Tag: Spaceweather

Asteroid double flyby!

Reprinted from SpaceWeather.com On Sept. 7, a newly discovered asteroid about the size of a large grey whale flew over the south pole of Earth only 25,000 miles away. For scale, that’s only a few thousand miles above the orbits of typical geosynchronous satellites. After the Earth flyby, the space rock turned and headed in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://twfendley.com/asteroid-double-flyby/

Comet ISON outburst

Reprinted from http://spaceweather.com Observers around the world are reporting a sharp increase in the brightness of sundiving Comet ISON. Formerly dim, it is now on the threshold of naked-eye visibility. Comet ISON is plunging toward the sun for a perilous pass through the solar atmosphere on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28th).  This could be the first of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://twfendley.com/comet-ison-outburst/

This weekend: Meteors and Super Moon

Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower.  The shower peaks this weekend on May 5th and 6th.  Glare from a perigee full Moon–a “Super Moon”–will interfere with the display.  Nevertheless, observers especially in the southern hemisphere could still see dozens of meteors during the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://twfendley.com/this-weekend-meteors-and-super-moon/

Mini-van size meteor explodes over CA

SIERRA FIREBALL DECODED: An explosion over California that rattled homes across at least two states on Sunday, April 22, has been analyzed by NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office:  It was a natural meteoroid the size of a mini-van. Analysts say the space rock exploded in the atmosphere with an energy equal to nearly 4 kilotons of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://twfendley.com/mini-van-size-meteor-explodes-over-ca/