Space Events

Large space rock burns up over Atlantic

The biggest fireball since the Chelyabinsk explosion has plunged through the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean. The event, which has only just come to light, occurred off the coast of Brazil at 13:55 GMT on 6 February. As it burned up, the space rock released the equivalent of 13,000 tonnes of TNT.

This makes it the most powerful event of its kind since an object exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013. That blast was much bigger, releasing the equivalent of 500,000 tonnes of TNT.

Space Events

Death by Meteorite?

For the first time in recorded history, a meteorite is reported to have killed a person.

The incident happened Saturday (Feb. 6) when an object, thought to be a meteorite, hit a college campus in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. The impact killed a man and injured three others.

Officials found a 4-feet-deep (1.2 meters) crater in the ground that contained "bluish black" rock fragments.

The force of the impact broke windows in neighbouring classrooms and cars, and prompted college officials to cancel classes until Wednesday (Feb. 10).

Space Events

Powerful Solar Flares

As Earth's magnetic field reverberates from one CME strike which hit on the 18th and sparked a G1-class geomagnetic storm, a second more potent CME is on the way. It was propelled in our direction by sunspot AR1748, which unleashed an M3-class solar flare on May 17th (0858 UT).

Although this is not the strongest flare we've seen from AR1748, it could be the most geoeffective; the sunspot was almost squarely facing Earth when the blast occurred. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives.

NASA Announces Brightest Lunar Explosion Ever Recorded

A boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, igniting an explosion so bright that anyone looking up at the right moment might have spotted it, NASA announced Friday.

NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the moon in the eight year history of the monitoring program.

Some 300 lunar impact events have been logged over the years but this latest impact, from March 17, is considered many orders of magnitude brighter than anything else observed.

The blast lasted only about a single second and shone like a 4th magnitude star—making it bright enough to see with just the unaided eye.

Space Events

Asteroid Defense for Earth Planned

Measures to protect Earth from a catastrophic impact by an asteroid or other near-Earth objects (NEO) are being developed in a four-year plan by the European Space Agency (ESA). The plan comes less than three months after a meteor exploded over Russia’s Ural region, injuring hundreds.

There are currently 10,000 NEO’s that have orbits that bring them relatively close to Earth.

Detlef Koschny, head of the agency’s NEO study office, says more coordinated scans of the sky each night are necessary to find currently undiscovered NEOs.

Studies to determine if it would be more effective to deflect threatening asteroids with an explosion or an impact with a large object are also being planned.

The proposals were being discussed in a conference near Madrid at a meeting set up by Seimos Space, an industrial partner working with the ESA.

Space Events

Meteor Shower - USA

More than 500 people from along the Atlantic coast ranging from Maine to North Carolina have reported a bright meteor in east of United States.

The sky flash was spotted as far south as Florida and as far north as New England.

Heat map of witness sightings: [American Meteor Society]

About Asteroids, meteors and meteorites

Asteroids orbit the Sun. They are small bodies.

Planetoids or minor planets are also called large Asteroids.

Once these Asteroids enter our planet's atmosphere, they become Meteors.

If any any of these Meteors impact the Earth, they become Meteorites.

Space Events

Meteor Sighted - Cape Town

A small meteor streaked across the sky over Cape Town, South Africa yesterday. The meteor was probably a pebble-sized piece of rock and is no cause for alarm because of its size, an astronomer from the South African Astronomical Observatory said.

Space Events

Planetary Meteor Defense Shield Proposed

Russia is proposing a unified international monitoring system to prevent Earth from being struck with a catastrophic blast from space.

Following the destructive meteor breakup over southern Russia on February 15, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev assigned a deputy, Dmitry Rogozin, to find ways to prevent far worse disasters.

Rogozin had proposed in 2011 an “international initiative” to prevent such threats by harnessing the “intellectual and technological efforts of industrial nations.”

Anti-missile and aerospace defense technologies in use today are mostly ground-based and designed to detect incoming objects launched from the ground, rather than those coming from space.

A network structured under the umbrella of the United Nations to detect and deflect meteors or asteroids long before they reach the planet is proposed.

Space Events

Conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter.

The moon as it danced a celestial waltz with Jupiter last night. You can also see the four Galilean moons; from left to right, Ganymede [Jupiter], Io, Callisto, Europa.

Photo by David Finlay, Wollongong Australia

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Russian Meteor

Photograph of the hole in Chebarkul Lake made by Russian Meteor debris.

Scientists explained why telescopes could not see the Russian meteor. Astronomers could not trace the Chelyabinsk meteor because the celestial body was approaching from the Sun, and telescopes did not see it in the sunshine.

The meteor is the largest recorded object to strike the Earth in over 100 years.

Space Events

Overnight on October 4-5, 2012, a mass of energetic particles from the atmosphere of the Sun were flung out into space, a phenomenon known as a coronal mass ejection. Three days later, the storm from the Sun stirred up the magnetic field around Earth and produced gorgeous displays of northern lights. At the Polarlightcenter in Lofoten, Norway, the reverberating magnetic field induced electrical currents in the ground. Arctic sky watchers should remain alert for auroras on Oct. 18-19, especially during the hours around local midnight.

 

Meteor sighting. On the night of Oct. 17th, many people near San Francisco, California, USA saw a slow-moving fireball exploding in the sky around 07:45 pm PDT. Witnesses report bright flashes of light and sonic booms that shook houses.

Space Events

An apparent impact by a meteor on Jupiter early Monday created a fireball on the planet so large and bright that amateur astronomers on Earth spotted the flash, which occurred near the southern edge of Jupiter's northern equatorial belt of clouds.

Wildfires

Meteor sightings ground aircraft fighting the Colorado wildfire.

19 wildfires have been sparked by guns in Utah so far this year. The culprit seems to be target shooting in very dry conditions.

Bushfires on Borneo. Firefighters battle to put out the smouldering peat fires.

 

Meteor Explosion

Reports of a large fireball exploding above the Nevada desert. Sightings reported as far away as northern California. Thought to be a large meteor unrelated to the Lyrid meteor shower.