small earthquake swarm just north of Death Valley and Scotty's Castle

This in an interesting swarm of earthquakes just to the north of Scotty's Castle in Death Valley.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/FaultMaps/117-37.html

Floyd Dominy

http://www.hcn.org/hcn/wotr/floyd-dominy-the-colossus-of-dams-dies-at-100

Crescent Earth

The Earth captured from the Rosetta spacecraft as it passed by Earth.
.
ESA. Taken on 11/12/2009. Click to enlarge.
As seen on the Planetary Society blog.

Venus AND Earth from Mars

I missed something in the last post--the image is Venus and Earth from Mars. Venus is the bright point in the center, and Earth is the faint object moving to the lower right of Venus.


This is from fredk at http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=6042&st=60&start=60

Inbound bolide: 2008 TC3

Astronomers have discovered a small inbound object a few meters across that appears to be on an impact course with the Earth. The object may enter the Earth's atmosphere somewhere over Europe or North Africa just after 2:30AM UT Tuesday (9:30PM CDT tonight). The orbit is uncertain enough to have a number of possible interactions with the Earth, including missing entirely. It is small enough, based on its brightness, to cause no concern, but should be a nice bright fireball and might drop some meteorites. The self-assigned ID is 8TA9D69, and it was discovered on Mt. Lemmon near Tucson, Arizona by the Mt. Lemmon Sky Survey.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/21070

Update: It's now designated 2008 TC3
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K08/K08T50.html

Aurora activity

Despite still being in the dregs of the solar cycle the aurora occasionally really activates, and it's doing so right now. While it's daytime here in North America, the aurora is detectable by the way it distorts radio signals, producing a warbling effect on ionospherically bounced waves. The enhanced ionization also provides the ability to bounce much higher frequency radio signals than is usual, although everything is still subject to that pesky warbling.

Current observed aurora here via a NOAA satellite--it takes some time to refresh in orbit.

Spaceweather.com will have updates at some point soon; they are usually on the ball with sightings of neat events.
See the aurora forecast at UAF; which is useful, although long-term forecasts are always tough.

This alert was brought to my attention by the DXrobot, which monitors radio amateur's contacts for notes about unusual VHF radio conditions. Click here for the arcane info.

P.S. It would seem unlikely for this to be an "event" for Chicago city folk--the moon is out, light pollution is as bad as ever, clouds are coming in, and sometimes these events are short-lived.

Messenger reaches Mercury

The Messenger spacecraft is now 17 hours away from closest approach to Mercury, the first spacecraft to visit the tiny, dense, and baked interior planet in 30 years. Only about half of Mercury is currently mapped. It only passes by this time; it will flyby twice again, then finally enter orbit in 2011. See an orbital movie here. You might also remember this Earth flyby movie, mentioned almost two years ago here.

Season's Greetings

Seen via BABlog.

The Earth and Moon from Kaguya

Kaguya is a Japanese moon orbiter that is sending back HD video.
And awesome images.

Phil Plait talks about the Moon's orbital plane

Phil Plait looks at the low southern moon here that I mentioned last month

50th anniversary of Sputnik

Things have been very busy and as a result I've been unable to post--but today is the 50th anniversary of man's entry into space with the launch of Sputnik. Last night the visitors to the Ryerson Astronomical Society's Wednesday viewing saw the largest satellite (artificial) in orbit: the International Space Station, as it rose above the horizon, passed Jupiter, and went into the Earth's shadow. Tonight in Chicago, you can see it twice, once at 6:57PM and again, once around the Earth, at 8:30PM. Details are always at Heavens-Above.

P.S. It's also World Space Week. Go to the RAS lecture on Monday about Sputnik.

Pretty picture of the day

A dye laser points the way for the VLT towards the center of the galaxy.




Grab the huge versions of these at the ESO press page.
Seen via Astronomy Blog

Mt. St. Helens webcam

A wonderful service from the National Forest Service is a webcam showing Mt. St. Helens from Johnson Ridge Observatory--and now it's gone to a much higher resolution. It'll be interesting to see what sort of near-infrared performance the new NetCam XL camera has. The old camera would occasionally pick up the invisible glow of the hot dome at night.

Watch the slow growth of the reemergent lava dome in this movie from last year. (Others here).

Earth and Jupiter from Mars

An older image, but cool nonetheless. Earth and Jupiter visible from Mars, taken by the now-deceased Mars Global Surveyor. Make sure you see the orbital diagram.

You have the chance to see Saturn and Venus close together, from right here on Earth, on Saturday evening, the same evening as the Full Moon.