UPDATED FIREBALL VIDEO: On Jan. 17th, a small asteroid hit Earth's atmosphere over Scandinavia and exploded in a flash so bright it turned the nighttime sky daylight-blue. The fireball came as a complete surprise, so photographers were caught unprepared; almost no images were captured. In Sweden, however, an automated video camera recorded the event. Roger Svensson, who owns the camera, has just contributed a new version of the video at higher-resolution than previously shown. Click here to watch it. CRESCENT SUNSET: Onlookers will never forget today's sunset in the Philippines. Dr. Armando Lee and Fermin Naelga send this picture from the Mall of Asia seawall overlooking Manila Bay: "The sun sinking into the waves resembled a shark's fin," says Lee. It was a solar eclipse. The new Moon passed in front of the sun, covering as much as 93% of the solar disk. This produced an array of sunset crescents and rings of fire witnessed across the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Indonesia. Browse the gallery for more: Jan. 26 Solar Eclipse Gallery [Submit your photos] [Backyard solar telescopes] APPROACHING COMET: Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3) is approaching Earth for a 38 million mile close encounter in late February. At that time, the comet could brighten to naked eye visibility (5th magnitude). Meanwhile, it's a nice target for backyard telescopes: Chris Brennan of Barbados took the picture using a 7-inch telescope on Jan. 24th. "Note the double tail," he says. Martin McKenna sends this report from Maghera, Northern Ireland: "I checked out Comet Lulin this morning before dawn using a 8.5-inch reflector. My immediate impression was that the comet is very bright; the coma is healthy and active with an obvious green color. [Note: The 'coma' is the comet's gaseous atmosphere.] Seeing both tails at the same time was quite a treat! I also looked at the comet using a pair of binoculars and despite the poor quality of the opticsI was still able to find the comet easily. Finally, I tried very carefully to detect it with the naked eye but I just couldn't convince myself that it was visible. However, I suspect that with excellent sky conditions the first naked eye observations will be reported very soon. This comet could very well put on a good show in February!" Comet Lulin Photo Gallery [Comet Hunter telescope] [sky map] [ephemeris] Explore the Sunspot Cycle Recent Fireballs: Jan. 23, Jan. 17, Dec. 29 |