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Newfound Comet Will Swing By Earth in 2013, May be Visible to the Naked Eye for First and Only Time

06/22/2011 Leave a comment

“A newfound comet discovered by a telescope designed to hunt for dangerous asteroids will make its closest pass by Earth in 2013 and should be visible to the naked eye when it draws near, astronomers say.

Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope detected the comet, which is called C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), on the night of June 5 and 6, and the discovery was confirmed by follow-up observations with a different instrument a day later. The comet will likely come within about 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of the sun in February or March 2013 — about the same distance as the planet Mercury, researchers said.

During its closest approach to Earth in two years, comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) likely to be visible low in the western sky shortly after sunset, weather permitting. Skywatchers interested in seeing the newfound icy wanderer should look up then, because they may never get another chance to see it.

‘The comet has an orbit that is close to parabolic, meaning that this may be the first time it will ever come close to the sun, and that it may never return,’ said the University of Hawaii’s Richard Wainscoat in a statement. Wainscoat helped confirm the comet’s existence.” Read more.

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Sun Unleashes ‘Spectacular’ & Powerful Eruption

06/07/2011 Leave a comment

“The sun unleashed a massive solar storm today (June 7) in a dazzling eruption that kicked up a vast cloud of magnetic plasma that appeared to rain back down over half of the sun’s entire surface, NASA scientists say.

The solar storm hit its peak at about 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), but the actual flare extended over a three-hour period, said C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who runs a website called The Sun Today, in a video describing the event.

‘The sun produced a quite spectacular prominence eruption that had a solar flare and high-energy particles associated with it, but I’ve just never seen material released like this before,’ Young said. ‘It looks like somebody just kicked a giant clod of dirt into the air and then it fell back down.'” Read more.


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Categories: Cosmic Craziness

Triple Eclipse: Three Lunar, Solar Eclipses in June and July

06/01/2011 Leave a comment

By Andrés Córdova – “A rare celestial coincidence will cross our skies over the next two months—two partial solar eclipses one month apart with a total lunar eclipse exactly halfway between.

The first eclipse will be an unusual ‘midnight’ partial solar eclipse that begins on June 2, but ends the previous day on June 1 after crossing the International Date Line. It will first be visible early morning in Siberia and northern China, then from Scandinavia and Russia around midnight, advancing across the Arctic and ending early evening in northeastern Canada on June 1.

Next, the midway total lunar eclipse will happen on June 15. It will appear when the moon rises in South America and Europe, and will be visible in Africa, the Middle East and southwestern Asia, as well as eastern Asia and Australia when its sets. It will not be visible in North America.” Read more.

Categories: Cosmic Craziness

Solar Flaring Warning Issued

05/30/2011 Leave a comment

By Duncan Alfreds – “Cape Town – The Space Weather Centre has warned that the sun is undergoing some instability, which has implications for electronic communications.

‘There is a very active area on the sun as rotated onto the invisible solar disc. This active area has got the potential for more flaring for the next five to six days,’ space weather forecaster Kobus Olckers of the Space Weather Warning Centre at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory told News24.

He said that communications and electronic systems might be affected.

‘The internet could be a little slower for the next week or so and especially long distance communications.'” Read more.

Categories: Cosmic Craziness

Upcoming Solar Storms to Wreak Havoc on Earth’s Electrical Communications

05/21/2011 Leave a comment

“Solar storms could have ‘devastating effects’ on human technology when they hit a peak in two years’ time, a leading scientist has warned.

U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant secretary Kathryn Sullivan said the storms pose a growing threat to critical infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment.

Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits.

Dr Sullivan, a former Nasa astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, yesterday told a UN weather conference in Geneva that ‘it is not a question of if, but really a matter of when a major solar event could hit our planet’.” Read more.

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Comet Hits the Sun; Solar Flare Erupts

05/12/2011 Leave a comment

By John Metcalfe – “This one-of-a-kind space video, captured yesterday by NASA and the European Space Agency’s Solar & Heliospheric Observatory, appears to show a kamikaze comet smashing into the sun to provoke a fiery coronal mass ejection. In reality, though, it’s probably coincidence.

The comet stands virtually no chance of making it to the surface of the intensely burning solar body; heat waves would have melted it and broken it down into hot space dust millions of kilometers away. The comet’s destruction seems to be confirmed in observations made by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which show no sign of it at the moment the sun flung its wad of magnetic plasma into space.” Read more.

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‘Unnerving’ Rumble in Virginia Beach a Mystery, NASA Says May Be Possible Meteor

05/12/2011 Leave a comment

By Kristin Davis, Lauren King, Meredith Kruse – “We may only ever know it as The Night the Earth Rattled.

