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ASTEROID FLYBY:
On March 20th, asteroid 2009
DO111 flew past Earth about 288,000 miles away--just beyond
the orbit of the Moon. About the size of a football field, the dangerous
space rock was visible in backyard telescopes as it raced through
the constellation Cassiopeia shining like a 13th magnitude star.
March has been a busy month for flybys with at least nine asteroids
passing within a million miles of Earth. Stay tuned for more.
images: from
David Strange of Branscombe, Devon, UK; from
Mathew Marulla of Nashua, New Hampshire; from
Ernesto Guido & Giovanni Sostero of Italy;
ISS GETS NEW WINGS:
The International Space Station's solar arrays are the largest deployable
space assemblies ever built. Yesterday, astronauts unfurled a pair
on the starboard side of the outpost, adding enough power to double
the size of the station's future crew. Amateur astronomers are already
noticing a change in the station's profile:
Ralf Vandebergh took the picture from his backyard
observatory in the Netherlands. "As the ISS flew overhead,
I manually tracked it using my 10-inch Newtonian reflector. Note
the shuttle with its payload bay doors open. The Canadian robotic
arm, which helped install the arrays, is also visible."
Dirk Ewers of Germany also photographed the new
wings. "I caught them only one hour deployment," he
says. "It is a great addition to the station - not only for
the power, but also for viewers on Earth." The
movie he made using a 5-inch telescope is a must-see. (DivX
required.)
more images: from
Martin Wagner of Sonnenbuehl, Germany; from
Rob Carew of Melbourne Australia; from
Mike Tyrrell of Northwich, Cheshire, UK; from
Dave Gallant of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada;
NEAR THE EDGE OF THE
SUN: Imagine looking up at noon and seeing
a planet with four moons just 0.1o from the edge of the
blinding sun. Impossible? NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft did it this
week. Click on the image below to launch a movie of Jupiter and
the Galilean satellites in close "solar conjunction."
5
MB Quicktime movie | labeled
still frame | Zoom
in on Jupiter
During the 30-hour movie, Io, Europa, Ganymede and
Callisto circle Jupiter as a massive CME billows overhead. STEREO-B
recorded the action on March 15th and 16th using an occulting disk
to block the solar glare. This arrangment allowed STEREO's cameras
to photograph moons of Jupiter eight thousand billion (8x1012)
times dimmer than the adjacent sun.
STEREO's coronagraph (occulting disk+camera) is designed
to monitor faint but powerful activity in the sun's outer atmosphere.
The CME is a good example. With a limiting magnitude of +6.5, it
can also see stars, planets, moons and comets so close to the edge
of the sun, it seems impossible. In fact, it happens all the time.
Browse the STEREO
gallery for examples.
March
2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Marches: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2004,
2003, 2002]
Comet
Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet
Hunter Telescope: review]
[Comet
Lulin finder chart]
Explore
the Sunspot Cycle
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