North
Alabamians Can View Rare Comet May 12-13;
NASA
Astronomer to Discuss Best Viewing at May 10 Media
Briefing
Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256.544.0034)
Media advisory: 06-063
What: To preview a disintegrating comet
that will be viewable from North Alabama in
mid-May, NASA astronomer Bill Cooke from NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.,
will speak with the media May 10 about this unique
phenomenon. The 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 – the
73rd recognized periodic comet in our solar system
-- will be viewable to North Alabama residents
using a telescope or binoculars during the first
couple of weeks in May.
Discovered in 1930, the comet comes nearest to the
Earth every 5 years. In 1995, the comet began to
disintegrate. As of March 2006, at least 40
different fragments of the comet are known to be
flying through the solar system. These fragments
are expected to fly closest to the Earth around
May 12, at a distance of approximately 7.3 million
miles -- about 30 times the distance from Earth to
the moon.
Cooke and other astronomers will be watching the
bright comet fragments to calculate their various
trajectories for future years. The fragments can
be seen low in the northeastern sky beginning
around 11:30 p.m. CDT, Friday, May 12, with the
best viewing at 4 a.m., Saturday, May 13, in the
eastern sky, said Cooke.
Who: Bill Cooke, meteor shower forecaster
in the Marshall Center's Engineering Directorate
When: 10 a.m. CDT, Wednesday, May 10
Where: Marshall Center Bldg. 4200 Press
Room
To attend: News media interested in
covering the event should contact Steve Roy of the
Marshall Public and Employee Communications Office
at (256) 544-0034. Media must report to the
Redstone Joint Visitor Control Center at Gate 9,
Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout
Road/Research Park Boulevard. Vehicles are subject
to a security search at the gate. News media will
need two photo identifications and proof of car
insurance. Visitor parking is available in front
of Bldg. 4200 on the southwest side.
Space Weather News for May 10, 2006
http://spaceweather.com
HERE THEY COME: More than 60 fragments of dying comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
are racing toward Earth. There's no danger of a collision. At closest approach
on May 12th through 16th, the mini-comets will be 6 million miles away.
That is close enough, however, for a marvelous view through backyard telescopes.
Many of the fragments are themselves crumbling, producing clouds of gas and dust
mixed with boulder-sized debris. As some fragments fade, others brighten,
surprising onlookers. It's an amazing display.
Visit http://spaceweather.com for sky maps, updates and images from around the
world
Crumbling comet may spark future meteors
Astronomers study how Comet SW-3’s debris will affect show in 2022
This infrared image of Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann
3,
based on readings taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
from May 4 to 6, shows at least distinct 36 fragments
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior space writer
Updated: 3:48 p.m. ET May 10, 2006
A new and detailed view of a crumbling comet will help
astronomers figure out how strong a predicted meteor shower in 2022 will be.
Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, or just SW-3, began
fracturing in 1995. The breakup has accelerated in recent weeks as the comet
again approaches the sun, as it does every 5.3 years.
Spitzer has returned an infrared
image of the scene, revealing three dozen chunks in addition to a broad
stripe in the sky created by smaller pebbles and dust. The material glows in
infrared because it is heated by the sun.
On each orbit around the sun, the comet lays down a new
debris stream along a slightly different path. Each stream spreads out over
time. When Earth passes near the comet's dusty trails every year, bits of debris
burn up in our atmosphere, creating a minor meteor shower called the Tau
Herculids.
In 2022, a recent study concluded, Earth is expected to
cross closer to the comet's main trails, potentially producing a heavier meteor
shower. Another spike could occur in 2049.
Caltech scientist William Reach, who led the Spitzer
observations, said they might change expectations for 2022.
Reach said it is unlikely the 2022 event will be a
major one like the spectacular Leonid
meteor showers in recent years.
"But the door's open," Reach said in a
telephone interview
He said the big chunks coming off the comet move
backward before dispersing, something that is not predicted in existing computer
models. So to forecast what Earth will plow through in 2022 will now require
some reworking of the models. Images and data of the comet provided
recently by the Hubble Space Telescope will also go into that effort, he
said.
It could take a year or more to do the detailed new
simulations, Reach said.
