They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. | | |
AURORA WATCH: A magnetic filament exploded away from the sun on May 17th and propelled a cloud of plasma into space. The cloud (a CME) was not aimed directly at Earth, but it could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field during the late hours of May 19th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
ISS-ENDEAVOUR: Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew arrived at the International Space Station this morning, May 18th, at 6:14 a.m. EDT. The two spacecraft are now docked together and may be seen flying through the night sky as a single bright point of light.
Shortly before docking, the converging spacecraft flew over Brisbane, Australia, where Stephen Mudge photographed their double streak:
"I've always wanted to see a double pass of the shuttle and ISS, and it took until the second-to-last shuttle flight," says Mudge. "But wow, it was worth the wait!!! The two spacecraft were separated by only about 1 degree, with the shuttle shining at magnitude -0.5 and the ISS at -2.9. An absolutely amazing sight."
more images: from Kosma Coronaios of Louis Trichardt, Limpopo Province, South Afria
SPACESHIPS IN THE SUN: The night sky isn't the only place to see Endeavour and the ISS. Today in Romania, the docked spaceships passed directly in front of the midday sun:
Maximilian Teodorescu recorded the split-second transit from Bucharest, Romania: "I used an 80 mm refracting telescope capped by a Baader ND 5 solar filter, and caught the silhouette of ISS-Endeavour in two video frames--lucky shots I would say!"
Ready for your own lucky shot? Check Calsky.org for transit predictions, and don't forget to use a safe solar filter when checking for spaceships in the sun.
more images: from Alex Conu of Berceni, Romani
April 2011 Aurora Gallery
[previous Aprils: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002]
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (
PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding
new ones all the time.
On May 18, 2011 there were 1224 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach. | The official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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