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05 September 2008
Kuiper Belt Object Travelling the Wrong-Way in a One-Way Solar System
A strange Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) has been discovered orbiting the Sun in the wrong direction. The object, designated as 2008 KV42 but nicknamed Drac (after Dracula, as vampires are fabled to have the ability to walk on walls), has a highly inclined orbit of 103.5°. Drac is a rarity as very few objects in [...]
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03 September 2008
Asteroid Imposters
A frequent plot device in the old "Mission: Impossible" television show was the special masks the IMF team used so they could impersonate anyone. Viewers were often surprised to find out who ended up being an imposter. Likewise, astronomers and planetary scientists are considering that a fair amount of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) [...]
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13 July 2008
Comet W1 Boattini Now Visible For Northern Skies
I wanted to see it myself before I said anything - but now it's confirmed. Comet W1 Boattini is now visible in the northern hemisphere! So what if you have to get up before dawn? While its overall brightness is good enough to be seen with the unaided eye, I needed a [...]
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27 June 2008
SOHO the Comet-Finder — And You Can Help
On June 25th, the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft discovered its 1,500th comet, making it more successful than all other comet discoverers throughout history, combined. But wait a minute, SOHO is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, designed to study solar physics. What’s it doing looking for comets? SOHO just happens to have a great vantage [...]
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12 June 2008
Alien Mineral From Comet Dust Found in Earth's Atmosphere
Astoundingly, about 40,000 tons of dust particles fall to Earth each year which originates from space "leftovers," mostly from disintegrating comets and asteroid collisions. Scientists are very interested in this dust because of its pristine nature –it is made of the original building blocks of the solar system. Some of that dust also resides [...]
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06 May 2008
Comet Strikes Increase as We Pass Through the Galactic Plane
There are just so many ways the Universe is out to get us. Astronomers have already considered the threat from our Sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way. When our Sun rises up out of flat plane of the Milky Way, it appears we might be less protected from intergalactic radiation and cosmic [...]
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02 April 2008
Planet Finder Catches a Comet!
Who can forget last October, when astronomers all over the world were astounded by the huge outburst of Comet Holmes? The eruption was the largest for more than a century. (Click on image to animate.) Fortunately for the world, a UK telescope was in the right place and the right time to capture [...]
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25 January 2008
Comet Dust is Very Similar to Asteroids
Just so it's clear in your mind: comets are dirty snowballs, asteroids are rocks. Got the difference? Wait… not so fast. Scientists studying the cometary dust picked up by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, and they're finding it's surprisingly asteroid like. When Stardust flew past comet Wild 2 in 2006, scientists knew they would be scooping up [...]
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14 December 2007
Deep Impact Has a New Target
It seemed like such a shame. NASA built Deep Impact to see what happens when you smash a refrigerator-sized object into a comet. Mission accomplished, science gathered. But what about the flyby part of the spacecraft? It captured images of the collision with Comet Tempel 1, and then flew on without a target. Well, NASA [...]
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27 November 2007
Comet Holmes is Fading Away
For a little while there, Comet 17P/Holmes was the largest object in the Solar System, flaring up by a factor of over a million. Its cloud of gas and dust expanded outward to cover a diameter of 1.4 million km (870,000 miles) - bigger than the Sun. Well, the party's over. Comet Holmes is fading [...]
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15 November 2007
Finally, Hubble's View of Comet Holmes
All right, here's the picture we've all been waiting for. Step aside ground-based observatories, papa Hubble's here with images of Comet Holmes, which is now larger than the Sun. But don't get fooled. That beautiful image on the left was taken by amateur astronomer Alan Dyer from Alberta, Canada. Hubble's version on the right. It's [...]
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13 November 2007
Comet Holmes is Bigger than the Sun
All right, that title is a little misleading. In fact, when I first read the original press release, my skepticism alarms went off. But it's true, the amazing Comet Holmes now has a halo that's larger than the Sun. Not bad for a comet that, until three weeks ago, was just a tiny dim dirty [...]
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09 November 2007
Rosetta Is Returning to Earth for Another Flyby
Mark your calendars for November 13th, 2007. That's the day ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will be making a close encounter with Earth on its way to Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. What's going on? The comet's out there guys, why is Rosetta back home? Well, it's all about speed.
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31 October 2007
Detailed Images of Comet Holmes
Late last week, the normally dim Comet 17P/Holmes suddenly blazed into view, increasing in brightness by a factor of a million. Before the eruption you needed a large telescope to see it, and now you can make it out with the unaided eye - even in the light-polluted city skies. There are now many amateur and [...]
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24 October 2007
Comet 17P/Holmes Erupts in the Sky
Astronomers from Europe and Asia are reporting that the normally dim Comet 17P/Holmes has had an eruption. Instead of being 17th magnitude - only visible to powerful telescopes - it's now 3rd magnitude. This makes it easy to spot with the unaided eye, even in cities with heavy light pollution. To confirm this discovery, head outside [...]
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