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STRANGE ASTEROID:
Newly-discovered asteroid 2009 BD is slowly
passing by Earth today only 400,000 miles away. The small 10m-wide
space rock poses no threat, but it merits attention anyway. The
orbit of 2009 BD appears to be almost identical to the orbit of
Earth. 2009 BD may be a rare co-orbital
asteroid, circling the sun in near-tandem with our planet. Extrapolating
the motion of 2009 BD into the future, we see that it remains in
the vicinity of Earth for many months to come, never receding farther
than 0.1 AU (9.3 million miles) until Nov. 2010. Future observations
may reveal the nature of this strange asteroid; stay tuned! [3D
orbit] [ephemeris]
SOLAR ECLIPSE:
The Year
of the Ox is beginning with a solar eclipse. On Monday, Jan.
26th, the same new Moon that triggers the Chinese Lunar New Year
will pass directly in front of the sun--dead center--covering 93%
of the solar disk. The ensemble will form a stunning "ring
of fire" visible across the Indian Ocean:
Click on the image, above, to launch an animated map
of the eclipse prepared by graphic artist Larry Koehn. A regional
map of Indonesia shows the best dry places to see the ring of
fire: Borneo, Sumatra and Java.
Outside the narrow path of annularity, the Moon will
cross the sun off-center, producing crescent suns of varying depth
over south Africa, Madagascar, Australia, southern parts of India
and southeast Asia. Sky watchers in those places should attend to
the ground: crescent sunbeams will dapple the earth beneath leafy
trees and garden latticework. Solar
telescopes trained on the sky will show the Moon taking a bite
out of the sun. Stay tuned for photos!
Live
Solar Eclipse Webcasts
[NASA
eclipse home page] [time
tables]
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.
M. Mc Kenna sends this report from 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
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