SATELLITE DEBRIS: US Strategic Command is still cataloguing debris from the Feb. 10th satellite collision over northern Siberia. "The count is now at 109 catalogued fragments for Iridium 33 and 245 for Kosmos 2251," says satellite observer Daniel Deak, who has prepared some 3D maps of the debris for readers of spaceweather.com

These maps reveal in full what earlier, less complete maps strongly hinted: Kosmos debris is scattered more widely than Iridium. "Kosmos fragments range in altitude from 250 km to 1690 km," says Deak. For comparison, "Iridium fragments range only from 525 km to 1092 km." Kosmos fragments descend all the way down to the 350 km orbit of the ISS. The space station is in little danger, however; most of the Kosmos scatter is over the Antarctic where the ISS does not go.

The fragment count now stands at 354. Says Deak, "there are surely more to come."

FEB 28th UPDATE: Since these maps were posted on Feb. 26th, the catalogued fragment count has jumped from 354 to 414.

View the complete set:

: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.

The nucleus of Comet Lulin spews a mixture of dust and gas into space. Quickly, the mixture separates into two distinct tails: The gaseous "ion tail" is pushed straight away from the sun by solar wind. The weightier dust tail resists solar wind pressure and aligns itself more or less with the comet's orbit.

The next image shows why the ion tail disappeared: It is temporarily hidden behind the comet's head. And finally we see Tosar's prediction for the future: The ion tail will re-appear during the early days of March. The two tails, ion and dust, and sometimes called the tail and the antitail.

UPDATED: Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope] [Sky maps: Feb. 27, 28]

---

Geomagnetic Storms have increased a little.:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2009 Feb 27 2201 UTC Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	05 %	05 %
MINOR	01 %	01 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	10 %	10 %
MINOR	01 %	01 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

 

Current conditions

2-25-09 - sunspot 1013 near the top of the sun

 DOOMED SNOWBALL: on Feb. 23rd, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) watched a comet plunge into the sun and disintegrate. The doomed snowball was a member of the Kreutz sungrazer family. Named after a 19th century German astronomer who studied them in detail, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet some 2000 years ago. More than a thousand of these fragments have been catalogued by SOHO since the observatory was launched in 1995. Most are small and faint, but this one was a beauty. Watch the movie.

UPDATE--SPEEDING COMET: "Last night (Feb.21) Comet Lulin was visible to the naked eye with identical brightness as star b Vigo HP58510 with a magnitude of 5.35," reports Eddie Irizarry of the Sociedad de Astronomía del Caribe in Puerto Rico. "But what caught our attention most was Lulin's noticeable speed. Using a telescope, take a good look at the stars that surround Comet Lulin; then look again just 10 minutes later and you will see how Lulin's position has changed. It is amazing how fast this comet is moving!"

Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope] [Sky maps: Feb. 22, 23, 24, 25]

GRAND CENTRAL STATION: On Feb. 17th and 18th, many observers of Comet Lulin saw something unexpected. In addition to the comet, "I kept getting satellite trails in my images," reports John Cordiale of Queensbury, New York. "It was like Grand Central Station. Multiple groupings of satellites traveled through my images for hours." He photographed the activity using a 2.5-inch (65mm) refractor:

"It made me wonder if I was seeing debris from the recent double satellite collision," says Cordiale.

It certainly looked like flying debris (see this animation from Jesus Pelaez of Padilla de Arriba, Spain). But no, what Cordiale, Pelaez and others saw was actually a band of intact geostationary satellites.

Geostationary satellites orbit Earth twenty-two thousand miles above the equator, always keeping station above a single point on the ground. While geosats are stationary with respect to Earth's surface, they move with respect to the stars. Viewed through the eyepiece of a star-tracking telescope, the stars are motionless while the "stationary" satellites streak through the field of view like so much debris. Strange but true.

