Sometimes asteroids aren’t always what they seem. Such is the case with the asteroid Phaethon, which also happens to be the source of a well-known meteor shower in December. As it turns out, Phaethon isn’t an asteroid at all — it’s a comet. But don’t think it’s as cut-and-dried as that… Phaethon isn’t the “dirty…
Category: Comets and Asteroids
Meteor Strike: Can We Spot The Next Big Asteroid in Time?
On the morning of February 15, 2013, around 9:26 a.m. local time, the sky above the Siberian town of Chelyabinsk was sliced by a bright streak of light, ending in a flash brighter than the Sun and sending glass-shattering shockwaves thundering across the region several minutes later, breaking windows and injuring over 1,000 people. The…
A Comet and the Crescent Moon
As comet Pan-STARRS heads back out into the depths of the Solar System, it’s become visible to skywatchers in the northern hemisphere (after several weeks of putting on a show in southern skies.) While poor viewing due to weather confounded some over the past few days, many people did get some great views of this…
So What Did Asteroid 2012 DA14 Actually Look Like?
Something like this: This video was made from 72 radar observations made on the night of Feb. 15/16, 2013, by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, CA. The target object, a ~40-meter wide asteroid named 2012 DA14, passed within 17,200 miles (27,680 km) of Earth — coming several thousand…
15-Meter Meteor Explodes Over Russia
Holy Tunguska flashback*! Early this morning a meteor entered the atmosphere above the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, disintegrating at altitude of 50-60 km (18-32 miles) 14-20 km (12-15 miles) and creating an explosion and shockwave that shattered glass and blew in doors across the area, injuring hundreds. The space rock is estimated to have weighed…
This Asteroid Will Pass Closely on Friday, But No Chance of Impact
All eyes have been on the incoming near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 over the past few weeks, with many speculations of if — and what if — the 50-meter-wide space rock poses any danger to us here on Earth. True, it will come well within the orbit of the Moon, even passing by closer than geosynchronous…
Dawn Makes an Elemental Discovery on Vesta
In what could be called a “eureka” moment for Dawn researchers and planetary scientists alike, hydrogen has been found on the surface of Vesta, a 550-km (340-mile) -wide protoplanet and the second most massive world in our Solar System’s main asteroid belt. The elemental discovery was made with the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND)…
An Asteroid’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat
Vesta — the asteroid that was almost a planet — has its complex surface composition revealed in this animation made from images acquired by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. The video reveals the dappled, variegated surface of the giant asteroid Vesta, the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt. The animation drapes high-resolution false color…
Is This Comet SWAN’s Swan Song?
A newly-discovered comet is on its way into the Sun… can you spot it in the animation above? No? Read on…
Apocalypse? NO. (Despite What Chevy Says)
So the buzz is buzzing about Chevy’s Super Bowl ad and its tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the aftermath from the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. Of course the message is typical — drive a Chevy truck and survive, drive anything else and perish. Which is cute and of course the production value is high, but the problem is…
2012 Hoaxes Debunked… by SCIENCE
It’s only January 5th and already nervous chatter about “end of the world” fears has gone into high gear… except, of course, among those who know that there’s nothing to worry about. Still, I have heard rumors of people, many young people still in school, who don’t know the real information and have heard only…
No Doom in 2012: Stop the Insanity!
Now that’s we’re officially three days into 2012, the ‘net is already abuzz with talk of impending doom on December 21 of this year. Luckily there are plenty of science sources that are more than happy to offer fact-based consolation that there is no actual evidence that anything cosmically bad is expected to occur on…
Lights in the Dark 