Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

April Fools' Day Asteroid to Buzz Earth Sunday: No Joke!

Tariq Malik
Space.com
Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:46 UTC
EG5 Asteroid
© NASA/JPLThis graphic depicts the orbit of asteroid 2012 EG5 (in blue) during its April Fool's Day flyby of Earth on April 1, 2012.

An asteroid the size of a passenger jet will zoom close by Earth on Sunday (April 1) just in time for April Fools' Day, but it has no chance of hitting the Earth, NASA says.

The asteroid 2012 EG5 will be closer than the moon when it passes Earth at 5:32 a.m. EDT (0932 GMT). The space rock is about 150 feet wide (46 meters), according to a NASA update.

"Asteroid 2012 EG5 will safely pass Earth on April 1," scientists with NASA's Asteroid Watch program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wrote in a Twitter statement.

The space rock may be visiting Earth on April Fools' Day, but its flyby is no prank. The asteroid will creep within 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) of Earth during its closest approach, which is just over half the distance between Earth and the moon's orbit. The moon typically circles the Earth at a distance of 238,000 miles (382,900 km).

Asteroid 2012 EG5 is the third relatively small asteroid to buzz the Earth in seven days. Two smaller asteroids passed near Earth on Monday (March 26).
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Question

Mysterious Light and Meteor in the Sky Over Colorado

Tara Meyer
9News.com
Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:03 UTC

Highlands Ranch - Suha and Mike Owens took video Wednesday night from their home in Highlands Ranch. It shows a light in the sky that appears to change colors, and it moves left and right, up and down.

"Is it somebody's toy or is it a UFO?" Suha Owens says in the video.

9NEWS received several calls and emails Wednesday around 8:45 p.m. from viewers, all reporting a bright light in the western sky.

9NEWS spoke with Chris Peterson, a researcher at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Cloudbait Observatory, about the light.

Peterson looked at Owens' video. He says what they captured was most likely a reflective balloon blowing around or possibly a helicopter or some other aircraft.
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Meteor

Bright New Comet Promises Skywatching Treat in 2013

Joe Rao
Space.com
Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:15 UTC
Comet C/2011 L4
© Institute for Astronomy/University of Hawaii/Pan-STARRSDiscovery image of the newfound comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), taken by Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 telescope.

A year from now, it is possible that "comet fever" will be running high when a newfound comet emerges into view in the evening sky. But while some scientists have high hopes for a spectacular 2013 sky show by the comet, it is still far from certain.

When astronomers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa announced last June that they had discovered the new comet, it was a distant and inconspicuous object. But preliminary calculations at once made it clear that this new object had the potential to become a naked-eye object of considerable interest for skywatching enthusiasts in the Northern Hemisphere.

The comet was christened C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS). Comets are usually named after their discoverers, but in this case a large team of observers, computer scientists, and astronomers was involved, so the comet was named after the telescope.

PANSTARRS stands for Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System. It's a 1.8-meter prototype for a quartet of military-funded telescopes that astronomers hope to build on the lip of the extinct volcano Haleakala.
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Sun

Monster Solar Tornadoes Discovered


Discovery News
Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:27 UTC
For the first time, huge solar tornadoes have been filmed swirling deep inside the solar corona -- the sun's superheated atmosphere. But if you're imagining the pedestrian tornadoes that we experience on Earth, think again. These solar monsters, measuring the width of several Earths and swirling at speeds of up to 300,000 kilometers (190,000 miles) per hour, aren't only fascinating structures; they may also trigger violent magnetic eruptions that can have drastic effects on our planet.
Image
© NASA/SDO/AIA/Aberystwyth University/Li/Morgan/LeonardIn the lower corona swirling magnetic fields and plasma create huge solar tornadoes measuring several times the width of Earth.
In one example observed on Sept. 25, 2011, solar researchers from the UK used the high-definition cameras onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to track solar gases as hot as 2 million Kelvin (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit) getting sucked from the bottom of a solar prominence and spiral high into the corona. The solar tornado then developed for three hours, gases traveling in spiral paths for around 200,000 kilometers (120,000 miles).

"Prominences are tangled magnetic fields trapping cold and dense plasma in the solar corona," Xing Li, solar physicist at Aberystwyth University, told Discovery News. "These often erupt spectacularly and fly out into space as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and large CMEs will impact our space weather and space technology in a significant way when they are heading toward the Earth.

"What drives these eruptions is still not clear and is very important to gain an understanding of CME initiation (so that we can possibly predict such events)."
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Question

Strange Sounds: Mysterious Boom Heard from Soledad to Seaside

Amy Larson
KSBW
Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:10 UTC
Antenna
© KSBWKSBW's Salinas station looks a little bit like a UFO tracking center.

Salinas, California - Somebody get Fox Mulder. A mysterious loud boom was heard and felt Monday morning from as far south as Soledad all the way north to Seaside Monday morning.

The big boom happened at 10:51 a.m. and rattled residents in Soledad, Chualar, Pebble Beach, Carmel, Monterey, Salinas, Marina, and Seaside.

Military and law enforcement officials told KSBW they are not sure what caused the explosive-like sound.

Several residents said they ran outside, looked up, and spotted an extremely fast-moving military jet making a U-turn over the Carmel Valley.

"Almost broke my windows, ran outside and saw a curved jet stream over Carmel Valley," resident Melinda Mayland said.

With no confirmed cause of the boom, rumors about UFO's, and requests to alert X-Files TV character FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, quickly spread through the local rumor mill.