The seconds-long reverberation at approximately 7:20 p.m. Tuesday sent neighbors to porches, piqued slumbering pets and launched a thousand theories. But nobody can say for sure what it was – not police or seismologists or meteorologists or NASA or Oceana Naval Air Station or the Virginia National Guard.

‘No clue,’ said Scott Mohr, a spokesman for Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

People reported feeling it from Suffolk to Newport News to the Eastern Shore and beyond. The intensity of the grumble was perhaps greatest in Virginia Beach, where five calls came in to 911 and firefighters set out in search of the source of an explosion.

None was found, said Lori Stiles, communications operations manager for the city. She felt it, too, from her home in Dam Neck, a sensation like that of an approaching storm that caused the house to creak.”  Read more.

Meteor likely caused mysterious boom – “VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – Virginia Beach is a city full of sound. Waves crash at the Oceanfront and fighter jets scream overhead. However, a boom Tuesday night caught hundreds of normally unfazed residents from Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore completely off-guard. ‘It shook my house,’ said one man.” Read more.

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Crab Nebula’s Gamma-Ray Flare Mystifies Astronomers

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

By Jason Palmer – “The Crab Nebula has shocked astronomers by emitting an unprecedented blast of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe.

The cause of the 12 April gamma-ray flare, described at the Third Fermi Symposium in Rome, is a total mystery.

It seems to have come from a small area of the famous nebula, which is the wreckage from an exploded star.

The object has long been considered a steady source of light, but the Fermi telescope hints at greater activity.

The gamma-ray emission lasted for some six days, hitting levels 30 times higher than normal and varying at times from hour to hour.”  Read more.

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Mercury, Venus, Mars & Jupiter Converge in Night Sky

05/10/2011 Leave a comment

“During this month of May, four bright planets will engage in a fascinating dance with each other in the morning sky.

Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be involved in a series of conjunctions, joined at the end of the month by a very thin, waning crescent moon. We could even refer to this as a ‘celestial summit meeting,’ or more precisely, a series of summit meetings during May 2011.

Twice during May three planets will converge to form a ‘trio.’

According to Belgian calculator Jean Meeus, a trio is when three planets fit within a circle with a minimum diameter of 5 degrees…

On Wednesday (May 11), Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will converge within 2.05-degrees of each other, followed just 10 days later by another trio, this time formed by Mercury, Venus and Mars, which will crowd within a 2.13-degree circle. Then late in the month, on three successive mornings, May 29th, 30th, and 31st, the waning crescent moon will arrive, sweeping past Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury stretched out across the eastern sky from upper right to lower left.” Read more.

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Shot Across the Bow: Massive Asteroid Hurtling Towards Earth

05/05/2011 3 comments

“A massive asteroid will fly within the moon’s orbit narrowly missing Earth later this year.

The space rock, called YU55, will hurtle past our planet at a distance of just 201,700 miles during its closest approach on November 8.

That is closer to Earth than the moon, which orbits 238,857miles away on average.

With a width of some 400metres and weighing 55million tons, YU55 will be the largest object to ever approach Earth so close.

Nasa spokesman Don Yeomans said: ‘On November 8, asteroid YU55 will fly past Earth and at its closest approach point will be about 325,000kms away.

‘This asteroid is about 400 metres wide – the largest space rock we have identified that will come this close until 2028.'”  Read more.

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NASA Issues Warning of Solar Superstorm in 2012

04/26/2011 Leave a comment

By Terrence Aym – “Could a superstorm generated by the sun destroy civilization as we know it in 2012?

No less than NASA thinks it’s a distinct possibility. In a remarkable move the normally conservative US space agency has taken the extraordinary step of warning the world.

The headlines reverberating around the world speak volumes: ‘Leaks discovered in Earth’s magnetic field,’ Solar storms to wreak havoc,’ ‘The end of life as we know it,’ ‘Magnetic shift to cause global superstorms.’

Can such things really happen?  NASA and the European Space Agency say yes…

Among all the countries with exposure to the solar devastation, the United States is the most susceptible.”  Read more.

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Solar Activity Heats Up

04/16/2011 Leave a comment

“… The pot is starting to boil. ‘Finally,’ says Fisher, ‘we are beginning to see some action.’

As 2011 unfolds, sunspots have returned and they are crackling with activity. On February 15th and again on March 9th, Earth orbiting satellites detected a pair of “X-class” solar flares–the most powerful kind of x-ray flare. The last such eruption occurred back in December 2006.

Another eruption on March 7th hurled a billion-ton cloud of plasma away from the sun at five million mph (2200 km/s). The rapidly expanding cloud wasn’t aimed directly at Earth, but it did deliver a glancing blow to our planet’s magnetic field. The off-center impact on March 10th was enough to send Northern Lights spilling over the Canadian border into US states such as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.”  Read more.

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