Meanwhile, backyard skywatchers have been tracking the
comet's disintegration, and there are a few days left to catch
the view.
© 2006 Space.com. All rights reserved. More
from Space.com.
Houston, she's breaking up
|
Larry O'Hanlon
|
Friday, 12 May 2006
|
|
|
Fragment B of Comet 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 and some of the
mini-comets that have broken off (Image: Subaru Telescope)
|
Giant telescopes around the world are capturing more spectacular views of
the near-Earth disintegration of Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3.
The comet is now comprised of scores of fragments and zillions of tinier
pieces.
A new infrared image from the Spitzer
Space Telescope of the unfolding destruction captures what looks like a
line of steam engines following a common cosmic track.
Each 'engine' is a comet fragment boiling away plumes of dust and gas as they
are blasted by the solar wind.
The track the fragments are following is a line of Sun-warmed comet debris,
dust and fine sand, that the comet left in space on its previous 5.4-year
cycles around the Sun.
"We hadn't seen that with this comet," says astronomer Michael
Kelley, a doctoral student at the University
of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and member of the team that made the Spitzer
telescope observations.
"It's been suspected because it's associated with a meteor shower."
Comet debris streams linked to specific comets, like that seen in the
Spitzer image, are the cause of many regular, predictable meteor showers.
When Earth ploughs through the debris at the same point of its orbit each
year, the debris burns up in our atmosphere, creating a meteor shower.
Following the debris trail
The astronomers are hoping that by measuring the brightness of the extent
of the debris trail, which can't be see in visible light, they can find out
whether most of the comet vaporises from evaporating ice, the house-sized
chunks seen in recent Hubble
Space Telescope images, or by way of meteor-sized debris seen in the
Spitzer images.
"We suspect that every comet goes through an episode like this,"
says Kelley of those comets that don't die by plunging into the Sun or into a
planet.
It's the details that have been elusive, and why Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann
3's break-up so conveniently near Earth is getting so much attention.
Yesterday, for instance, some brand new visible light images of the comet from
3 May were released by astronomers who caught the disintegration drama with
the 8.2-metre Subaru
Telescope in Hawaii.
"Compared to observations five days before by VLT [the Very Large
Telescope, in Chile], we see some more parts coming off," says Dr
Catherine Ishida of the National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan, which operates the Subaru Telescope on
Mauna Kea.
One Subaru close-up of the wake of the comet's 'Fragment B' shows distinct
miniature comets dropping away in the wake. Subaru astronomers have counted 13
such mini-comets.
Big telescopes will continue to take turns looking at the comet when there is
time and until the comet is too close to the Sun for the telescopes to look
without damaging their instruments.
Ishida says each new view tells another part of the story.
"The key thing is that the comet is changing rapidly," she says.
Related Stories
X-rays Fly as Cracking Comet
Streaks Across the Sky
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Friday, May 12, 2006
Source: Goddard Space Flight
Center
Scientists using NASA's Swift satellite have detected X-rays
from a comet that is now passing the Earth and rapidly disintegrating on what
could be its final orbit around the sun.
Swift's observations provide a rare opportunity to investigate
several ongoing mysteries about comets and our solar system, and hundreds of
scientists have tuned in to the event.
The comet, called 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, is visible with
even a small, backyard telescope. Peak brightness is expected next week, when it
comes within 7.3 million miles of Earth, or about 30 times the distance to the
Moon. There is no threat to Earth, however.
This is the brightest comet ever detected in X-rays. The comet
is so close that astronomers are hoping to determine not only the composition of
the comet but also of the solar wind. Scientists think that atomic particles
that comprise the solar wind interact with comet material to produce X-rays, a
theory that Swift might prove true.
Three world-class X-ray observatories now in orbit---NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European-led XMM-Newton, and the Japanese-led
Suzaku---will observe the comet in the coming weeks. Like a scout, Swift has
provided information to these larger facilities about what to look for. This
type of observation can only take place in the X-ray waveband.
"The Schwassmann-Wachmann comet is a comet like no
other," said Scott Porter of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., part of the Swift observation team. "During its 1996
passage it broke apart. Now we are tracking about three dozen fragments. The
X-rays being produced provide information never before revealed."
