Almost six months after a previously record breaking asteroid strike on the moon, the moon has once against been hit with the biggest space rock it’s collided with in history.
NASA and other space scientists have released footage of the strike to the public after extensive analysis of the September 11, 2013 strike.
The meteor, which scientists estimate at 880 pounds and measured almost four and half feet wide, hit the moon at 37,900 miles per hour. The impact of the rock caused a crater around 130 feet wide and had the strength of 15 tons of TNT.
It was more than three times as powerful as the previous record set on March 17, 2013.
The strike also created a blast that could be seen on Earth with the naked eye. Also, where post strikes produce a flash that lasts a fraction of a second, the strike on September 11th lastest eight seconds. NASA said it was the longest lasting flash in recorded history.
They make blockbuster movies about asteroids this size.
An asteroid the size of three football fields is set to make a close brush with Earth Monday night. The near-Earth asteroid, known as 2000 EM26, will not hit the planet but will pass close enough to be seen clearly by orbiting cameras.
Scientists say the asteroid is flying at 27,000 miles per hour and will pass about 8.8 lunar distances from Earth. (A lunar distance is the space between the Earth and the moon or approximately 238,900 miles.)
Operators of the Slooh Space Camera are using the arrival of the asteroid to raise awareness of the fact many asteroids are not found until they are days away from the planet.
“We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids — sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth,” said Paul Cox, Slooh’s technical and research director. “Slooh’s asteroid research campaign is gathering momentum with Slooh members using the Slooh robotic telescopes to monitor this huge population of potentially hazardous space rocks. We need to find them before they find us!”
The fly by comes almost exactly a year after an asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, with the energy equivalent of 20 atomic bombs. On that day, scientists were focused on another near-Earth object’s passing, 2012 DA14, and did not notice the space rock that exploded over Russia.
NASA will be streaming video of the asteroid’s passing starting around 9 p.m. Eastern time on their website space.com.
A photo released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is clearly showing the major impact of the ongoing California drought.
The photo shows two satellite pictures taken one year apart on January 13th. The first photo shows significant snow covering parts of the state and the second barely shows any snow covering.
The NOAA report with the photo says that the amount of snow cover in some areas is between 78 and 96 percent below normal.
The drought is so significant that the state’s Department of Water Resources says that summer water deliveries for farmers and cities under contract with the California State Water Project will receive less than 5% of their contracted amount.
The impact could devastate the farms of the state that account for 15 percent of the entire nation’s crop totals. In addition to the obvious issues of watering crops, the drier conditions allow for more frequent brush and wildfires that destroy large acres of vegetation.
The governor has the state under a state of emergency because of the drought.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught a rare and fantastic sight last week: an eruption of new m-class solar flares during a partial solar eclipse.
The moon made a 2 and a half hour voyage between the sun and the SDO, the longest eclipse or “solar transit” ever recorded by the SDO.
Sunspot 1967, an older spot renamed from Sunspot 1944, began to erupt on January 30th with m-class flares. NASA officials said the sunspot is one of the biggest in the last 10 years. The spot is wider than seven Earths placed together.
The radiation from the flares is not pointed near the Earth so it will have no impact at all on communications and will not be a threat to astronauts in the International Space Station.
The medium level bursts are coming from the same area where a larger, much more dangerous X-class flare launched in January. That flare threatened the International Space Station astronauts with radiation to the point that a rocket delivery mission to the station had to be delayed for one day.
At least seven fireballs were captured by NASA cameras during the eruption.
The large object flying through the sky in Tucson Arizona on Tuesday night wasn’t a bird, a plane or Superman.
A large meteor raced across the evening sky causing a sonic boom that shook up residents during dinner. Residents said the boom caused items on shelves to shake and NASA scientists said the meteor was an example of the “sporadic background” meteors that fly through the atmosphere daily.
Scientists did hail the timing of the large meteor because the annual Geminid meteor showers were scheduled to begin tonight. The meteor Tuesday night was identified as not being part of the Geminid meteors because it only moved at 45,000 miles per hour compared to a Geminid’s 78,000 miles per hour.
NASA estimates the meteor was at least 100 pounds and about 16 inches thick to cause the bright flash as it burned up in the atmosphere.
NASA scientists report that a new world’s record for lowest recorded temperature has been set in Antarctica.
Analysis of NASA satellite data shows an area of the icy continent at -135.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The new mark shatters the old record of -128.6 degrees. While the record was set in 2010, NASA released the data today in a press release.
Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said those conditions could easily be deadly to humans.
“I am told that every breath is painful and you have to be extremely careful not to freeze part of your throat or lungs when inhaling,” Scambos said in a statement.
Scambos said the temperature record was only an accidental discovery. His team has been studying unusual cracks on the surface of eastern Antarctica and believed the cracks are “thermal cracks”. Thermal cracks happen when the temperature is so low that snow shrinks to the point the surface cracks.
“The record-breaking conditions seem to happen when a wind pattern or an atmospheric pressure gradient tries to move the air back uphill, pushing against the air that was sliding down,” Scambos said. “This allows the air in the low hollows to remain there longer and cool even further under the clear, extremely dry sky conditions. When the cold air lingers in these pockets it reaches ultra-low temperatures.”
Scientists are concerned that something is very wrong with the sun.
The sun is supposed to be at the peak of an 11-year solar cycle, or what is called the “solar maximum.” This is when the sun’s magnetic poles usually reverse and cause such intense waves of magnetic force that it disrupts satellite communications and could even damage Earth’s electrical systems.
However, one NASA scientist said the current peak is “a total punk.”
A second NASA physicist called it “the weakest in 200 years.”
Andres Munzo-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told the Wall Street Journal there is no scientist alive who has been a solar cycle as weak as the current one.
Another puzzling factor for scientists is the lack of a flip in the sun’s two magnetic poles. The sun’s north pole reversed its polarity a year ago but the south pole has stayed the same resulting in the sun being out of sync. They expect the south pole to correct itself within the next month.
Some scientists say this weakened maximum could lead to a longer state of depressed solar activity or even a decrease in the sun’s luminosity.
A radio blackout on Thursday, April 11th, has been confirmed by NASA as the result of a massive solar flare.
The flare, classified as a M6.5-class sun storm, is considered a mid-level flare on the scale of solar flares. Continue reading →
NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray. Continue reading →
Warnings that solar flares could cause massive disruptions to communications and power grids became a lot more credible this weekend as the sun showed signs of increased flare activity.
The sun followed up a November 13th M6 solar flare emission with a pair of flares in a four hour period on November 16th. The double emission was pointed away from Earth minimizing any effect on the planet. Continue reading →
