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CLOSE CALL:
A piece of space junk about the size of a small marble zipped past
the International Space Station today at a relative speed of ~20,000
mph. As a safety precaution, the crew sheltered themselves in the
station's Soyuz landing craft. If the debris had hit the ISS, puncturing
its hull, the crew could have quickly closed the hatches of the
Soyuz and returned to Earth. It missed, and ISS operations have
returned to normal. More: from
NASA, from
CNN.
3D SATELLITE DEBRIS:
Regard the maps below. Cross your eyes until
the two globes merge and voila!--you can see the remains of Cosmos
2251 and Iridium 33 in spellbinding 3D. (Having trouble? A larger
pair may help.)
Tom Wagner of Waterloo, Iowa, created the graphics. "John
Burns supplied a
KML file that in Google Earth shows where 217 pieces of Iridium
33 and 455 pieces of Cosmos 2521 were located on March 11th at 12:00
UT. Using Google Earth, I produced stereo
pairs for cross-eyed viewing and also a red-blue
anaglyph for 3D glasses."
"Note the three yellow
dots," he points out. "Those are the pieces of Cosmos
2251 predicted to reenter the atmosphere [on March 12th, 28th and
30th]."
VIDEO UPDATE: Iridium
33 was not completely shattered by its collision with Cosmos 2251.
A substantial "chunk" of the satellite's body held together,
and it is now being seen in Earth orbit. Kevin Fetter video recorded
the object as it tumbled across the sky over Brockville, Ontario,
on March 11th: movie.
An intact satellite, Iridium 28, follows Iridium 33 in the video.
Note how one flashes and the other does not.
WORM MOON:
The early bird catches the worm, but it takes a Night Owl to catch
the Worm Moon. Emy Schade was out after dark on March 10th when
she alertly captured the Moon in a bed of clouds over Rio Dulce,
Guatemala:
Hal Schade took the picture from a dock on the river's bank. "Dulce
suenos, Luna Lombriz (Sweet dreams, Worm Moon)," he says.
The full Moon of March is called the "Worm Moon" because
it heralds the coming of northern spring and the first stirrings
of earthworms in dormant winter gardens. Robins benefit most from
this turn of events, but the Night Owls seem to be enjoying it,
too. Click on the links below for more examples.
Worm Moon images: from
P. Nikolakakos of Sparta, Greece; from
Mark Seibold of Portland, Oregon; from
Keith Breazeal of Amador County, California; from
Mark and Nancy Staples of Santa Fe, New Mexico; from
Doug Zubenel of Cedar Creek near De Soto, Kansas; from
Tamas Ladanyi of Veszprem, Hungary; from
Elias Chasiotis of Markopoulo, Greece; from
Abraham Tamas of Zsámbék, Hungary; from
Lord Akela of Ráckeve, Hungary; from
Jean-Marc Lecleire of Torcy, France
March
2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Marches: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2004,
2003, 2002]
Explore
the Sunspot Cycle
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