From mid-Northern latitudes, geostationary satellites occupy a band of declinations between approximately -5 and -7 degrees. By happenstance, Comet Lulin passed through that band on Feb. 17th and 18th, setting the stage for an unexpected show. "I had never seen anything like it!" says Cordiale.

Comet Lulin is approaching Earth for a 38-million-mile close encounter on Feb. 24th. At that time, the comet could shine two or three times brighter than it does now, and photographers will record it using cameras alone--no telescope required. Browse the gallery for a hint of things to come

Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope] [Sky maps: Feb. 18, 19, 20]
 

SPACECRAFT BUZZES MARS: NASA's Dawn spacecraft had a close encounter with Mars last night,
 flying just 341 miles above the Red Planet's surface. The gravity-assist maneuver propelled Dawn
toward the asteroid belt where it will orbit and explore Vesta and Ceres beginning in 2011. Mission
 managers say the Mars flyby images will be beamed back to Earth on or about Feb. 24th.

MULTIPLE FIREBALLS: On Friday, Feb. 13th, around 10:00 pm EST, people in central Kentucky heard loud booms, felt their houses shake, and some saw a fireball streaking through the sky: eye-witness reports. On Sunday, Feb. 15th, around 11 am CST, an even brighter fireball appeared over central Texas in broad daylight. News outlets and even the National Weather Service are attributing these events to re-entering debris from the recent satellite collision between Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251. Skepticism is warranted. Evidence reported so far does not rule out a meteoritic origin; these fireballs could be a result of garden-variety space rocks hitting Earth, as they do almost every day. Until, e.g., US Strategic Command issues a statement linking the fireballs to radar-tracked satellite debris, it's best to keep an open mind

http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html/popup.html?v=1035970889  Stragetic Air Command refuses to say anything about the fireball that caused this fire in Texas.
 

Emerging sunspot 1012 is a member of old Solar Cycle 23.

Credit: SOHO/MDI
 

The low latitude and magnetic polarity of this sunspot identify it as a member of old Solar Cycle 23. It is, in other words, a fossil, albeit a relatively active one. Stay tuned for more flares.

Explore the Sunspot Cycle

Click to view a 2.3 MB animation

COLLIDING SATELLITES: Experts are calling it an "unprecedented event." Two large satellites have collided in Earth orbit. Kosmos 2251 crashed into Iridium 33 on Tuesday, Feb. 10th, approximately 800 km over northern Siberia; both were destroyed.  The resulting clouds of debris contain more than 500 fragments, significantly increasing the orbital debris population at altitudes where the collision occurred.  The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is monitoring the clouds as they pass over the radar facility in Texas.  We, in turn, are monitoring signals from the radar and you may be able to hear debris "pings" by tuning in to our live audio feed. This is a story that will unfold in the days ahead as researchers study the evolution of the debris clouds and piece together the details of the collision. 

This injection of debris substantially increases the population of space junk at altitudes near 800 km. Collisions are now more likely than ever. Fortunately, the International Space Station orbits Earth at a much lower altitude, 350 km, so it is in no immediate danger. The Hubble Space Telescope is not so safe at 610 km. In the days ahead, researchers will carefully study the make-up and dynamics of the debris cloud to estimate when bits will begin to drift down to lower altitudes.

LISTEN UP: The US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is monitoring the skies above Texas for echoes from satellite fragments. Try listening on Friday, Feb. 13th between 11:12 and 11:21 CST (1712 - 1721 UT). That's when Iridium 33 would have passed over the radar intact had it not been shattered.

NOTE: Other sources are saying this was a deliberate attack by Russia on the United States.

Normal full Moons are fully lit, yet this one has a dusky shading across the north pole. That was the eclipse.

