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Comet 2

Comets & Asteroids - Summary for February 2016

During the month of February 2016, 3 new comets were discovered, there were 2 recoveries and cometary activity was detected for 2 previously discovered objects (earlier designated as asteroids). New fragments of comet P/2015 Y2 = P/2010 V1 (IKEYA-MURAKAMI) (see previous post) reported. According to a paper available on Arxiv, at least 17 fragments have been identified.

Moreover the binary nature of asteroid (2535) Hämeenlinna and a previously unknown shower of naked-eye meteors, now known as the Volantids, have been reported (see below for more about this news). "Current comet magnitudes" & "Daily updated asteroid flybys" pages are available at the top of this blog (or just click on the underline text here).

The dates below refer to the date of issuance of CBET (Central Bureau Electronic Telegram) which reported the official news & designations.

- Comet Discoveries

Feb 14 Discovery of C/2016 C1 (PANSTARRS)
Feb 15 Discovery of P/2016 BA14 (PANSTARRS)*
Feb 19 Discovery of C/2016 C2 (NEOWISE)
Comet P/2016 BA14
© M.Kelley/S.Protopapa/UMD Comet P/2016 BA14

Fireball 2

Meteor fireball spotted over Luxembourg and France

AMS heat map - Event#732-2016
© Google/AMSAmerican Meteor Society (AMS) Event#732-2016 - 'heat map' showing location of observers
If you thought you spotted an meteor above Luxembourg on Thursday morning, you probably did.

The French Meteor Observation Network confirmed the phenomenon, which was spotted around 10:30am.

It said that the meteor travelled over the east of France between Reims and Nancy.

Social media was buzzing with comments from people who witnessed the fiery spectacle.

Frederick R said: "I looked out of my office window while I was on a call and clearly saw a fireball with a tail light. What struck me was that it seemed very close to the ground."

The meteor appears to have started its path above Chalons-en-Champagne, heading north-east and disappearing between Marn, Meuse and Brussels.

The phenomenon occurs when astral or comet debris travels at great speed into the earth's atmosphere.

Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 250 reports about a meteor fireball seen over Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Germany on 25th February 2016.

Over the past several days other meteor fireballs sightings in the region include: Spain, Portugal, Morocco and southern France.

NASA space data supports citizens' observations that - meteor fireball activity is increasing dramatically!


Fireball 4

Fireball reported over Alaska

Fireball
© NASANASA image of a fireball from a past meteor shower.
Fairbanks - Interior Alaska residents from Fort Yukon to Eielson Air Force Base reported seeing a fireball overhead Wednesday about 7 p.m.

The fireball, which was captured on the Geophysical Institute's All-Sky camera, flashed briefly into view and disappeared. One resident described it as a green flash with a long tail. Others said the tail also contained orange and red fragments.

It was visible for only seconds, they told the American Meteor Society, which tracks sightings.

Don Hampton of the Geophysical Institute's Poker Flat Research Range said, "It looks like a good sized meteor, but probably not a meteorite (which means it hit the ground.)"

Link to video on Facebook.

Comet 2

Closest flyby of comet in centuries in March

Comet
© M. Kelley/S. Protopapa/UMDThe image on the left is a combination of five 300-s exposures tracking the ‘asteroid,’ while the image on the right is a smoothed version to help enhance the tail (indicated by the arrow), proving that it is in fact a comet.
Astronomers with their eyes on the sky thought they spotted an asteroid, but a closer look revealed a comet.

It was initially labeled as asteroid 2016 BA14 by the Pan-STARRS survey, but a group of astronomers from the University of Maryland took a closer look and found something very intriguing: a tail. Rather than a rocky, metallic asteroid, it appears the space object is actually an icy comet.

That means it's one of two comets flying by Earth in March. The other, Comet 252P/LINEAR 12, will pass by on March 21.

The newly discovered comet will fly by Earth the very next day, March 22, in the morning, and it will set a record.

"The P/2016 BA14 (PanSTARRS) flyby is significant because it is one of the closest flybys of a comet since comet Lexell in 1770, which passed about six lunar distances away," Michael Kelley of the University of Maryland, who confirmed the asteroid was a comet, told weather.com. "Asteroids frequently flyby at such close distances, but comet encounters are rare."

It will be the third closest comet flyby of Earth of all time, but it will still be 9 times the distance to the moon - well out of Earth's range.Even more interesting than its close range, Kelley says, is the possibility that the comet is a sister comet to 252P/LINEAR 12.

Comet P/2016 BA14 could very well have broken off from comet 252P/LINEAR 12, Slate reports.

"If we can understand if and why these small comets broke apart years ago, we may be able to better determine the general impact threat comets present to the Earth," Kelley says.

