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TAURID METEOR SHOWER:
Earth is entering a stream of debris from
periodic Comet 2P/Encke, and this is causing the annual Taurid
meteor shower. The shower has a broad maximum lasting
from Nov. 5th through 12th. At most, only about 5 Taurids
per hour streak across the sky, but what they lack in number
they make up for in dazzle. Taurid meteors tend to be fireballs,
very bright and slow. Look for them falling out of the constellation
Taurus during the hours around midnight. [sky
map] [Taurid counts: north,
south]
Taurid photos: from
John Chumack of Dayton, Ohio; from
Brian Emfinger of Ozark, Arkansas; from
Joe Westerberg of Joshua Tree National Park, California
GLANCING BLOW:
Arctic sky watchers should be
alert for Northern Lights on Nov. 5th. NOAA forecasters
say there is a chance that a coronal mass ejection (CME) will
hit Earth's magnetic field, and the impact could spark a high-latitude
geomagnetic storm. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
recorded this movie of the CME:
The billon-ton cloud was blown into space by departing sunspot
1029 on Oct. 31st. Normally, CMEs take only two or three days
to reach Earth, but during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009,
the clouds have slowed to a veritable crawl. Crossing the
sun-Earth divide now requires about five days, so an Oct.
31st CME should arrive on Nov. 5th. Because the blast was
not squarely Earth-directed, the sluggish CME will deliver
at most a glancing blow. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance
of strong geomagnetic storms around Earth's poles.
October
Northern Lights Gallery
[previous Octobers: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2004, 2003,
2002, 2001]
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
A ray of light leaves the sun, travels 93 million miles, bounces
off some moondust, angles toward Earth, travels another quarter
million miles to Switzerland, where it threads a 10-meter
hole in the Alps and passes through the lens of an onlooker's
digital camera. This series of seemingly improbable events
actually happened on Oct. 29th. The onlooker, Ricklin Andreas
of Elm, Switzerland, took a picture to prove it:
"The full Moon was shining through Martin's hole--a
natural gap in the rock of the Tschingelhorn," explains
Andreas.
What are the odds? It happens about twice a year. The sun
itself shines through the gap on March 12/13 and Oct. 1/2.
Likewise, the full (or nearly-full) Moons of March and October
are in the right position to peek through the hole, although
they don't do it on the same fixed dates as the sun because
of complications caused by the Moon's 27.3-day, 5o-tilted
orbit.
Andreas happened to be in the right place at the right time.
To see the improbable, keep looking up!
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