Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Comet Collision to Come?


SETI Institute
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:37 UTC
Draconid
© CAMS / SETIThis +2 magnitude February eta Draconid was filmed by Peter Jenniskens with one of the low-light-level video cameras of the Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) station in Mountain View, California, at 07:59:24 UT on February 4, 2011.
A telegram was issued on July 10th by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union announcing that the Earth got impacted for a few hours by a stream of dust from a potentially dangerous comet last February 4.

"This particular shower happens only once or twice every sixty years," says discoverer Dr. Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames. "The stream of dust is always there, but quite invisible just outside of Earth's orbit. Only when the planets steer the dust in Earth's path do we get to know it is there."

Jenniskens heads the Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project in California. Since last October, the SETI Institute has teamed up with Fremont Peak Observatory and UCO/Lick Observatory in monitoring the night sky with low-light video cameras in an effort to map the meteor showers in the sky over the San Francisco Bay Area. They triangulate the meteor trajectories and determine their orbit in space.
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Sun

Sun Unleashes Largest Solar Flare in Four Years

Clara Moskowitz
Space.com
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:52 UTC
Image
© NASA/SDO/GSFCThis still from a video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Aug. 8, 2011 solar flare as it appeared in the ultraviolet range of the light spectrum. The flare registered as an X6.9 class sun storm, the largest of the Solar Cycle 24.
An extremely powerful solar flare, the largest in over four years, rocked the sun early Tuesday (Aug. 9), but is unlikely to wreak any serious havoc here on Earth, scientists say.

"It was a big flare," said Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center. "We lucked out because the site of the eruption at the sun was not facing the Earth, so we will probably feel no ill effects."

Today's solar flare began at 3:48 a.m. EDT (0748 GMT), and was rated a class X6.9 on the three-class scale scientists use to measure the strength of solar flares. The strongest type of solar eruption is class X, while class C represents the weakest and class M flares are medium-strength events.

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Sun

Sunspot 1263 Produced A Powerful X-Class Solar Flare Today


Space Weather
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:13 UTC
This morning at 0805 UT, sunspot 1263 produced a powerful X7-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash:

Image
© SDO
The brunt of the explosion was not Earth directed. Nevertheless, a minor proton storm is in progress around our planet, which could affect satellites in high-altitude orbits. Also, radiation from flare created waves of ionization in Earth's upper atmosphere, briefly disrupting communications at some VLF and HF radio frequencies.

SOHO coronagraphs show a CME emerging from the blast site. The cloud will probably miss Earth. At this time, however, we cannot rule out a glancing blow from the flank of the CME on or about August 11th. Stay tuned for updates.
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Sun

Weekend Auroras!


Space Weather
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:17 UTC
A widespread display of auroras erupted late Friday, Aug. 5th, when a double-CME hit Earth's magnetic field and sparked a G4-category geomagnetic storm. View a time lapse video of the event recorded by Michael Ericsson on the shores of Tibbitt Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada:


Aurora Borealis @ Tibbitt Lake, NWT from Michael Ericsson on Vimeo.

"Although not the most intense auroras I've ever seen, this one is definitely up there on my favorites list," he says.
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Meteor

Canada: Fire in The Sky


GFW Advertiser
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:02 UTC
Fireball
© Darren Mills / GFW AdvertiserA meteor, space junk, satellite or alien spacecraft? A number of people, including Harold Watkins, saw what appeared to be a fireball Monday night in Botwood. He said the object had been moving west and disappeared behind Bishop's Falls, and did not have a tail behind it. One possibility is that the object was a communications satellite with a bright reflective surface.

Whatever it was, Harold Watkins and others in Botwood were treated to the sight of what appeared to be a fireball in the sky Monday night.

"I live in an apartment off Twomey Drive, and this lady said to me, 'look, do you see that over there?' and when I looked, it seemed to be one big ball of fire going west," he said. "It was about 1,000 feet in the air. It looked very close to us."

Mr. Watkins and others had returned from Botwood Day ceremonies that evening, which had included fireworks at the Botwood Airbase. But he and the other people who had returned to outside his apartment said the fireworks had finished by the time they left the base.

