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AURORA ALERT: High-latitude
sky watchers should be alert
for Northern Lights tonight. Earth is entering a high-speed solar
wind stream and this is sparking auroras around the Arctic Circle:
gallery.
TAURID FIREBALLS:
During the night of November 4th-5th, astronomers
at the Marshall Space Flight Center video-recorded six explosions
on the Moon. The blasts were caused by Taurid meteoroids hitting
the lunar surface. "The Moon is experiencing a good meteor
shower," says Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment
Office.
So is Earth. A NASA all-sky monitoring station in Walker County,
Georgia, recorded more than a dozen bright meteors and fireballs
on same night the Moon was getting hit. This 9-hour composite image
shows the activity at a glance:
The best Taurid of the evening was a centimeter-sized nugget that
self-destructed in flight. It's the magnitude -5 flash in the upper
right corner of the composite image: 5MB
movie.
The show's not over. Between Nov. 5th and 12th,
the Earth-Moon system will be passing through a
swarm of gritty debris from parent comet 2P/Encke. When the
same thing happened in 2005, sky watchers observed a slow drizzle
of midnight
fireballs for nearly two weeks. So be alert for Taurids! The
best time to look is anytime after dark. The constellation Taurus
(where Taurids appear) rises at sunset and stays up all night long:
sky map.
2008
Taurid Fireball Gallery
[2005 Taurids: on
Earth, on
the Moon]
DISINTEGRATED ASTEROID:
Asteroid 2008
TC3 was discovered on Oct. 6, 2008, and a day later it hit Earth.
The 3 meter-wide space rock disintegrated in the atmosphere, producing
a fireball about as bright as a full Moon. Although the time and
location of impact were predicted with some precision, few people
saw it because it happened over a remote area of northern Sudan.
Now, for the first time, a ground-based photo has come to light:
This is a single frame from a video taken by Mr. Mohamed Elhassan
Abdelatif Mahir and communicated by Dr. Muawia H. Shaddad of the
University of Karthoum. It shows the fireball's aftermath--a smoky
trail of debris twisted by high-altitude winds and illuminated by
the rising sun. Researchers hope publication of this photo will
encourage other photographers to come forward and submit their images
of the debris or, better yet, the fireball itself.
Readers, were you in Sudan on Oct. 7th? Send your fireball reports
and photos to meteor expert Peter
Jenniskens of the SETI Institute. Your data could improve the
chances of recovering meteorites.
UPDATED: Nov.
2008 Aurora Gallery
[Previous Novembers: 2007,
2006, 2004,
2003, 2001,
2000]
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