"It was not really a sight that would stop someone in their tracks, but I did find it to be much darker than I imagined," reports Navneeth Chandrasekaran from Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. "This photo was taken about 10 minutes before maximum eclipse."

more images: from Pam Haley of Kailua, Hawaii; from Yandong Hu of Changzhou, Jiangsu, China; from Wah! of Hong Kong; from Miyagi Takafumi of Okinawa Japan; from Karzaman Ahmad of Langkawi National Observatory, Malaysia; from Andy Yeung of Hong Kong; from Rob Kaufman of Bright, Victoria, Australia; from Grahame Kelaher of Perth, Australia; from Ben Levis of Carmel, Perth, Western Australia;

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Feb. 13th or 14th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope

If optical aid is offered, however, don't refuse it. The view through a small telescope is dynamite:

"Wow, it was nice!" says photographer Mike Broussard of Maurice, Louisiana, who took this picture of Comet Lulin gliding by double star Zubenelgenubi on Feb. 6th.

Another report of naked-eye visibility comes from Martin McKenna of Maghera, Northern Ireland: "I went out for a look at Comet Lulin this morning before dawn with my telescope and binoculars. The Moon was very low, so I stood within the shadow of my house and tried to see the comet without optical aid. Using averted vision, I was able to glimpse the comet perhaps a dozen times! It looked like a large grey patch of light very close to Zubenelgenubi. The sight gave me a warm glow on such a frigid frosty night."

Comet Lulin rises in the east just a few hours before the sun. See for yourself: sky map.

UPDATED: Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope] [sky map] [ephemeris]

 
Photo credit: Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero & Paul Camilleri [more]

Guido and colleagues believe the event was caused by a magnetic disturbance in the solar wind hitting the comet. It's a plausible hypothesis. Magnetic mini-storms in comet tails have been observed before--most famously in 2007 when NASA's STEREO spacecraft watched a CME crash into Comet Encke. Encke lost its tail in dramatic fashion, much as Comet Lulin did yesterday.

Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[3D orbit] [sky map] [ephemeris]

Small, Hot Earth-Like Planet Discovered

Feb. 3 2009) - What may be the smallest extrasolar planet, measuring less than twice the size of Earth, has been discovered orbiting a sun-like star.

The world is far hotter than ours, however. And controversy over the size claim has heated up, too.

More fireballs: Jan. 27, Jan 23, Jan 17, 2009; Dec. 29, 2008

This story is for all those who want to know more about new space discoveries. Recently, an Italian astronomer has spotted a comet from the so-called Jupiter family on the night sky.

Astronomer, Andrea Boattini, who has already broken a 150-year-old record of spotting seven comets last year, has now claimed that he spotted ninth comet last week while scanning currently visible Near Earth Objects (NEOs).

The 39-year-old Italian works at Arizona’s Mount Lemmon Observatory on a NASA programme and searches for objects in space that could be dangerous to our planet, Earth. The new comet has the technical tag C/2009 B1. However, it is named after who has discovered it. The comet, which belongs to the so-called Jupiter family, is in the Andromeda constellation and bypasses Earth once in every 17 years. Anyone with a medium-sized telescope can observe the comet until March end.
 

COMET LULIN RIGHTENS: Veteran sky watcher Mariano Ribas of Argentina has been monitoring Comet Lulin in the skies of Buenos Aires. "In the past ten days, the comet has brightened by almost 60% (half a magnitude) to magnitude +6.5," he reports. "Even with our heavy urban light pollution, the comet is an easy target for small telescopes and binoculars. Soon, I believe, it will become a naked-eye object for people in the country."

"My retired eyes still can't see it," says Jack Newton of Arizona, "but my 14-inch telescope picked it up quite nicely." He took this picture on Feb. 1st:

Comet Lulin is approaching Earth for a 38-millon-mile close encounter on Feb. 24th.

llation Libra. A date of note is Feb. 6th when the comet passes by double star Zubenelgenubli. Zubenelgenubi is not only fun to say (zuBEN-el-JA-newbee), but also it is a handy guide. You can see Zubenelgenubi with your unaided eye (it is about as bright as stars in the Big Dipper); binoculars pointed at the binary star reveal Comet Lulin in beautiful proximity: sky map.

Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter telescope] [sky map] [ephemeris]