Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

US: Palm Springs Residents Spot Apparent Meteor in Sky

Kate McGinty
The Desert Sun
Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:51 UTC
Some Coachella Valley residents spotted something that looked to be falling from the sky tonight, amid reports of a meteor in the Southwest.

It looked like a falling star that continued falling toward the mountain, a Desert Sun reporter in south Palm Springs said.

The Scottsdale Airport tower told police they saw meteor activity around 7:45 p.m., the Arizona Republic reported.

Twitter users from Las Vegas to San Diego have also reported spotting the unusual activity in the sky.

"Okay did anybody else see the giant #meteor or #UFO that fell out of the sky 15 minutes ago?" @ FRUTRON Tweeted.

The National Weather Service said it had not heard of any meteor activity, the Gannett-owned Phoenix paper added.

Palm Springs police said they have not received any calls about the object.
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Meteor

Comet Elenin is Now Fading Away

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:17 UTC
Elenin
© Michael MattiazzoComet Elenin on Sept. 14, 2011. It is is now almost indiscernible. Image and annotated chart by Michael Mattiazzo.

As far as Comet Elenin goes, the only chance of impending doom is for the comet itself: it is disintegrating and quickly fading away. Australian amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo has been monitoring this comet's trip toward perihelion (closest point in its orbit to the Sun), which occurred on September 10, 2011, and he says Comet Elenin has likely has not survived. The image above was taken by Mattiazzo on today (Sept. 14) and it is barely visible as a disintegrating smudge.

Comet Elenin - the comet that has created a hoopla of completely nonsensical, non-scientific doomsday predictions - faded dramatically after being hit by a solar flare on August 20, as we reported earlier. Subsequent images revealed a spreading, diffuse coma. It will likely continue to fade and become more diffuse.

Elenin's mass is smaller than average and its trajectory will take it no closer than 34 million km (21 million miles) of Earth as it circles the Sun. It will make its closest approach to Earth on October 16th, but was closest to the Sun on Sept. 10.
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Meteor

Mysterious 'Booming Sounds' Heard Around World Perplex Scientists

Charles Q. Choi
OurAmazingPlanet
Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:20 UTC
Fireball
© Brian EmfingerBrian Emfinger photographed this early Perseid meteor shower fireball, with a smoke trail, from Ozark, Arkansas just after midnight on Sunday, July 26, 2009.
Mysterious booming sounds are occasionally heard on the North Carolina coast, often powerful enough to rattle windows and doors. They cannot be explained by thunderstorms or any manmade sources - their source is a mystery.

Such dins are not unique to North Carolina or the modern age. People living near Seneca Lake in upstate New York have long known of similar booming sounds, which they called "Seneca guns." In coastal Belgium, they are known as "mistpouffers," or fog belches; in the Ganges delta and the Bay of Bengal, "Bansal guns;" in the Italian Apennines, "brontidi," or thunder-like; and by the Harami people of Shikoku, Japan, "yan."

"What's going on is an interesting challenge, whatever it might be," said seismologist David Hill, scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Menlo Park, Calif.
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Meteor

Another Sun Diving Comet


Space Weather
Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:25 UTC
A comet is diving into the sun today. Just discovered by comet hunters Michal Kusiak of Poland and Sergei Schmalz of Germany, the icy visitor from the outer solar system is expected to brighten to first magnitude before it disintegrates on Sept. 14th.

Image
© SOHO LASCO C3
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is monitoring the comet's death plunge: finder chart, movie, latest images.
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Sun

More Mammoth Solar Flares Expected From 'Old Faithful' Sunspot, Scientists Say


Fox News
Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:18 UTC
An active region of the sun that blasted out powerful solar storms four days in a row last week likely isn't done yet, scientists say.

Image
© NASA/SDO/AIAA giant plume of ionized gas called plasma (to the right) leaps off the sun from sunspot 1283 in this photo snapped by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This sunspot spouted four solar flares and three coronal mass ejections from Sept. 6-8, 2011
Officially, the flare-spouting region is called sunspot 1283. But space weather experts have dubbed it "Old Faithful," after the famous geyser in the United States' Yellowstone National Park that goes off like clockwork. And the solar Old Faithful should erupt again before it dissipates, researchers said.

"It still has a fair amount of complexity," said solar physicist C. Alex Young of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "So we still have a pretty good chance of seeing some more stuff from this one." [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Closest Star]
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Meteor

Russian Amateur Astronomer Discovers New Comet


Ria Novosti
Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:17 UTC
Novichonok
© ESORussian amateur astronomer discovers new comet.
Russian amateur astronomer Artyom Novichonok, a student of Petrozavodsk university, made a discovery of a new comet, Russian astronomy popularizing website Astronet said on Sunday.

The comet is the first comet discovered from Russian territory since 1989.

Novichonok's discovery was confirmed by the International Astronomical Union, the comet being designated P/2011 R3 (Novichonok), the Ka-Dar Observatory, where Novichonok made his discovery, said on its website.

Novichonok discovered the comet on 6 images taken in September using a 0.4-m Jigit telescope.
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Meteor

North Carolina, US: Cape Fear Weather Watch - See a fireball last night? You're not alone

Andrew Dunn
Star News
Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:28 UTC
Did you see a fireball in the eastern sky Thursday evening? You're not the only one.

Emergency dispatchers in New Hanover and Brunswick counties received multiple reports of a blazing object in the sky at about 8 p.m.

Most likely, it was a meteor or comet fragment that made it into the atmosphere, said Tim Armstrong of the National Weather Service's office in Wilmington. There has been no confirmation of that, however.
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Sun

Geomagnetic Storm In Progress


SpaceWeather
Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:27 UTC
A geomagnetic storm is in progress following the impact of a CME around 1130 UT on Sept. 9th. This could be the first of several hits from a series of CMEs expected to reach Earth during the weekend. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall.

"After the outbursts of sunspot 1283 hurled several CMEs toward Earth, we expected quite some auroras in the arctic part of Norway," Frank Olsen of Tromsø. "We were not disappointed." He snapped this picture just after local midnight on Sept. 10th:

Norway Auroras
© Frank OlsenImage taken: Sep. 9, 2011
Location: Tromsø, Norway
Norway Auroras_1
© Frank Olsen
Norway Auroras_2
© Frank Olsen
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Sun

Solar Activity Update: Geomagnetic Storm Watch September 9th, 2011


Skywatcher88 / YouTube.com
Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:53 UTC
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Sun

Geomagnetic Storm: Electrical Ground Currents Detected in Norway


Space Weather
Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:45 UTC
A polar geomagnetic storm (Kp=5) is in progress following the impact of a CME around 1100 UT on Sept. 9th. This could be the first of several hits from a series of CMEs expected to reach Earth during the weekend. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall.

Image
© Rob StammesInstrument room polar light center, Lofoten Norway
Electrical ground currents caused by the storm have been detected in Norway. Rob Stammes writes:
Today, September 09, 2011 at 12.45 UTC the first CME arrived as a magnetic shockwave on my instruments. There is also an effect in signal strength from my vlf receivers, coming through electrons in the solarwind cloud. The magnetic field is unstable at the moment, it means a big change for auroras coming night.
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