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METEOR RADAR:
The US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning the
skies above Texas. When a satellite or meteoroid passes overhead--ping!--there
is an echo. Activity is picking up this week as Earth enters
a stream of debris from extinct comet 3200 Phaethon, source
of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Tune into Spaceweather
Radio for live audio.
STRANGE LIGHTS OVER
NORWAY: This morning in arctic Norway, onlookers
were stunned when a gigantic luminous spiral formed in the
northern sky. "We are used to seeing lots of auroras
here in Norway, but this was different," says Nick Banbury
of Harstad who witnessed the phenomenon on his way to work
"between 7:50 and 8:00 a.m. local time." Onlooker
Jan Petter Jorgensen took this photo:
The first reaction of many readers when they see this picture
is Photoshop! Surely this must be a fake. But no,
many independent observers witnessed and phtotographed the
apparition. It is real.
Banbury continues: "It consisted initially of a green
beam of light similar in color to the aurora with a mysterious
rotating spiral at one end. This spiral then got bigger and
bigger until it turned into a huge halo in the sky with the
green beam extending down to Earth. According to press reports,
this could be seen all over northern Norway and must therefore
have been very high up in the atmosphere to be seen hundreds
of km apart."
UPDATE:
Circumstantial evidence is mounting that the phenomenon
was caused by a malfunctioning rocket, possibly an ICBM launched
from a Russian submarine. A Navtex no-fly
alert was issued for the White Sea on Dec. 9th, and photographers
appear to have recorded the initial boost phase of a launch
below the spiral (see
inset). A rocket motor spinning
out of control could indeed explain the spiral pattern, so
this explanation seems plausible, although it has not yet
been confirmed.
More reports and videos: #1,
#2,
#3,
#4,
#5.
HOW STRONG WILL THE
GEMINIDS BECOME? Long ago, on a cold December
night in the 19th century, the first Geminid meteors appeared.
In those days, the display was so weak (a dozen or so meteors
per hour) that only the most alert observers could say they
had seen a Geminid. How times have changed. According to data
compiled by Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office,
the Geminid meteor shower has intensified almost five-fold
to become one of the best showers of the year:
What's driving the surge? The source of the
Geminids is extinct comet 3200 Phaethon. A stream of debris
from the comet has been sweeping across Earth's orbit for
more than a century, and we are plunging deeper into the stream
with each December crossing. Computer models suggest that
the Geminids will continue to intensify with meteor rates
jumping another 20% to 50% in the decades ahead.
Researchers will be watching the 2009 Geminids
to see if the trend does indeed continue. Rates could exceed
140 meteors per hour when the shower peaks on Dec. 13th and
14th. Get the full
story and observing tips from Science@NASA.
December
Northern Lights Gallery
[previous Decembers: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2001,
2000]
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