Astronomers will keep a close eye on both comets through Hubble Space Telescope observations. If you want to see the comet, you'll need binoculars or a telescope.

Fireball 2

Very bright meteor fireball seen over Spain, exhibiting several explosions

meteor over Spain 23.02.2016
© SMART Project (screen capture)
Very bright fireball over Spain on 23 Feb. 2016 at 5h54m UT (6h54m local time). The event was brighter than the full Moon and exhibited several explosions. This footage was recorded by the meteor observing station operated by the University of Huelva at La Hita astronomical observatory (Toledo).



Comment: Within the past week other meteor fireballs have been observed in the region, over southern Spain and Portugal, Morocco and southern France.


Fireball 5

Newly discovered New Year's Eve meteor shower, the Volantids

A new network of video surveillance cameras in New Zealand has detected a surprise meteor shower on New Year's Eve. The shower is called the Volantids, named after the constellation Volans, the flying fish, from which the meteoroids appear to stream towards us.
Meteor Shower
© Danielle Futselaar/SETI InstituteNew Year’s Eve meteor shower.
"In a way, the shower helped chase bad spirits away," says SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens. "Now we have an early warning that we should be looking for a potentially hazardous comet in that orbit."

In September of 2014, Jenniskens teamed up with Professor Jack Baggaley of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, to establish a meteor video surveillance project in the southern hemisphere to find such warning signs of dangerous comets. This project was similar to the existing Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance network (CAMS) in northern California. The CAMS network is sponsored by, and supports the goals of, the NASA Near Earth Object Observation program.

Fireball 3

Multiple meteors struck the Earth 790,000 years ago

Meteor Strikes
© Thinkstock
A new analysis of tektites, gravel-sized objects made of natural glass and formed from terrestrial debris ejected when meteorites collide with the Earth's surface, has revealed that multiple cosmic impacts took place in various parts of the world approximately 790,000 years ago.

Dr. Mario Trieloff, a geoscientist at Heidelberg Universityin Germany, and his colleagues used a new, more accurate dating technique based on naturally-occurring isotopes to investigate rock glasses retrieved from various locations in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Central America.

As they report in a paper to be appear in the April 2016 edition of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta the samples are all virtually identical in age, despite the fact that, in some cases, they have significantly different chemistry. This indicates that a series of separate impact events must have occurred at roughly the same time, the study authors explained in a statement.

Tektites are formed when terrestrial material melts following a meteorite impact, is launched into the air and then hardens into glass, and Dr. Trieloff's team said that they can determine when and where projectiles struck the planet's surface, how often, and how large those objects were.

Fireball 2

Bright meteor fireball observed over southern Spain and Portugal

meteor over Spain and Portugal
© SMART Project (screen capture)
Amazing fireball observed over the South of Spain and Portugal on 21 Feb. 2016, at 2h42m UT. The event was produced by a meteoroid that impacted the atmosphere at about 120.000 km/h. It started at an altitude of about 100 km and ended at a height of about 42 km. The event was recorded by the meteor recording stations that the University of Huelva operates at the astronomical observatories located at La Hita (Toledo), Sevilla and Huelva.


Fireball

Largest fireball meteor since Chelyabinsk falls over the Atlantic

Fireball
© NASANASA image of a fireball from a past meteor shower.
On Feb. 6, 2016, around 14:00 UTC, a tiny chunk of interplanetary material plunged into Earth's atmosphere and burned up — likely exploding — about 30 kilometers above the Atlantic Ocean. The energy released was equivalent to the detonation of 13,000 tons of TNT, making this the largest such event since the (much larger) Chelyabinsk blast in February 2013.

OK, so first, off: Don't panic! As impacts go, this was pretty small*. After all, you didn't even hear about until weeks after it occurred. Events this size aren't too big a concern. Had it happened over a populated area it would've rattled some windows and probably terrified a lot of people, but I don't think it would've done any real damage.

For comparison, the Chelyabinsk explosion, which was strong enough to shatter windows and injure over 1000 people (due to flying glass), had an equivalent yield of 500,000 tons of TNT, 40 times the energy of this more recent impact.

The event was reported on the NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Fireball page, which lists some of the brightest such things.

Comment: Certainly, this is not the first time this has happened in this area. We can say with some certainty that a similar space rock in the very same area, was the cause of the destruction of Air France Flight 447 on June 1st 2009, as reported by Sott.net

Notice also that this chunk of space rock fell on the same day that Copenhagen had a massive overhead meteor explosion and a bit earlier in the day a meteorite killed one and injured three, in India!


Fireball 5

Meteor fireball observed over Morocco

meteor fireball over Morocco
© SMART Project (screen capture)
Fireball observed over Morocco on 19 Feb. 2016, at 19h 06 m UT. The event was recorded by several meteor observing stations operated by the University of Huelva in Spain.