The situation is reminiscent of the Deep Impact probe, which
penetrated comet Tempel 1 about a year ago. This time, nature itself has broken
the comet. Because Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is much closer to both the Earth and
the sun than Tempel 1 was, it currently appears about 20 times brighter in
X-rays. Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 passes Earth about every five years. Scientists
could not anticipate how bright it would become in X-rays this time around.
"The Swift observations are amazing," said Greg Brown
of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., who led the
proposal for Swift observation time. "Because we are viewing the comet in
X-rays, we can see many unique features. The combined results of data from
several premier orbiting observatories will be spectacular."
Swift is primarily a gamma-ray burst detector. The satellite
also has X-ray and ultraviolet/optical telescopes. Because of its burst-hunting
ability to turn rapidly, Swift has been able to track the progress of the
fast-moving Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 comet. Swift is the first observatory to
simultaneously observe the comet in both ultraviolet light and X-rays. This
cross comparison is crucial for testing theories about comets.
Swift and the other three X-ray observatories plan to combine
forces to observe Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 closely. Through a technique called
spectroscopy, scientists hope to determine the chemical structure of the comet.
Already Swift has detected oxygen and hints of carbon. These elements are from
the solar wind, not the comet.
Scientists think that X-rays are produced through a process
called charge exchange, in which highly (and positively) charged particles from
the sun that lack electrons steal electrons from chemicals in the comet. Typical
comet material includes water, methane and carbon dioxide. Charge exchange is
analogous to the tiny spark seen in static electricity, only at a far greater
energy.
By comparing the ratio of X-ray energies emitted, scientists can
determine the content of the solar wind and infer the content of the comet
material. Swift, Chandra, XMM-Newton and Suzaku each provide complementary
capabilities to nail down this tricky measurement. The combination of these
observations will provide a time evolution of the X-ray emission of the comet as
it navigates through our solar system
Porter and his colleagues at Goddard and Lawrence Livermore
tested the charge exchange theory in an earthbound laboratory in 2003. That
experiment, at Livermore's EBIT-I electron beam ion trap, produced a complex
spectrograph of intensity versus X-ray energy for a variety of expected elements
in the solar wind and comet. "We are anxious to compare nature's laboratory
to the one we created," Porter said.
The German-led ROSAT mission, now decommissioned, was the first
to detect X-rays from a comet, from Hyakutake in 1996. This was a great
surprise. It took about five years before scientists had a suitable explanation
for X-ray emission. Now, ten years after Hyakutake, scientists could settle the
mystery.
For Swift images of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/swift
COMET
SIDEKICK:
Fragment B of crumbling
comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has a tiny sidekick, shown here in
images from astronomer Paolo Corelli
of the Mandi Observatory in Pagnacco, Italy:
The
"sidekick" is probably a chunk of dusty ice that broke away from
Fragment B, which has been crumbling
furiously for weeks. Comet 73P made its closest approach to Earth on May
14th. It is still nearby (6 million miles away) and an easy target for backyard
telescopes. Look for it around 4 o'clock in the morning in the
constellation Pegasus: sky
map.
more
images: from
Rudolf Dobesberger of Austria; from
Paolo Candy in the Cimini Mountains of Italy.
Meteor
shower sparks alarm
16may06
SOUTH-east Queensland residents have
been startled by a bright, green ball of streaking light that initially sparked
fears of a plane crash.
A police spokeswoman said the suspected meteor was seen travelling east to west
in the region from Bribie Island, across the Sunshine and Gold Coasts as far
inland as Warwick.
She said a Warwick farmer alerted police about 6.30pm (AEST)
of what he thought was a "fire ball" from a plane crashing on his
property.
A search of the area found nothing.
Police were then inundated by sightings of a "green ball
of light".
Andre Claydon of the Springbrook Observatory near the Gold
Coast said he had received scores of sightings of what he thought was a meteor
shower from across the region.
He said the meteor shower would have appeared much closer
than it actually was.
"As it comes in through our atmosphere we get a
magnification effect so it always looks a lot closer but it is probably 60 to
70km inside our atmosphere," he said on ABC Radio.
"I had a number of phone calls specifically from the
eastern part of Australia regarding a meteor shower that has come through and
broken up into a few pieces."
