Tag Archives: Earth

Asteroid 2024 PT5, aka Earth’s mini-moon, will be in gravitational pull Sept. 29 to Nov. 25 but not visible to most amateur telescopes

Asteroid-2024-PT5

Important Takeaways:

  • The small asteroid was discovered on Aug. 7 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a NASA-funded program.
  • Now named asteroid 2024 PT5, it will be captured in Earth’s gravitational pull between Sept. 29 and Nov. 25.
  • After that, it will escape Earth’s orbit and be pulled toward the sun before continuing its travels around our solar system.
  • During its 56-day orbit, Asteroid 2024 PT5 will travel in a horseshoe-shaped trajectory before leaving Earth’s gravity.
  • It’s unlikely we can catch a glimpse of the passing mini-moon as it enters Earth’s gravity. The NASA JPL Small-Body Database states that 2024 PT5 won’t be visible to most amateur telescopes due to its extremely low absolute magnitude of 22, which is too dim even for backyard binoculars or telescopes.
  • Researchers think 2024 PT5 came from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which is a group of small asteroids that follow dynamically cold, Earth-like orbits, according to Astronomy & Astrophysics.
  • Compared to Earth’s moon, which has a diameter of 2,159 miles, asteroid 2024 PT5 is just a tiny spec measuring at about 33 feet wide.

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Asteroid “God of Chaos” or “Apophis” will come closest to earth than any in recorded history in April of 2029

God-of-Chaos-asteroid

Important Takeaways:

  • The Apophis asteroid, also called the “God of Chaos,” is expected to fly by Earth in April of 2029. But it is also projected to come closer than any asteroid in recorded history which has caused NASA to launch a mission studying the asteroid.
  • According to NASA, Apophis is expected to come as close as 20,000 miles to Earth on April 13, 2029. It noted this is “closer than some satellites, and close enough that it could be visible to the naked eye in the Eastern Hemisphere.”
  • It is approximately 367 yards, and coming so close to Earth it may change the asteroid’s surface, potentially causing landslides and quakes.
  • The newly named OSIRUS-APEX mission will utilize the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft… for this new mission due to the spacecraft’s good condition and the opportunity presented by the close encounter.
  • OSIRUS-REx finished a 4-billion-mile mission to collect samples of asteroid Bennu in September.
  • “OSIRIS-APEX will study Apophis immediately after such a pass, allowing us to see how its surface changes by interacting with Earth’s gravity.”
  • “We know that tidal forces and the accumulation of rubble pile material are foundational processes that could play a role in planet formation. They could inform how we got from debris in the early solar system to full-blown planets,” she added.
  • OSIRIS-APEX’s research will also involve planetary defense strategies to aid scientists in working toward effective methods of combating or preventing catastrophic asteroid collisions with Earth.

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July 3, 2023 was the hottest day ever on Earth

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • The hottest day ever on Earth happened on July 3, 2023. The average global temperature reached 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • The rise in global temperatures is likely due to recent heat waves in the US, Canada and Europe and El Nino. During El Nino conditions sea surface temperatures rise above average in the Pacific Ocean.
  • NOAA/ Maine global temperature data goes back to 1979, but researchers say these temperature readings are comparable with data that goes back much further. They are confident this is the highest global temperature since instrumental measurements began around the 1850s

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On February 1 a once in 50,000 year comet will pass earth

Luke 21:26 “Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Once in 50,000-year comet may be visible to the naked eye
  • The comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF) after the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first spotted it passing Jupiter in March last year.
  • After travelling from the icy reaches of our Solar System it will come closest to the Sun on January 12 and pass nearest to Earth on February 1.
  • It will be easy to spot with a good pair of binoculars and likely even with the naked eye, provided the sky is not too illuminated by city lights or the Moon.
  • The last time the comet passed Earth was during the Upper Paleolithic period, when Neanderthals still roamed Earth.
  • Prince said the comet’s next visit to the inner Solar System was expected in another 50,000 years.

