| AURORA ALERT:
Did you sleep through the Northern Lights? Next time get a
wake-up call: Spaceweather
PHONE.
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MARS IS ALIVE:
A team of NASA and university scientists has discovered "substantial
plumes" of methane floating through the atmosphere of Mars.
Their discovery indicates Mars is either biologically or geologically
active. Get the full
story from Science@NASA.
AURORA WATCH:
Sometimes, a gentle gust is all it takes. Last night, the solar
wind pressed oh-so-gently against Earth's magnetic field and triggered
an unexpected display of auroras around the Arctic Circle. Pete
Lawrence and Dr Chris Lintott send this snapshot from Tromso, Norway:
"[It was] a fantastic and awe inspiring display with lots
of variety and incredible diversity of structure," says Lawrence,
"all the more appreciated bearing in mind that this was supposed
to be a quiet night for the aurora!"
A less-gentle gust is on the way. A stream of solar wind flowing
from a coronal hole on the sun is blowing toward Earth, due to arrive
on Jan. 18th. High latitude sky watchers should be alert
for auroras this weekend.
UPDATED: Jan.
2009 Aurora Gallery
[Previous Januaries: 2008,
2007, 2005,
2004, 2001].
SPACECRAFT FLYBY:
On Jan. 14th, NASA's Stardust-NeXT
spacecraft flew past Earth only 5700 miles above the planet's surface.
It was a gravity assist maneuver designed to fling the probe toward
Comet Tempel 1 for a rendezvous on Valentine's Day 2011. In Utah,
NASA Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins photographed the flyby
using his Celestron
14-inch telescope:
Wiggins took 76 pictures which fellow astronomer Howard
Jackman combined into the composite image shown above. "The
data spans the time period 0514 to 0547 UT on Jan. 14th," says
Jackman.
Stardust-NeXT is now hurtling toward Comet Tempel
1, a place NASA has been before. In 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft
flew past Tempel 1 and blasted
a hole in its nucleus. This was supposed to give astronomers
their first look inside a comet. Just one problem: they couldn't
see a thing. The debris cloud kicked up by the impactor was surprisingly
dense and hazy, and prevented photography of the underlying crater.
No one knows what the impact revealed! Stardust-NeXT is going back
for a second look now that the dust has settled: full
story.
more images: from
Timur Kryachko of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the
Russian Academy of Science, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Russia
Comet
Lulin Photo Gallery
[sky
map] [Comet
Hunter Telescope]
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