The Astronomical Association of Queensland's Peter Hall told
ABC Radio: "It sounds like a meteor to me.
"Most of them are the size of a grain of sand but this
one must have been
larger."
5-17-06
-
Comet's tail 'caused Qld light show'
Astronomers are predicting
Queenslanders could see more meteorites over the next few days, if last
night's spectacular light show was the result of a comet that passed by the
Earth over the weekend.
A bright green ball of light was seen
in many parts of Queensland about 6:30pm AEST.
Andre Claydon, from the Springbrook
Observatory, says the comet is the most likely explanation for the rare
phenomenon.
"There is a comet that has just
gone past and we're passing through the debris tail of this comet," he
said.
"This could be a fragment from the
comet itself.
"Over the next two or three days
we should see more of this happening, because the Earth is stilling passing
through the debris tail of this comet."
But a South Burnett astronomer says the
spectacle was probably the result of space junk entering the earth's
atmosphere.
Jim Barclay, from the Maidenwell
Observatory, says the light could not have been caused by a meteorite.
"Most meteors do not, and I
repeat, do not appear of the green-blue fluorescent colours that these people
described," he said.
"Metallic substances tend to burn
up and give you that greeny-blue fluorescent colours where meteors are
generally white in nature."
Green light
Paul, from Coolum on the Sunshine
Coast, says he was driving away from Brisbane when he saw the giant ball of
green light.
"One bloke just said, 'Wow, look
at that' and it was just right across the sky," he said.
"It was massive and it was green.
"At the main body of it, there
were actually parts of it falling down to the ground."
Steve, from the bayside suburb of
Birkdale, was travelling in a plane over Casino at 11,000 when he saw it break
up in front of him.
"It was just amazing," he
said.
"It just looked like it was just
in front of us.
"It was very white from up there -
just sort of went out in front of us and we saw ... red bits falling and then
it just went out."
Send us your pictures. Email your pictures and video to ABC
News Online or send them via MMS to 0448 859 894 (+61 448 859 894 if
you're overseas.) Email address: yourpics@your.abc.net.au
Comet debris turns on a spectacular
display in night sky
18.05.2006
| By WILL JACKSON
EVER wanted
to know what a fridge hurtling
through the atmosphere at
57,000km/h looks like?
Well, even
if you haven't,
watch the skies tonight and you
might be able to see.
The huge
fireball that swooped across the sky
about 6.20pm on Tuesday was actually
a refrigerator-sized
hunk of comet, astronomer Andre
Claydon said yesterday.
The Earth is
passing through debris left by Comet
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann which has
broken up into about 64 pieces, said
the director of observation at the
Springbrook Observatory near the
Gold Coast.
Some of these pieces were hitting
the atmosphere and would continue to
create a spectacular light show for
another five days.
|
However,
they were unlikely to be quite as
incredible as Tuesday night's
meteor, which caused quite a stir
across the region.
A police
spokeswoman said it was seen
travelling west as far inland as
Warwick in Queensland.
She said a Warwick farmer alerted
police about 6.30pm of what he
thought was a fireball from a plane
crashing on his property.
However a search of the area found
nothing.
Police were then inundated by
sightings of a ˜green ball of light'
.
Andre said
the meteor shower would have
appeared much closer than it
actually was.
"As it comes in through our
atmosphere we get a magnification
effect, so it always looks a lot
closer, but it is probably 60 to
70km inside our atmosphere," he
said.
"I had a number of phone calls
specifically from the eastern part
of Australia regarding a meteor
shower that has come through and
broken up into a few pieces."
|
|
Fireball
over Texas Mt.
Wilson concam Forum
URGENT NOTE: As soon as a fireball is sighted PLEASE do
the concams immediately from the live data, otherwise it
takes a grueling and less certain search through archives.