It is not unusual for U.S. Navy planes on training missions to fly out of Naval Air Station Lemoore near Visalia, Calif. and streak over south Monterey County. Their powerful engines can cause a sonic boom when they break the sound barrier.
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Meteor

New Comet: P/2012 F5 (GIBBS)

Giovanni Sostero, Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes
Remanzacco Observatory
Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:38 UTC
CBET 3069 and M.P.E.C. 2012-F87, issued on 2012, March 25, announced the discovery of a periodic comet by A. R. Gibbs on Mar. 22.8, through the Mount Lemmon 1.5-m reflector. On his images, Gibbs, found a stellar coma and a long, narrow tail about 7'.4 long in p.a. 292.5 deg. The new object has been designated P/2012 F5 (GIBBS) by the Minor Planet Center.

We tried its follow up at first on 2012, March 23.8, when this object was still listed in the NEO-CP webpage as "TF85899". We operated from the Malina River Observatory (Povoletto, Italy) through a 0.3-m, f/4.7 reflector + CCD, under a hazy sky. On our stackings we found a faint and narrow, streak, about 2-arcmin long, oriented toward PA 295 deg.

This feature was very close to the expected position of "TF85899" however, due to its faintness (R about 19.2) and curious shape, we suspected it might be a noise, rather than a real object, so we decided to go for a second night of follow-up, just to make sure. On 2012, Mar. 25.8, we repeated the observations of this object with the same set-up, and found again an odd aspect: kind of elongated and narrow tail, at least 30" long, toward PA300 (in these images we suspected that the tail might be longer than this, however our observations were hampered by a bright, nearby field star). The central condensation was very difficult to locate, hampering its precise astrometric measurement.
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Meteor

2 Small Asteroids Give Earth a Close Shave

Tariq Malik
Space.com
Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:09 UTC
Asteroids
© Ted Stryk/Emily LakdawallaThis montage of images from several different observations and missions shows asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft from Earth.

Two tiny asteroids zipped close by Earth today (March 26), passing between our planet and the orbit of the moon, but posed no threat of impacting our world, NASA scientists say.

The two space rocks flew by Earth in rapid fire; one zoomed by early in the day while the second buzzed the planet at 1:09 p.m. EDT (1709 GMT), according to astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch program.

"Both are very small (under 10 meters) and pose no risk," the scientists wrote in a Twitter update.

The first object, called asteroid 2012 FP35, came within 96,000 miles (154,000 km) of the Earth when it passed by earlier today, the scientists wrote. Asteroid 2012 FP35 is just under 30 feet (9 meters) wide, making it about the size of a tour bus.

The second asteroid is dubbed 2012 FS35 and crept even closer to Earth, coming within 36,000 miles (58,000 km) when it whipped by the planet. Asteroid 2012 FS35 is even smaller than its predecessor; at nearly 10 feet (3 meters) wide, it's only the size of a small car.
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Meteor

"Space Junk" Forces Station Astronauts to Take Shelter in Lifeboats

Tariq Malik
SPACE.com
Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:56 UTC
Image
© NASASunlight glints off the International Space Station with the blue limb of Earth providing a dramatic backdrop in this photo taken by an astronaut on the shuttle Endeavour just before it docked after midnight on Feb. 10, 2010 during the STS-130 mission.
A leftover piece of an old Russian satellite forced six astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter in a pair of lifeboat-like space capsules today (March 24), but zipped harmlessly by the outpost to the crew's relief.

The piece of space junk was spotted too late to move the orbiting laboratory out of the way and flew as close as 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) when it zoomed by at about 2:38 a.m. EDT (0638 GMT), NASA officials said.

While the chances of collision were remote, the potential danger of a hit was enough for Mission Control to order the station crew - which includes three Russians, two Americans and a Dutch astronaut - to seek shelter in two docked Soyuz space capsules just in case a quick escape to Earth is required.

"I don't see anything, which is good news," one of the station astronauts said in Russian, which was translated in a NASA broadcast.

It was the third time in 12 years that station astronauts took shelter from a close space debris pass.

Comment: SOTT wonders what is UP with all the recent alleged man-made space objects either falling out of the sky, or forcing astronauts to take shelter in lifeboats? Is it possible that it is not really "space junk" and such explanations are being offered to cover up the fact that the planet is being subjected to cometary fragment bombardment?

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Meteor

"Space Junk" Misses ISS


RIA Novosti
Sat, 24 Mar 2012 06:50 UTC
Image
© NASAInternational Space Station
A piece of space debris missed the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, forcing its crew members to take shelter in rescue craft, NASA said.

The debris "safely passed in front of the ISS," the U.S. space agency wrote on its Twitter account.

The six crew members were given the all clear to return to their normal duties.

NASA said the junk was a leftover from a February 2009 collision involving Russia's defunct military communications satellite Comsos 2251 and the U.S. commercial Iridium spacecraft.
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Attention

Mars And The New Supernova


Space Weather
Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:01 UTC
"On March 18th, I photographed the planet Mars among the galaxies of Leo," reports amateur astronomer Oscar Martín Mesonero of Salamanca, Spain. "The next morning, I learned that a supernova exploded in the galaxy M95. I quickly checked the photos and there it was!"

New Supernova and Mars
© Oscar Martin MesoneroImage Taken: Mar. 18, 2012
Location: Salamanca, Spain
"Unwittingly, using my ED80, I had photographed a supernova of magnitude +13.5 only two days after its discovery," says Mesonero. "I never expected the night to bring so many wonderful things."

The rapidly brightening supernova is an easy target for mid-sized backyard telescopes equipped with CCD cameras--and it's easy to find only a degree south of Mars. Astrophotographers, now is your chance to catch a supernova in the act.
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