The blast hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) not-quite-directly toward Earth. A glancing blow from the cloud on Sept. 3rd set in motion the current spate of geomagnetic storms. www.spaceweather.com
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID: A relatively large asteroid, just discovered on August 28th, will fly past the Earth-Moon system on Sept 14th only 2.8 million km (7.4 lunar distances) away. 2012 QG42 is about as wide as three football fields and comes to us from just beyond the orbit of Mars. Astronomers who are now monitoring the space rock say it shines about as brightly as a 15th magnitude star. [3D orbit] [ephemeris] MORE STORMING: Earth's polar magnetic field remains stormy and unsettled two days after the CME impact of Sept. 3rd. A moderately strong (Kp=5 to 6) geomagnetic storm is underway now, sparking bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. THE SOURCE OF THE ACTION: The ongoing geomagnetic storms were caused, originally, by an eruption on the sun. NASA has just released new high-resolution images of the giant magnetic filament that snapped on August 31st: Each panel shows the eruption in a different wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. By comparing the colors, which trace different temperatures and densities of solar plasma, researchers can learn more about the dynamics of filaments--and maybe one day to predict when they will erupt.
The blast hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) not-quite-directly toward Earth. A glancing blow from the cloud on Sept. 3rd set in motion the current spate of geomagnetic storms. www.spaceweather.com
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Periodic comet 96P/Maccholz is passing by the sun today deep inside the orbit of Mercury. At closest approach, the icy visitor from the outer solar system will be less than 12 million miles (0.13 AU) from the solar surface. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are monitoring the encounter: [go to: www.spaceweather.com] "Discovered in 1986, Comet 96P/Machholz is a fascinating comet that has passed through SOHO coronagraph images four times now," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab. "It's not a huge comet but it is very photogenic, and puts on quite a display with its beautiful dusty tail."
In an essay posted on his web site, Battams explains why the comet is so fascinating. Many researchers suspect 96P/Machholz is not a native of our solar system; some chemical evidence suggests it came from another star. Also, 96P/Machholz appears to be dynamically related (that is, the comet's orbit is related) to a diverse collection of other objects in the solar system including asteroid 2003 EH1 and the Quadrantid, Southern Delta Aquariid, and daytime Arietid meteoroid streams. All of these things--the asteroid, the comet, and the meteoroids--might be fragments of a single "foreign" body that broke apart thousands of years ago. Comet 96P/Machholz will be visible in SOHO coronagraphs until July 17th. Battams believes the comet will reach a peak brightness of 2nd magnitude--not its best show. "But who knows," he says, "maybe Comet Machholz will do something completely and utterly unexpected like fragment into a swarm of Machholzlets." Join SOHO for a ringside seat. www.spaceweather.com
Grampian Police said reports of people seeing a “flare or a bright object with a tail” were received from across the region. And Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said numerous calls were made about a “large ball of fire in the sky” across Annandale and Eskdale. One user wrote on the force’s Facebook page: “It was awesome to see! Really big and bright!” Hundreds of people took to Twitter to report similar sightings across Scotland and the north of England. People described seeing a bright fireball moving across the sky with a large tail. The Kielder Observatory also reported the sighting of a “huge fireball” travelling from north to south over Northumberland at 9.41pm. The Observatory posted on Twitter: “Of 30 years observing the sky, this fireball is the best thing I have ever seen period.” –Telegraph
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A spaceship could either shoot the asteroid down or simply crash into it – this would either break it into pieces or throw it off course. NASA expert David Dunham suggested: “We could paint it.” The paint would change the asteroid’s ability to reflect sunlight, alter its spin and change its temperature. However, even taking the asteroid off course could be dangerous when it returns in 2056, according to Aleksandr Devaytkin the head of the observatory in Russia’s Pulkovo, as told to Izvestia in Russia recently. The asteroid’s closest approach to earth is scheduled for 15 February 2013, when they predict that the distance between it and earth will be under 27,000 km (16,700 miles).
Earth’s gravity: Earth could capture an asteroid, but only under certain conditions. The asteroid would have to be a certain size, traveling at just the right speed, and grazing by Earth at just the right angle. For example, a bus-sized asteroid grazing Earth’s atmosphere might be captured by our planet’s gravity. Afterward, moon’s gravity might pull it into a stable orbit above Earth – to give Earth a second moon. Planetary scientists believe that asteroid capture was common billions of years ago. The planets are thought to have formed by a process of “accretion” – where small chunks of debris came together to form larger chunks. So there were lots more chunks – what we now call “asteroids” – moving through the solar system back then. –Earth-Sky–Digital Journal http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/
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