Comets


Galaxy

A 'captured' alien planet may be hiding at the edge of our solar system, and it's not 'Planet X', new research suggests

planet x comet meteor asteroid
© GettyA large, icy world from an alien star system could lurk in the mysterious Oort cloud, new research suggests.
In 1906, astronomer and businessman Percival Lowell launched a search for "Planet X," a hypothetical giant planet orbiting the sun beyond Neptune. Lowell was convinced that Planet X existed based on some supposed irregularities he had observed in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. His belief eventually led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930, though scientists later determined that the dwarf planet was too small to have a gravitational impact on Neptune's orbit (let alone Uranus').

Today, the Planet X hypothesis is largely considered to be discredited. However, that hasn't stopped astronomers from looking for planets in the far reaches of the solar system. And according to a new study, they might be out there — only much farther away than Lowell could have predicted.

Comment: Other researches have demonstrated that, rather than a planet, it's likely that these observed perturbations are due instead to our Sun's twin, also known as Nemesis:



Doberman

11-year-old boy dies in stray dog attack in Kerala, India

dog attack
A differently-abled 11-year-old boy, who was attacked by a group of stray dogs Sunday evening at Muzhappilangad near here, died at a hospital, police said.

Nihal, a resident of Kettinakam, was found grievously injured around 300 metres away from his house and was taken to a nearby hospital but could not be saved, they said.

"The boy with autism was missing from around 5 pm and a search party, comprising relatives, locals and the police, was looking for him in the locality. We found him around 8.30 pm near his house in a grievously injured manner and took him to the hospital," police said.

Info

Science and an Ancient Apocalypse

Gobekli Tepe
© PreHistory Decoded
The aim of science is simple. We aim to create consistent models of reality. If we can model everything perfectly (within the bounds of measurement uncertainty), i.e. explain everything, then there is no practical difference between our models and the truth. Ultimately, then, we seek the truth. Some scientist don't believe this, but this is how I see it. Religion used to be how this was achieved, but religions are not flexible enough to adapt to new information. They are too rigid. The advantage of science is that is infinitely adaptable; it changes to fit whatever the latest and best information is. Or, at least, it should (maybe even science has become too monolithic and politically motivated recently, with too much inertia in certain areas). Moreover, science uses mathematics and probability to find the most likely way forward; which explanation is most likely to be correct? Which brings us to Occam's razor.

Occam's razor is an excellent guide in developing our models. It says that if we have two models that can explain a specific set of observations equally well, the simpler one that requires least data to define it is more likely to be correct. A corollary is that if two models are equally simple, the one that can explain the most is more likely to be correct. Occam's razor is an intuitive guide. Although proofs have been attempted, to my knowledge none are completely satisfactory. It is the key scientific principle that guides me to consider the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis to be almost certainly correct, at least as far as the impact itself is concerned. The secondary effects, such as the Younger Dryas climate shift and associated megafaunal extinctions are more debatable, but still quite likely to be correct, in my view.

It is also how I approach decoding Gobekli Tepe and related symbolism. As a scientist, I am continually seeking connections, making links, simplifying explanations, using Occam's razor. There is considerable evidence now that many ancient cultures were fascinated by the sky, and their astronomical-symbolism was often linked and therefore likely derives from an earlier epoch.

Fireball 5

Newly discovered asteroid has a 1-in-600 chance of colliding with Earth, NASA says

The newly discovered asteroid 2023 DW could collide with Earth in February 2046, although the odds of an impact are low.
Asteroid 2023 DW
© Science Photo Library - ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI via Getty ImagesAn Olympic pool-sized asteroid could collide with Earth in 2046, though the odds are very low.
A newly discovered asteroid may make a perilously close approach to Earth about 20 years from now, with a roughly 1-in-600 chance that the space rock will collide directly with our planet, officials with NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office tweeted.

While that's a higher-than-average risk level for near-Earth asteroids, it's still a "very small chance" of impact, NASA wrote — and that risk level is expected to decline as clearer observations of the asteroid become available.

