They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. |
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QUIET
SUN: Solar activity is low. None
of the sunspots on the Earthside of the sun is actively
erupting. NOAA forecasters estimate no more than
a 1% chance of M-class
flares during the next 24 hours. Solar
flare alerts: text,
voice.
TEXAS
FIREBALL:
Last night, a spectacular fireball appeared in the
skies of eastern Texas and Oklahoma. As is often
the case for unexpected night-sky phenomena, few
pictures are available. The best so far comes from
a police dash-board camera in the small town of
Little River-Academy, TX:
Eye-witness Daryn Morran reports:
"At approximately 756pm CST, over Abilene,
Texas, I saw an object falling from the sky much
brighter and long-lasting than anything I've seen.
[The fireball] lasted close to 8 secs before completely
burning out. At first, it was bright white, and
then started slowing down and getting brighter.
Then it exploded like a firecracker artillery shell
into several pieces, flickered a few more times
and then slowly burned out... awesome!!!"
Another observer in Coppell, Texas,
reported a "double boom heard at 8:00:30 CST.
[The object appeared to be] 1/2 the size of the
waxing moon, and broke into two major chucks with
many smaller pieces. It had a 'white plasma' (sun-colored)
look with a long golden tail." (This report
was relayed by NWS meteorologist Joe Harrris in
Frt Worth.)
According to Bill Cooke of NASA's
Meteoroid Environment Office, this was probably
a natural object--a small asteroid about the size
of a car or bus--not a decaying satellite or other
manmade space debris. The fireball, which disintegrated
in the general vicinity of Dallas-Fort Worth, was
bright enough to be seen on NASA cameras located
in New Mexico more than 500 miles away. "It
was about as bright as the full Moon (astronomical
magnitude -13)," estimates Cooke, who is still
analyzing data and sighting reports in hopes of
calculating the object's orbit. He might yet figure
out where the Texas fireball came from. Stay tuned
for updates.
ASTROPHOTO-OP:
Astrophotographers, ready your
cameras. On Friday morning, February 3rd, Comet
Garradd (C/2009 P1) will pass approximately 0.5
degrees from globular cluster M92 in Hercules. On
Jan. 31st, Rolando Ligustri took this picture of
the converging pair using a remotely-controlled
106mm telescope in New Mexico:
The ten minute exposure shows the
comet's fan-shaped dust tail, which roughly traces
the comet's orbit, and its pencil-thin gas tail,
which points almost directly away from the sun due
to the action of the solar wind.
The star cluster and the comet are
both located in the constellation Hercules, high
overhead in northern hemisphere skies before sunrise.
Sky and Telescope offers a sky
map of the comet's path. Observers with computerized
GOTO telescopes can track the comet by plugging
in orbital
elements from the Minor Planet Center.
At the moment, Comet Garradd has an
astronomical magnitude of +6.5, invisible to the
naked eye but an easy target for backyard telescopes.
Forecasters expect it to brighten by a factor of
~2 in the weeks ahead as the comet approaches
Earth for a 1.3 AU close encounter in early
March. This could be a good time to invest in a
Comet
Hunter.
more images: from
Lorenzo Comolli of Bogli, Italy; from
Gregg Ruppel of Ellisville, MO; from
Mike Broussard of Maurice, Louisiana; from
Dr Paolo Candy of Ci.A.O. Cimini Astronomical
Observatory - Italy
BE ALERT
FOR MOON HALOES: With the full
Moon less than a week away, now is the time to be
alert for Moon haloes. Last night in Moray, Scotland,
amateur astronomer Alan C. Tough photographed this
specimen:
"I intended to photograph the
Moon beside the Pleiades, but the cold and cloudy
conditions were better suited to capturing this
spectacular halo," says Tough.
Moon halos are formed by ice crystals
in high clouds, which catch moonbeams and bend them
as
shown. The brighter the Moon, the brighter the
Moon halo, so any halos this week should be very
bright indeed. The Moon is full on Feb. 7th. Browse
the links below for more examples of what's in store.
more images: from
Jim Henderson of Kincardine O'Neil, Scotland;
from
Eric Walker of Conon Bridge, Ross-shire, Scotland;
from
Tyler Piskor of Karnes City, Texas;
January
2012 Aurora Gallery
[previous Januaries: 2010,
2009,
2008,
2007, 2005,
2004]
Comet
Lovejoy Gallery
[previous comets: McNaught,
Holmes,
Lulin,
Tuttle,
Ikeya-Zhang]