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Coronal mass ejection ‘No Run of the Mill Event’ just hit Venus. This storm will face earth next week

Luke 21:25-26 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Important Takeaways:

  • One Of The Largest Solar Storms Ever Seen Just Walloped Venus
  • “This is no run-of-the-mill event. Many science papers will be studying this for years to come,” George Ho, a lead investigator of the Energetic Particle Detector instrument onboard Solar Orbitor, told Spaceweather.com.
  • It is likely the huge CME came from the same sunspot that launched the attack on Venus earlier in the week. The active sunspot, AR 3088, popped up in August and since it has transited the far side of the Sun, is bigger and angrier than ever. The Sun’s rotation will bring it back around to face us in just over a week, so we may not be out of the firing line yet.
  • CMEs are what happens when sunspots flare and erupt, flinging out charged particles into space. When they are shot towards Earth, they can be funneled by Earth’s magnetic field to the geomagnetic poles, creating beautiful auroras. Strong CMEs can cause strong geomagnetic storms that can impact technology and even cause radio blackouts.

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NASA expects Earth to be hit today by Solar Storm

Mathew 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken

Important Takeaways:

  • SOLAR STRIKE Solar storm to strike Earth TOMORROW – here’s how it could damage radios and satellites
  • Tomorrow, [July 20] a “slow-moving” coronal mass ejection (CME) will strike Earth, experts from Space Weather said.
  • “The CME was hurled into space by an unstable filament of magnetism, which erupted on July 15th,” Space Weather reported.
  • A solar flare is an eruption of intense high-energy radiation from the sun’s surface. A CME is a type of solar flare
  • When solar flares hit Earth’s magnetic field, they are called ‘solar storms’.
  • This occurrence can then lead to geomagnetic storms.
  • Can disrupt electronics, electric grid, and radio waves depending on severity

Read the original article by clicking here.

NASA predicts a Solar Storm to hit Earth July 19

Mathew 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken

Important Takeaways:

  • Leading space science expert predicts a ‘direct hit’ on Earth from a solar storm
  • It has been a busy time for solar activity. Back in March of 2022, Earth was hit by separate geomagnetic storms, according to government weather agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
  • Then earlier this month, a G1-class geomagnetic storm hit the Earth, causing bright auroras over Canada. The only problem is that nobody saw this storm coming until it was quite late.
  • Five days ago, a giant sunspot and filaments on the solar surface had astronomers worried about possible Earth-directed solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that could lead to blackouts.
  • Finally, on Friday, it was reported that a massive solar flare had erupted from the Sun, which could see radio blackouts in many parts of the world.
  • Now, on Saturday, Dr. Tamitha Skov, known as the “Space Weather Woman,” predicted a “direct hit” from a solar storm to take place on Tuesday. She took to social media to share the news along with a NASA prediction model video.
  • “Direct Hit!” she wrote on Twitter. “A snake-like filament launched as a big solar storm while in the Earth-strike zone.”
  • “NASA predicts impact early July 19

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Fossil embryo dubbed the ‘small giant’ packs surprises about a big dinosaur

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The skull of a dinosaur embryo from Argentina is providing surprising details about baby facial features present in one species from an important dinosaur group called titanosaurs that included the largest land animals that have ever lived on Earth.

Scientists on Thursday said the fragile fossil is among the best-preserved dinosaur embryonic remains ever found – a nearly intact skull about 1.2 inches (3 cm) long that has remained three-dimensional rather than being flattened during the fossilization process.

“We used to get excited about the skeletons of giant dinosaurs but it always makes a difference when we get to look inside the eggs of these giants,” said paleobiologist Martin Kundrat of Pavol Jozef Safarik University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Biosciences in Slovakia, lead author of the research published in the journal Current Biology.

“This does not happen so often and it remains quite exceptional to find more-or-less complete fossilized embryonic remains,” Kundrat added, calling this dinosaur “the small giant.”

The Cretaceous Period fossil from Patagonia is believed to be about 80 million years old. The dinosaur appears to have had specialized facial features as a hatchling that changed as it got older. Powerful imaging technology revealed unexpected characteristics including a small horn projecting from the snout as well as eyes facing forward, indicative of binocular vision.

The facial horn may have helped the dinosaur hatch from its egg like the “egg tooth” present in some hatchling birds and reptiles, but may also have served other functions such as defense or food-gathering, Kundrat said.