First detected on Feb. 27, the asteroid dubbed 2023 DW is estimated to measure about 165 feet (50 meters) in diameter, or roughly the length of an Olympic-size swimming pool. The asteroid is expected to make a very close approach to Earth on Feb. 14, 2046; as of March 8, the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre predicts a 1-in-625 chance of a direct impact, although those odds are being recalculated daily.

Comet 2

Main comet of 2024 named C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, could be 6 times brighter than 2020's NEOWISE

C/2023 A3
Trajectory of comet C/2023 A3
The Minor Planet Center (MPC) has given an official name to the comet, which is already being called the main comet of 2024. It received the designation C/2023 A3 ().

C/2023 A3 was first discovered in images taken on January 9 by the Chinese observatory Tsuchinshan (translated as Purple Mountain). On February 22, the ATLAS automated telescope located in South Africa took independent images of the object. The analysis carried out by astronomers showed that it was a comet. C/2023 A3 has a small tail and a very compact coma.

At the moment, C/2023 A3 is located at a distance of 7.3 AU (1090 million km) from the Sun, which exceeds the distance to Jupiter. But it is rapidly approaching the perihelion of its orbit, which will be passed on September 28, 2024. On this day, the comet will fly at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km) from the Sun.

Comment: It seems that comets 'exceed expectations' because science's explanation for the behaviour of comets is wrong: For more, check SOTT radio's:


Info

Asteroid impact in slow motion

Researchers at the University of Jena and the German Electron Synchrotron DESY solve a 60-year-old mystery with a high-pressure study.
Barringer crater in Arizona
© US Geological SurveyBarringer crater in Arizona was formed about 50 000 years ago by an approximately 50-meter iron meteorite.
For the first time, researchers have recorded live and in atomic detail what happens to the material in an asteroid impact. The team of Falko Langenhorst from the University of Jena and Hanns-Peter Liermann from DESY simulated an asteroid impact with the mineral quartz in the lab and pursued it in slow motion in a diamond anvil cell, while monitoring it with DESY's X-ray source PETRA III. The observation reveals an intermediate state in quartz that solves a decades-old mystery about the formation of characteristic lamellae in material hit by an asteroid. Quartz is ubiquitous on the Earth's surface, and is, for example, the major constituent of sand. The analysis helps to better understand traces of past impacts, and may also have significance for entirely different materials. The researchers present their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Asteroid impacts are catastrophic events that create huge craters and sometimes melt parts of Earth's berock. "Nevertheless, craters are often difficult to detect on Earth, because erosion, weathering and plate tectonics cause them to disappear over millions of years," Langenhorst explains. Therefore, minerals that undergo characteristic changes due to the force of the impact often serve as evidence of an impact. For example, quartz sand (which chemically is silicon dioxide, SiO2) is gradually transformed into glass by such an impact, with the quartz grains then being crisscrossed by microscopic lamellae. This structure can only be explored in detail under an electron microscope. It can be seen in material from the relatively recent and prominent Barringer crater in Arizona, USA, for example.
"For more than 60 years, these lamellar structures have served as an indicator of an asteroid impact, but no one knew until now how this structure was formed in the first place," Liermann says. "We have now solved this decades-old mystery."
To do so, the researchers had spent years modifying and advancing techniques that allow materials to be studied under high pressure in the lab. In these experiments, samples are usually compressed between two small diamond anvils in a so-called diamond anvil cell (DAC). It allows extreme pressures - as prevalent in Earth's interior or in an asteroid impact - to be generated in a controlled manner.

Fireball

Meteorite crater discovered in French winery

With the aim of creating an appealing brand, the name of the " Domaine du Météore " winery near the town of Béziers in Southern France points to a local peculiar: one of its vineyards lies in a round, 200-metre-wide depression that resembles an impact crater. By means of rock and soil analyzes, scientists led by cosmochemist Professor Frank Brenker from Goethe University Frankfurt have now established that the crater was indeed once formed by the impact of an iron-nickel meteorite. In doing so, they have disproved a scientific opinion almost 60 years old, because of which the crater was never examined more closely from a geological perspective.