Carry a personal camera everywhere! EMAIL
KENT-STEADMAN
Subject: Fireball sighted 5/20/2006
9:50:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time
I
was outside last night at midnight taking pictures of comet
fragments and debris (which is not hard to do anymore)
Jupiter, Vega etc. Clouds started rolling in and I was
getting ready to wrap it up when at 12:55 am this morning a
fireball came in above the clouds. I only caught a glimpse
of it, didn’t have the chance to take a pic but it lit up
the entire sky due NE of NE Philadelphia a bright greenish
and blue. It lasted about 4-5 seconds max. Unable to confirm
on the concams. I will report it to the fireball site. It
was the same color as the one over Australia but not quite
as big. I waited outside for another hour with the camera at
the ready, but nothing else came.
[seems to be a streak
on Mt. Wilson Cam, may not quite match loc/time]
|
What it looks like:
FIREBALL
May 4, 2006, astronomer Jim Gamble caught one flying
over El Paso, Texas
The
May 4th bolide was different. It appeared at 9:45
p.m. local time, well before bedtime, over a
densely populated area. Thousands of people saw
it. Indeed, how could they miss it? It was
brighter than the Moon, which also appears in the
video--the stationary light at bottom-right.
Bolides:
another good reason to keep looking up.
|
Subject: Need to know your opinion 73 slowing down?
5/19/2006 6:55:00 AM Pacific Daylight
Time
Hi Kent, please take
a look this two different location of this comet please.
The drawnig was posted today on the spaceweather.com
and the picture starrynight.com
Forum
Exercise
Pacific Wave '06 <<careful these
reports are not to designate a comet impact, but
interesting!
NASA
to Look into NEO Threat Response Proposals Call
For Papers: Near-Earth Object Detection, Characterization,
and Threat Mitigation
A
light meteor shower should also occur starting
late next week as tiny bits of comet crash into the Earth's
atmosphere. For the best views, dodge city lights by driving
into the San Gabriel Mountains or heading for the desert.
Forum
Jack
Drummond of the Starfire Optical Range predicts that
debris shed by the comet many years ago (long before the
1995 breakup) could bring us a meteor shower on the night of
May 22–23
ALMOST
GONE:
Comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3 is receding from Earth
and about to disappear into the glare of the sun--but it's
not gone yet. Darrell
Spangler photographed two of the comet's fragments (B
and C) shining through the morning twilight of Drake,
Colorado, on May 21st:
"Clouds
and moon and sunrise, oh my!" says Spangler. "Talk
about challenging, but persistence paid off." No
telescope was required for the shot, only a Canon EOS 300D
camera and a good long exposure.
Ready
for the challenge? Load your camera and set your alarm for
4:30 in the morning. The crescent moon will guide you
straight to the comet: sky
map.
5/19/2006 9:00:00 AM
To: National and International desks
Contact: Craig Boswell of http://www.savelivesinmay.com,
832-252-6406, craigboswell@gmail.com
HOUSTON, May 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Eric Julien,
former military air traffic controller, twin engine jet
pilot and former instructor at astronaut Patrick Baudry's
Space Camp -- Discovery Shuttle flight -- has written four
articles covering the high probability of a giant tsunami
in the Atlantic Ocean caused by the impact of a comet
fragment near or on May 25.
Responding to NASA's press release stating the
innocuousness of the fragmented comet 73P-SW3 with regards
to the Earth, the French author of "The
Science of the Extraterrestrials" indicates that
numerous scientific data attest to a real danger as was
laid out starting with his first article of early April,
namely that a small-sized fragment, still unobservable and
distant from the principal fragments, could hit the
Atlantic Ocean, bringing about the awakening of the
volcanoes of the mid-Atlantic ridge, with these being the
origin of a possible tsunami with waves two hundred meters
high.
Beyond the accumulated scientific data, Julien has
drawn attention to the fact that FEMA, the American
organization that deals with disasters -- c.f. the Katrina
hurricane in Louisiana - - will proceed with a tsunami
alert exercise between the 23rd and 25th of May, at the
very same time that enormous human and logistical
resources will be required for the giant tsunami he is
announcing. He notes that such an exercise was scheduled
for September 11, 2001 in New York, date of the collapse
of the World Trade Center.
Julien declares that numerous prophecies, including
those of Nostradamus, Mother Shipton and of the Bible
Codes converge precisely towards this critical period of
the end of May 2006. Likewise, a great number of persons
have declared having experienced Atlantic tsunami dreams
prior to his first press release.