"It was going west, and looked like it would have ended up in the back of Bishop's Falls," he said. "There were three of us coming back from the base and just getting out of the car. And the lady next door in an apartment next to me said 'see that in the air,' and when I looked, it was one big ball of fire and it was moving around and around."

Ron Silver, a media representative for NAV Canada, responsible for air traffic control operations across the country, said he contacted ATV at Gander International Airport after he was notified of the incident by the Advertiser.

"They didn't report anything unusual," he said.

Besides the far-fetched possibility of alien spacecraft, the most likely possibilities are space junk, such as trash from old spacecraft and decommissioned satellites and meteors, all burning up on re-entry in Earth's atmosphere.
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Meteor

Meteor Streaks Across Sky Over Hungary


Caboodle
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:56 UTC
Meteor
© nae.huThis photo of the meteor was taken by the Nagykanizsa Amateur Astronomer Association.
A flaming meteor streaked over Hungary late Friday evening, according to eyewitness accounts on several websites.

Weather portal Idokep.hu put the meteor over Western Hungary at 9:46pm, based on eyewitness accounts by several hundred readers who watched it move across the sky for 3-4 seconds. A loud explosion could be heard near Lake Balaton a few minutes later.

The meteor was moving in a northeasterly direction, according to an eyewitness account posted on the homepage of the Nagykanizsa Amateur Astronomers Association, based in southwest Hungary. "It appeared so close that we almost started looking for the meteorite," the eyewitness said.

Other accounts posted online show the ball of fire was visible from Budapest and as far east as the city of Miskolc.
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Meteor

Pacific island's big bang blamed on meteor


ABC News
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 04:46 UTC
An exploding meteor was believed to be responsible for a huge bang that reverberated around the Pacific island of Niue last week.

Niue police chief Mark Chenery said the loud bang on Wednesday night woke the island's 1,200 residents and he initially thought a boat had exploded in the harbour.

Mr Chenery said there was widespread speculation about the cause of the noise, but the Carter Observatory in New Zealand has told him it was likely to be a meteor exploding 20 kilometres above the Earth.
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Meteor

Exploding meteor wakes Pacific island nation


Breitbart
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:08 UTC
Image
© UnknownThis file photo shows a streak of a meteor, seen in the night sky.
An exploding meteor was believed to be responsible for a huge bang that reverberated around the Pacific island nation of Niue last week, according to police.

Niue police chief Mark Chenery said the loud bang on Wednesday night woke the island's 1,200 residents and he initially thought a boat had exploded in the harbour.

Chenery said there was widespread speculation about the cause of the noise but the Carter observatory in New Zealand had told him it was likely to be a meteor exploding 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) high in the atmosphere.

"There was a large (noise), a huge clap of thunder but it was its normal starry night outside," he told Radio New Zealand.

"People have described seeing a white light, like a flare, shooting across the sky. Niue is 64 kilometres around and it was heard in Lakepa in the northwest down to Avasele in the southeast, so it was certainly heard island-wide."
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Meteor

Perseid Meteor Shower Peak Coming Aug 13, 2011


Chiff.com
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:11 UTC
radiant perseids
© n/a
The Perseid meteor shower is an annual meteor shower that is extremely regular in its timing and can potentially be visible for weeks in the late summer sky, depending on weather and location.

The Perseid meteor shower is named after the constellation Perseus, which is located in roughly the same point of the night sky where the Perseid meteor shower appears to originate from. This is a useful naming convention, but not very accurate!

The source of the Perseid meteor shower is actually debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Every year, the earth passes through the debris cloud left by the comet when the earth's atmosphere is bombarded by what is popularly known as "falling stars."

When and where to look for Perseids in 2011

In 2011, visibility (the weather also notwithstanding) will be somewhat limited by a full moon on August 13 which will likely wipe out fainter meteors from view.
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Meteor

Fireball: 21 June 2011, 11:10am, Rotorua, New Zealand

NZScorps
YouTube
Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:48 UTC
Bearing in mind I know nothing of comets, I initially thought it might be one. I googled for other sightings and haven't found anything as yet. I did find Asteroid 2011MD but that wasn't due to go past till 27 June 2011. What's your opinion? One of the above? Meteorite? Some kind of UFO? We're stumped and really surprised there's been nothing in the media about it.

Image
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