Impact Crater
© Frank Brenker, Goethe University FrankfurtThe “ Trou du Météore ”: The crater at the “ Domaine du Météore ” winery really was caused by a meteorite impact.
Countless meteorites have struck Earth in the past and shaped the history of our planet. It is assumed, for example, that meteorites brought with them a large part of its water. The extinction of the dinosaurs might also have been triggered by the impact of a very large meteorite.

Meteorite craters which are still visible today are rare because most traces of the celestial bodies have long since disappeared again. This is due to erosion and shifting processes in Earth's crust, known as plate tectonics. The "Earth Impact Database" lists just 190 such craters worldwide. In the whole of Western Europe, only three were previously known: Rochechouart in Aquitaine, France, the Nördlinger Ries between the Swabian Alb and the Franconian Jura, and the Steinheim Basin near Heidenheim in Baden-Württemberg (both in Germany ). Thanks to millions of years of erosion, however, for laypersons the three impact craters are hardly recognizable as such.

Fireball

Small Asteroid 2023 CX1 (NEOCP Sar2667) impacted Earth on February 13

On 2023 February 12.8 (20:18:07 UTC), K. Sarneczky found a small asteroid with the 0.60-m Schmidt + CCD of the Piszkéstető Observatory in Hungary (K88 MPC code) that was soon after put on the NEOCP list with the provisional designation Sar2667 for the follow-up by other observers. The object was subsequently imaged by many observers around the world and various impact assessment systems found a 100% impact probability in the area of the English Channel on Feb. 13 between 02 and 04 UTC. This is the second discovery by Sarneczky of an impactor, following the 2022 EB5 event in March 2022.

M.P.E.C. 2023-C103 issued subsequently on 2023 February 13 at 04:13 UT assigned the official designation 2023 CX1 to Sar2667 with the following comment:
K. Sarneczky reported a new NEOCP candidate observed at GINOP-KHK (K88). Rapid follow-up from multiple sites indicated an impact with the Earth's atmosphere on February 13 03:00 UTC near the coast of Normandy, France, as determined by imminent impact monitoring services such as JPL's Scout, ESA's Meerkat and MPC's internal warning system.
Map of the impact zone predicted to occur a few kilometers from French coast, North-East of Le Havre. Click on it for a bigger version.

Asteroid Impact Site
© International Meteor Organization
2023 CX1 was a small Aten asteroid with an estimated size of ~1.0 m (based on the object's absolute magnitude H=32.6).

Attention

Humpback whale washes up dead on New York beach, 10th in 2 months

male humpback whale has washed ashore Lido Beach
Male humpback whale has washed ashore Lido Beach
NOAA reports 178 humpback whale strandings across 13 Atlantic states since 2016

Another whale has washed up dead overnight, making Monday's tragic discovery the 10th loss of the large water mammals in the past two months.

Officials were out on Long Island after a male humpback whale was spotted on Lido Beach before 7 a.m. He was dead by the time he was found.

Crowds gathering to catch the whale throughout the day prompted Hempstead Town crews to erect temporary fencing around the whale. He was so large, a backhoe was needed to move it away from the shore.


Comet

'Sun breaks tail of comet': Disconnection event observed on Comet ZTF

Something unusual is happening to the tail of Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3). It's being disconnected. The break is inset in this picture taken by Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jaeger on Jan. 17th:
comet ztf
This is a disconnection event: A piece of Comet ZTF's tail has been pinched off and is being carried away by the solar wind.

Blame space weather. CMEs hitting comets can cause magnetic reconnection in comet tails, sometimes ripping them off entirely. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft watched this happen to Comet Encke in April 2007: movie.

This month, multiple CMEs have swept past Comet ZTF as a result of surging solar activity. One of them is responsible for the disconnection event.

Soon, we'll get a better look. Comet ZTF is approaching Earth for a close encounter (0.28 AU) on Feb. 1st. Between now and then, the comet's brightness will cross the threshold of naked-eye visibility, possibly peaking at magnitude +5. CME effects will be increasingly visible as the comet approaches. Stay tuned!

Comment: See also: