BIRTH OF A NEW METEOR SHOWER: Meteor forecaster Jeremie Vaubaillon and colleagues are urging sky watchers to be alert for a new meteor shower next week. "We predict the birth of a new shower on Dec. 12, 2023, between 8:00 and 12:30 UT," say the researchers in a preprint. "The shower (if it occurs) will be best visible from North and West Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Indonesia." (visibility map) The source of the display would be Comet 46P/Wirtanen, which made an extremely close approach to Earth just five years ago.
AN EXTREMELY RARE OCCULTATION OF BETELGEUSE: One of the most famous stars in the night sky is about to disappear. On Dec. 12th (Dec. 11th in the USA), asteroid Leona will pass directly in front of Betelgeuse for an extremely rare occultation visible from south Florida to Italy. Sky watchers in the "path of totality" can look up and see the red giant vanish, dramatically altering the appearance of the constellation Orion.
There are huge population centers in the occultation path, especially in south Florida where Leona's shadow crosses Miami and Fort Lauderdale. For observers there, Betelgeuse will wink out for about 10 seconds on the evening of Dec. 11th just before 8:25 pm Eastern Standard Time. In Europe, the occultation happens on Dec. 12th between 1:10 UT and 1:16 UT. To find out when to look from your location, we recommend downloading this excellent Google Earth file; when viewing the map, click on the little dots for occultation times.
Are you in the occultation zone? Submit your photos here.
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AN ICE VOLCANO JUST ERUPTED:The British Astronomical Association is reporting a strong outburst on Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann. On Dec. 8th, the volcanic comet suddenly brightened 16-fold (3 magnitudes) when a sunlit vent opened, spewing 'cryomagma' into space. Eliot Herman photographed the first stages of the outburst using a remote-controlled telescope in Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile:
"According to Mission 29P, a significant coma (cloud of debris) will likely develop in the next days from the cryovolcano eruption," says Herman.
Comet 29P is one of the strangest objects in the solar system. In fact, it strains the definition of "comet." 29P is a ball of ice 60 km wide (much larger than a typical comet) trapped in a planet-like orbit between Jupiter and Saturn. It appears to be festooned with ice volcanoes which erupt ~20 times a year.
29P rotates once every 57.7 days. As sunlight sweeps across its frozen surface, cryovolcanoes erupt under the high sun. This weekend's eruption comes 2 x 57 days after a similar eruption in August 2023, suggesting that it is a repeat blast from a particularly active volcano.
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