www.spaceweather.com BIGGEST FULL MOON OF THE YEAR: Tonight’s full Moon is the biggest of the year, as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser Moons earlier in 2008. An astronomer would say this is a "perigee Moon" because it occurs at perigee, the side of the Moon’s elliptical orbit closest to Earth. Go [...]
Archive for the ‘Astronomy’ Category
TAURID METEOR SHOWER: The annual Taurid meteor shower is under way and it could be a good show. 2008 is a "swarm year" for the Taurids. Between Nov. 5th and 12th, Earth is due to pass through an unusually dense swarm of gritty debris from parent comet 2P/Encke. When a similar encounter happened in 2005, [...]
Space Weather News for March 21, 2008http://spaceweather.com JULES VERNE AND THE ISS: The European Space Agency’s new robotic cargo carrier, the Jules Verne, has parked itself in orbit 2000 kilometers ahead of the International Space Station. This sets the stage for some beautiful double flybys in the nights ahead–the Jules Verne appears first, as bright [...]
Asteroid Flypast Asteroid 2007 TU24 is flying past Earth this week at a distance of only 334,000 miles (1.4 lunar distances). NASA radars tracking the asteroid confirm that there is no danger of a collision, but it will be close enough for amateur astronomers to photograph through mid-sized backyard telescopes. At closest approach on Jan. [...]
After a 13.6 year absence, Comet 8P/Tuttle is once again traveling through the inner solar system. On Jan. 1 and 2, 2008, it makes its closest approach to Earth; only 24 million miles away. The emerald-colored comet will brighten to a predicted magnitude of 5.8, visible to the unaided eye from dark-sky sites and a [...]
