A Comet and the Crescent Moon

Comet Pan-STARRS seen from Alaska on 12 March 2013 © Travis A. Rector

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 cosmic visitor — such as the image above, captured on the night of March 12 by Dr. Travis A. Rector from the Menaker Observatory in Anchorage, Alaska.

“Comet Pan-STARRS is the very faint dot just below the center of the image,” Dr. Rector wrote on his website. “Its tail is pointed towards the upper-left corner. This picture was taken on its greatest elongation from the Sun. Nonetheless it was very hard to see. And nearly impossible to see by the naked eye.”

See a couple more images of Pan-STARRS below:

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 miles closer than many communication satellites.

It was the closest observed pass of an object of its size.

These images are preliminary observations and thus are still rough, but we do get an idea of the shape of the now-famous DA14… basically an angular, elongated ovoid shape with some radar-bright bumps. A space yam, if you will.

The tubers are out there.

15-Meter Meteor Explodes Over Russia

A meteor disintegrates over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013

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 about 10 7,000 metric tons.

The meteor has been captured in many amateur videos that were quickly uploaded to YouTube — watch below and see more here.

Find out more about this event on Universe Today here.

*The 1908 Tunguska event was vastly more powerful than this. But still… rocks from space!

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 communication satellites. But it will still remain a very safe 17,500 miles (28,160 km) away (give or take a few hundred miles) and isn’t expected to change its course anytime soon. Even the satellites should all be fine — there’s an awful lot of room out there!

The video above, released by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, features asteroid specialist Don Yeomans who explains what’s going to happen on Friday and why there’s no need to worry.

Still, it’s another example of how we are constantly having our personal space violated by objects from elsewhere in the solar system, and why we need to make sure we invest in methods to identify, monitor, and, eventually, deflect any potentially hazardous incoming bodies. DA14 may not be the biggest asteroid to come our way recently, but it’s one of the closest (and for an idea of just how big it is, click below:)

Dawn Makes an Elemental Discovery on Vesta

Hydrogen “hot spots” are shown in this color-coded image of Vesta, a single frame from an animation. Red indicates the greatest abundance.

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) instrument on board NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which just completed its 13-plus-month-long mission orbiting Vesta and is now heading for Ceres.

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 images over a 3-D model of the Vesta terrain constructed from Dawn’s observations. This visualization enables a detailed view of the variation in the material properties of Vesta in the context of its topography.

Is This Comet SWAN’s Swan Song?

SOHO animation of the latest sun-diving comet (LASCO/NRL SOHO team)

A newly-discovered comet is on its way into the Sun… can you spot it in the animation above? No? Read on…