for the movie, so he ended up walking around Harvard Square, snapping photos to waste some time. At around 8:30 p.m., he found himself in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank building, snapping a few photos. And that's when he captured the meteor.

Kelly shared a photo of the original photo -- taken with a Nikon D300 -- with Wicked Local Cambridge. For photo geeks, Kelly said, it was an 8-second exposure at aperture f8 on a tripod with a 20mm prime lens.