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Would you like to see fiery prominences and new-cycle sunspots
with your own eyes? On sale now: Personal
Solar Telescopes. |
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ASTEROID UPDATE: Last
week when asteroid 2008
TC3 entered Earth's atmosphere over Sudan, "classified
assets" were watching. Without naming names, the US government
has released
a summary of what they saw: "Sensors aboard US satellites detected
the impact of a bolide over Africa on 7 October 2008 at 02:45:40
UT. Initial observations put the object at 65.4 km altitude at 20.9o
N, 31.4o E. The object detonated at an altitude of approximately
37 km at 20.8 o N, 32.2o E. The total radiated
energy was approximately 4.0X1011 joules, equivalent
to ~0.1 kilotons of TNT."
ORANGE SEAS: The
Moon is more than just shades of gray. Lunar seas are suffused with
blue, purple, orange and other colors--you just can't see them at
first glance. Last night, Catalin
Timosca of Turda, Romania, took a picture that revealed the
hidden palette of the Hunter's Moon:
The colors are real. Blue hues reveal titanium-rich areas while
orange and purple colors show regions that are low on iron.
For the record, she used a Nikon
D40X digital camera, but it wasn't the camera that did the trick.
Careful but straightforward processing
in Photoshop can turn almost any digital photo of the full Moon
into a mineral map. Astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope
use similar techniques to find valuable
ores for future lunar settlements.
Look at the Moon tonight. Does it really seem so gray?
moon photos: from
Piotr Majewski of Torun, Poland; from
Mohammad Soltanolkottabi of Esfahan, Iran; from
Thad V'Soske of Grand Valley, Colorado; from
P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from
Elias Chasiotis of Markopoulo, Greece; from
Martin Mc Kenna of Maghera, Co. Derry, N. Ireland; from
Tamas Ladanyi of Veszprem, Hungary; from
C.J. Wood of Ridgely, Maryland; from
Mila Zinkova of San Francisco, California; from
Hunter Outten of Frankford, Delaware; from
Edmund E Kasaitis of Manchester, Maryland; from
Don Poggensee of Ida Grove, Iowa;
MONSTER STORMS ON
SATURN: New images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft
reveal that both of Saturn's poles are ringed by "monstrous
cyclones" hundreds of times stronger than the biggest hurricanes
on Earth. In this side-looking view, shadows highlight the topography
of Saturn's south polar vortex:
On the other end of the planet, a north polar storm is circumscribed
by a strange cloudy
hexagon that remains fixed in place while 300 mph winds swirl
inside it. At the moment, Saturn's north pole is shrouded in darkness
because it is winter there, but Cassini's infra-red cameras were
able to photograph the vortex anyway by sensing the heat it emits
into the night: movie.
Researchers think these giant weather systems might powered by
deep-seated thunderstorms, although no one can say for sure; the
base of the vortices are too deep and cloudy to see. Get the full
story from NASA.
Oct.
2008 Aurora Gallery
[Previous Octobers: 2007,
2006, 2004,
2003, 2002,
2001,
2000]
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