Titanosaurs were part of a highly successful group of plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods known for their long necks, long tails and pillar-like legs. The largest, such as Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan, were around 120 feet (35 meters) long. The precise species to which this embryo belonged is unclear. Its skull bears similarities to a moderate-sized titanosaur called Tapuiasaurus that was roughly 43 feet (13 meters) long.

The embryo differed in facial anatomy and size from similar Patagonian titanosaur embryos.

“It is a bit unusual for a fossil to be represented just by a skull,” Kundrat added. “The specimen perished before completing its development. It had undergone only four-fifths of its incubation period.”

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Planetary ‘autopsies’ indicate worlds like Earth common in the cosmos

Planetary ‘autopsies’ indicate worlds like Earth common in the cosmos
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new way of studying planets in other solar systems – by doing sort of an autopsy on planetary wreckage devoured by a type of star called a white dwarf – is showing that rocky worlds with geochemistry similar to Earth may be quite common in the cosmos.

In a study published on Thursday, researchers studied six white dwarfs whose strong gravitational pull had sucked in shredded remnants of planets and other rocky bodies that had been in orbit. This material, they found, was very much like that present in rocky planets such as Earth and Mars in our solar system.

Given that Earth harbors an abundance of life, the findings offer the latest tantalizing evidence that planets similarly capable of hosting life exist in large numbers beyond our solar system.

“The more we find commonalities between planets made in our solar system and those around other stars, the more the odds are enhanced that the Earth is not unusual,” said Edward Young, a geochemistry and cosmochemistry professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who helped lead the study published in the journal Science. “The more Earth-like planets, the greater the odds for life as we understand it.”

The first planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, were spotted in the 1990s, but it has been tough for scientists to determine their composition. Studying white dwarfs offered a new avenue.

A white dwarf is the burned-out core of a sun-like star. In its death throes, the star blows off its outer layer and the rest collapses, forming an extremely dense and relatively small entity that represents one of the universe’s densest forms of matter, exceeded only by neutron stars and black holes.

Planets and other objects that once orbited it can be ejected into interstellar space. But if they stray near its immense gravitation field, they “will be shredded into dust, and that dust will begin to fall onto the star and sink out of sight,” said study lead author Alexandra Doyle, a UCLA graduate student in geochemistry and astrochemistry.

“This is where that ‘autopsy’ idea comes from,” Doyle added, noting that by observing the elements from the massacred planets and other objects inside the white dwarf scientists can understand their composition.

The researchers observed a fundamental characteristic of the rocks: their state of oxidation. The amount of oxygen present during the formation of these rocks was high – just as it was during the formation of our solar system’s rocky material. They focused on iron, which when oxidized ends up as rock.

“Rocks are rocks, even when they form around other stars,” Young said.

The closest of the six white dwarf stars is about 200 light-years from Earth. The farthest is about 665 light-years away.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Solar eclipse plunges Chile into darkness

A person observes a solar eclipse at Coquimbo, Chile, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of tourists scattered across the north Chilean desert on Tuesday to experience a rare, and irresistible combination for astronomy buffs: a total eclipse of the sun viewed from beneath the world’s clearest skies.

A solar eclipse is observed at Coquimbo, Chile, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido

A solar eclipse is observed at Coquimbo, Chile, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, plunging the planet into darkness. It happens only rarely in any given spot across the globe.

The best views this time were from Chile’s sprawling Atacama desert north of the coastal city of La Serena, where a lack of humidity and city lights combine to create the world’s clearest skies.

The region had not seen an eclipse since 1592, according to the Chilean Astronomy Society. The next one is expected in 2165.

Eclipse-watchers in Chile were not disappointed on Tuesday. The 95-mile (150-kilometer) band of total darkness moved eastward across the open Pacific Ocean late in the afternoon, making landfall in Chile at 4:38 p.m. EDT (2038 GMT).

Clear skies dominated from the South American country’s northern border with Peru south to the capital of Santiago, where office workers poured from buildings to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon.

Earlier in the day, a run on special “eclipse-viewing” glasses downtown had led to a shortage in many stores, with street vendors charging as much as $10 for a pair of the disposable, cardboard-framed lenses.

“This is something rare that we may never see again,” said Marcos Sanchez, a 53-year-old pensioner from Santiago who had purchased 16 of the lenses from an informal vendor downtown for himself and his family.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Sandra Maler)