The major preoccupation of a growing number of
professionals is to preserve human lives by inviting the
media to play their role in alerting the public at large.
Julien declares: "the risk of planetary catastrophe
merits that precautions proportional to the stakes be
taken by the media and government authorities. The level
of alert adopted by each of these could be appreciated in
diverse fashions by the populations exposed to the
risk."
Articles and maps of the areas at risk are available
on http://www.savelivesinmay.com
and http://www.savelivesinmayforum.com
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-0-
/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
| Comet
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has been passing
Earth all month as it approaches the point
nearest the sun in its orbit. Astronomers have
been observing this comet for more than 75
years, and its path around the sun is well
known. |
| The
comet's nucleus has broken into more than 40
fragments. None of the pieces will come closer
than 5.5 million miles to Earth during the
comet's closest approaches May 12-28.
Thankfully, neither the main comet nor any of
its pieces poses a danger to Earth.
The main fragment will
pass closest to Earth on May 12 at a distance of
7.3 million miles. It will be visible in small
telescopes during the hours before morning
twilight in the constellation Vulpecula.
|
http://www.spaceweather.com
METEOR WATCH: On May
31st, Earth will pass about five million miles from the
dusty orbit of crumbling comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3.
The great distance means a meteor shower is unlikely; but
73P is such a strange comet that even the unlikely is
possible. Be alert for meteors slowly cutting across the
sky in the nights ahead.
INCOMING???
OTHER OBJECTS IN THE SKY THIS MONTH
|
May 24: An hour before
sunrise on Thursday, watch for a thin old
crescent Moon rising in the east-northeast, 16
degrees to the lower left of Venus.
May 25: On Friday
about 1-1/4 hours before sunrise, Venus is just
to the east of Jupiter in the west-southwest. A
very thin crescent Moon, just 19 hours 54
minutes before New, is visible in binoculars 29
degrees to the lower left of Venus and only two
degrees up in the east-northeast. If you spot
this hairline crescent on Friday morning, then
you've accomplished the first and more difficult
task in the rare sighting of a pair of opposing
lunar crescents on consecutive days. The second,
easier crescent can be spotted soon after sunset
on Saturday evening.
May 26: The Moon can't
be seen this evening, because it's New, nearly
between Earth and the Sun, at 11:26 p.m. local
time. Your next chance to see the Moon will be
early in evening twilight on Saturday if Arizona
City's skies are clear, it should be quite easy
to catch the young crescent within 24 hours
after New.
May 27: A very thin
crescent Moon is five degrees up in the
west-northwest. As an extra bonus, the planet
Mercury appears within three degrees to Luna's
lower left. As the sky darkens, both the Moon
and Mercury may become visible to the unaided
eye.
May 28: The Moon is an
easy sight low in the west-northwest with
Mercury within 11 degrees to its lower right.
Tonight the Moon sets farther north than on any
other night in this lunar cycle.
May 29: Forty-five
minutes after sunset, look for Mercury very low,
22 degrees to the lower right of the crescent
Moon in the west-northwest. Faint Mars is 14
degrees to the Moon's upper left. Saturn is now
within 10 degrees to the upper left of Mars.
May 30: Faint Mars is
about three degrees to the Moon's left, and the
Gemini Twins (Pollux and Castor) are a few
degrees to the Moon's right. Tonight these three
objects: Mars-Pollux-Castor, lie in a straight
line.
May 31: This evening
within an hour after sunset, five solar system
bodies: Mercury, Mars, Moon with Saturn and
Jupiter (in that order), span 135 degrees across
the sky from west-northwest to southeast. The
bright "star" below the Moon tonight
is Saturn.
Planetary Guide
The word planet
originates from the ancient Greek word "planetta,"
which literally translates to our word
"wanderer."
Mercury is hidden in
the glare of the Sun.
Venus is the bright
"Morning Star" low in the east at
dawn.
Mars glows orange-red
in the west near the Gemini Twins Pollux and
Castor.
Jupiter is by far the
brightest light in the southeast.
Ringed planet Saturn
shines pale yellow high in the west during the
evening hours this month, between the
constellations Gemini and Leo.
Uranus is low in the
east-southeast just before dawn.
Neptune is in the
southeast just before dawn.
