Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

New Comet 257P/SOHO (2012)

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:33 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: January 13, 2012
Magnitude: 6 mag
Discoverer: Alan Watson (STEREO-B spacecraft)

Magnitude Graph for 257P/SOHO
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E18.
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Sun

Sun Fires Off 2 Huge Solar Flares in One-Two Punch


SPACE.com
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:22 UTC
Image
© NASA/SDOThis image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it unleashed an X5.4-class solar flare at 7:04 p.m. EST on March 6, 2012 (0002 March 7 GMT). The flare appears as the bright spot in the upper left.
The sun unleashed a cosmic double whammy Tuesday (March 6), erupting with two major flares to cap a busy day of powerful solar storms. One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have. They followed several weaker, but still powerful, sun storms on Tuesday and came just days after another major solar flare on Sunday night.

The first big solar storm was also the most powerful one, ranking as an X5.4-class flare after erupting at 7:02 p.m. EST (0002 March 7 GMT), according to an alert from the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Weather Service. It is the strongest solar flare yet for 2012.

The second event occurred just over an hour later, reaching a maximum strength of X1.3.
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Meteor

New Comet C/2012 BJ98

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:48 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: January 26 and March 1, 2012
Magnitude: 19.2 mag, 19.1 mag
Discoverer: Rik Hill (Mount Lemmon Survey), Alex R. Gibbs and Eric J. Christensen (Mount Lemmon Survey)

Magnitude Graph for BJ98
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E18.
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Meteor

New Comet C/2012 E1 (Hill)

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:15 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: March 2, 2012
Magnitude: 19.6 mag
Discoverer: R. E. Hill (Mount Lemmon)

Magnitude Graph
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E39.
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Sun

Major Coronal Mass Ejection From Sunspot AR1429


Space Weather
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:21 UTC
Big sunspot AR1429 has unleashed another major flare. This one is the strongest yet, an X5-class eruption on March 7th at 00:28 UT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme UV flash:

AR1429 Flare
© aia.Imsal.com
This eruption hurled a bright CME into space. First-look data from STEREO-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth. Our best guess is "probably, yes, but not directly toward Earth." A glancing blow to our planet's magnetosphere is possible on March 8th or 9th. Stay tuned for updates.
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Blackbox

Mysterious, Strange Sky sounds? Electromagnetic phenomena responsible?

Ted Thornhill
DailyMail.co.uk
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:05 UTC
Mysterious sounds have been heard booming from the sky all around the world - in some cases they were so loud they set off car alarms. The unsettling noises were heard recently from Europe to Canada, sounding like groans and powerful horns.

In Germany noises coming from the sky were recorded on a video camera and uploaded to YouTube, with car alarms clearly heard going off in the background.


Comment: The reader may want to check out the discussion about these strange sounds on Laura Knight-Jadczyk's FB page as well as the Forum discussion here, and this SOTT Focus by Joe Quinn: New Sott Report: Strange Noises in the Sky: Trumpets of the Apocalypse?

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Sun

Sun Unleashes Powerful X-Class Solar Flare

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:31 UTC

The Sun has been quiet recently but early today (04:13 UTC on March 5, 2012) it unleashed a powerful X1-class solar flare and coronal mass ejection. The latest estimates indicate the CME will probably miss Earth, but hit Mercury and Venus. Even so, the science team from the Solar Dynamics Observatory says that high-latitude skywatchers should still be alert for auroras in the nights ahead. There was also an M2-class eruption from the same big and active sunspot, Active Region 1429, on March 4th which produced another, wider CME that might yet intersect Earth. The cloud is expected to deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on March 6th at 04:30 UT (+/- 7 hrs).

Check the latest forecast of the CME's arrival from the NASA Goddard Space Weather Lab, which includes a great animation.

So, what's the difference in the classes of solar flares and how could they affect us on Earth?
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Meteor

Meteor Shower Dazzles Victorians Lucky Enough to See It

Angus Thompson
Herald Sun, Australia
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 19:34 UTC
UPDATE: A fireball that streaked through the sky last night had many thinking a plane had crashed.

The meteor was seen across Victoria at about 10.45pm, including at Anglesea, Frankston, Berwick, Cairnlea, Tullamarine, Dandenong.

The fireball even caused a sensation in the UK with police inundated with emergency phone calls.

The control tower in Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport was also flooded with calls from locals fearing there had been a plane crash.

Astronomer David Reneke said it was unusual that the fireball was spotted across the globe and said it was probably the lead up to a meteor shower that was about to happen.

He said usually at the end February fireballs were often seen but not in March.

Comment: It's very unlikely that the one in Australia was the same as the one in the UK. Meteors only light up like that when entering the final stages of their descent. If it were seen from Melbourne to Scotland, half the planet would surely have sat up and taken notice!

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Meteor

Asteroid 2011 AG5 may hit earth in 2040

Saravanan Jawahar
truthdive
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:44 UTC
Washington, March 3: The 460 feet (140 meter) wide space rock, asteroid which is called 2011 AG5 could collide with Earth in 2040.
2011 ag5
© NASA/JPL/Caltech/NEOPO The orbit of asteroid 2011 AG5 carries it beyond the orbit of Mars and as close to the sun as halfway between Earth and Venus.

Talk about the asteroid was on the agenda during the 49th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), held earlier in Vienna.

Due to its current location in the daytime sky, observations of 2011 AG5 cannot be made by Earth-based telescopes, so its orbit has not yet been determined to a level where scientists can confidently project its location decades into the future. But that day is coming.

"In September 2013, we have the opportunity to make additional observations of 2011 AG5 when it comes within 91 million miles (147 million kilometers) of Earth," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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Meteor

Newly-Discovered Asteorid 2012 DA14 could hit Earth in February 2013


Russia Today
Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:32 UTC
Image
© unknown A dangerous asteroid heading to the Earth was spotted by stargazers three years after it had got onto its current orbit
To avert a new apocalypse - this time set for February 2013 - scientists suggest confronting asteroid 2012 DA14 with either paint, or big guns. The tough part of either scheme is that time has long run out to build a spaceship for any operation.

NASA confirms the 60-meter (197-feet) asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, has a good chance of colliding with Earth in eleven months.

The rock's closest approach to the planet is scheduled for February 15, 2013, when the distance between the planet and space wanderer will be under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is lower than the geosynchronous orbit kept by the Google Maps satellite.

Comment: SOTT considers it highly unlikely that this asteroid will impact earth. We have had close misses in the past. 28000km is certainly a relatively short distance, it's about 7% of the Earth-Moon distance, but please remember we had had an even closer miss last year at 4% Lunar distance: Close Shave

For the moment it is not possible to predict exactly how this object will act when it gets close to Earth because of the various gravitational and non-gravitational perturbations. So wait and see as usual.

We should be more worried about those things we don't see...

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