Distant planet Pluto
is high in the south before dawn.
The tenth planet Xena,
officially known as 2003 UB313, is behind the
glare of the Sun. This is Earth's "tenth
planet," discovered just last year. Many
advanced amateurs with powerful (and expensive)
digital image capturing setups have imaged it.
Last October 9, amateur Keith Murdock of the
Rockland Astronomy Club (in NY) became the first
known human to see the tenth planet visually. He
was one of a group of amateurs using the large,
82-inch Otto Struve Telescope at the McDonald
Observatory in Texas.
Believe It Or Not!
The discovery team is
informally calling the object (and its moon)
Xena and Gabrielle respectively, for the TV
warrior princess and her companion. Official
names for them may be decided by the
International Astronomical Union in August 2006.
|
JUNE, 2006
Record meteorite hit Norway
As Wednesday morning
dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact
comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
Peter Bruvold witnessed
the meteorite streaking across the night sky.
PHOTO:
PETER BRUVOLD
The map shows the
meteorite's direction of fall (the arrow) and
the possible impact area over Troms and
Finnmark counties.
|
At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of
the northern part of Troms and the western areas of
Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking
several seconds to travel across the sky.
A few minutes later an impact could be heard and
geophysics and seismology research foundation NORSAR
registered a powerful sound and seismic disturbances
at 02:13.25 a.m. at their station in Karasjok.
Farmer Peter Bruvold was out on his farm in
Lyngseidet with a camera because his mare Virika was
about to foal for the first time.
"I saw a brilliant flash of light in the
sky, and this became a light with a tail of
smoke," Bruvold told Aftenposten.no. He
photographed the object and then continued to tend to
his animals when he heard an enormous crash.
"I heard the bang seven minutes later. It
sounded like when you set off a solid charge of
dynamite a kilometer (0.62 miles) away," Bruvold
said.
Astronomers were excited by the news.
"There were ground tremors, a house shook
and a curtain was blown into the house," Norway's
best known astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard
told Aftenposten.no.
Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible
to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the
brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The
meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North
Troms.
"This is simply exceptional. I cannot
imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite
impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was
as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it
to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not
radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to
compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard
said.
The astronomer believes the meteorite was a
giant rock and probably the largest known to have
struck Norway.
"The record was the Alta meteorite that
landed in 1904. That one was 90 kilos (198 lbs) but we
think the meteorite that landed Wednesday was
considerably larger," Røed Ødegaard said, and
urged members of the public who saw the object or may
have found remnants to contact the Institute of
Astrophysics.
Aftenposten's Norwegian reporter
Nina
Lødemel
Aftenposten English Web Desk
Jonathan
Tisdall
|
MAY 25, 2006
- the Day of Destiny!
By Eric Julien -
April 11, 2006
.
What will occur on May 25, 2006?
Perhaps
a planetary catastrophe originating from the
Atlantic Ocean
due to a medium size impact event. On
this assumption, a series of giant waves, including one méga tsunami
almost two hundred meters in height, will be born from a succession of
underwater eruptions. These
watery giants, decreasing with distance, will touch the majority of the
Atlantic coasts; in particular, those most at risk lie between the
equator and the tropic of Cancer. The
victims of
May 25 2006
will be tens of millions. The devastated survivors will be more numerous
still. The economic losses
will be enormous, well beyond the scales of destruction hitherto tested
by our civilization. North
America and
Europe
will not be saved, but will be affected in less dramatic proportions.
By extension, other remote countries will be also affected.
A
heavenly object, hardly larger than a truck, but animated by an enormous
kinetic energy - its speed will be approximately 40 kilometers/second -
will strike the Earth after having crossed the thick atmosphere of
80 kilometers
, then the oceanic depths of
1500 meters
at this place, to reach and shake the zone of the dorsal the
mid-Atlantic rift crossing from North to the South on the Atlantic ocean
floor. Currently, tens of underwater volcanoes lie largely dormant,
ejecting very small quantities of magma emerging from gigantic chambers.
They will break out, heating the sea water to a boiling point.
It is the vision that I had approximately three years ago.[i] It happened again on
April 7 2006
at
10 pm
while I meditated on the shores of the Pacific with two other people.
I received information supplementing this vision: the date,
MAY 25, 2006
!
The
size of this space object will be too small for our telescopes since it
will be a small lagging fragment of a comet. Scientists will be
surprised by this object, having little time to see it coming, hardly a
few dozen hours. This
fragment will result most probably from the comet 73P
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3[ii] currently
designed to pass closest to the Earth on May 14, 2006; a little more
than ten million kilometers according to the simulation carried out by
NASA.[iii] That is 25 times the
distance separating the Earth from the moon.[iv] We see below the position
of the comet when it is closest to the Earth according to different
angles provided by the NASA simulation.
The last time that this
comet passed so close to the Earth by crossing the ecliptic plane was
on
MAY 25, 1947
! It is year zero of the
UFO era with the famous observations of Kenneth Arnold and the
Roswell
crash. This comet, which
spends five years in a plane orbiting the Earth, moves at its maximum
to a distance of 900 million kilometers (more than six times the
distance from the Earth to the sun) started to split up for
unexplainable reasons in 1995.
Imagine a heavenly object stable for centuries, even for millennia, which mysteriously explodes apart by chance a few months after the
launching of the American Star Wars program, intended for an enemy
originating from space. This heavenly object [the comet] transforms
itself then into a POTENTIAL PLANETARY WEAPON.
Imagine a crop circle showing the solar system, MISSING the EARTH
[i] which does not appear on its proper
orbit, a few weeks after this fragmentation.
Imagine that this crop circle shows the position of the planets
corresponding to the date
May 14, 2006
; the date of the closest approach of the comet, with the planet Mars
slightly later, to show that the best date is after May 14 contrary to
expectations.
Imagine another crop circle a few weeks later indicating the date of
September 6, 2003
; the date on which was received the extraterrestrial world message
"Do you wish us to Show Up?" A message spread in several
languages around the world, inviting the people of the Earth to peace
with extraterrestrials by accepting a public demonstration of their
presence.
Imagine that the individual that received this ‘World message’, as
well as the date of
MAY 25, 2006
, also received a scientific solution to the UFO mystery and of the
fundamental motivation of the extraterrestrial visitors. Two
impenetrable enigmas until the present.
You will then have an idea of what is at stake with this article.
Above is the 1995 crop
circle called “Missing Earth”. It shows the solar system out to
the asteroid belt. The
Earth is missing in its orbit which, as is illustrated here, is
suggesting the extinction of human civilization.
The message here
cannot be more clear!
Moving now to the date of the
planetary simulation for
May 14, 2006
; for centuries the comet Schwassmann-Wachmann
has made hundreds of revolutions around the sun while remaining whole.
Since the beginning of its fragmentation in 1995, it has made
two elliptic revolutions around the sun.
This is why the fragments have had time to deviate from/to each
other as the photograph below shows.
At the time of its passage in 2001, at the same place on the
ecliptic, the Earth was almost contrary to its current position.
This year 2006, on the other hand, the Earth and the comet
coincide in their orbits perfectly.
The figures are based on NASA space simulations in this article
only show us the largest of the fragments, fragment B, the current
count of the known fragments goes to the letter N.
We find today the comet, eleven
years after this incomprehensible fragmentation, in an
unverifiable state of dispersion.
We do not know the exact number of fragments.
They are furthermore of variable sizes.
The closer the fragmented comet approaches the Earth, there
will be more fragments. You
can note the distance that separated the two fragments, B and C,
February 6, 2006
in the photo below.[i]
In the same way, eleven
days after the closest approach on
May 14, 2006
, the comet, or rather fragment
B, will cross the ecliptic plane exactly on
MAY 25, 2006
! But the comet
travels faster than the Earth, and because it follows a parallel
trajectory, any danger will seem isolated.
It should be up to seventeen million kilometers in front of the
Earth when it crosses the ecliptic path of our planet around the sun.
It is a little like a
bullet train that overtakes us as we travel parallel to it on the
road. Our ways will cross,
but not having the same speed, the train will be far in front of us at
the time when we get to the level crossing.
But - there is a big ‘but’ here – all the train coaches
will perhaps not have passed on
May 25, 2006
. The characterist |
