Space Weather

[Jherrith]

COMING SOON, THE COMET OF THE YEAR: Astronomers are calling Comet 46P/Wirtanen the "comet of the year." Two months from now, on Dec. 16th, the kilometer-wide ball of dirty ice will come within 11.5 million km of Earth--making it one of the 10 closest-approaching comets of the Space Age. Comet 46P/Wirtanen will probably become a naked eye object for several weeks during the holidays. Here's what it looks like now:



Yasushi Aoshima of Ishikawa, Japan, took the picture using a 12-inch telescope. It shows the comet's green atmosphere which is, impressively, almost twice as wide as the planet Jupiter. The green color comes from diatomic carbon (C2)--a gaseous substance common in comet atmospheres that glows green in the near-vacuum of space.
At the moment, the integrated brightness of the comet is similar to a 10th magnitude star--that is, dim. However, forecasters expect it to brighten more than 200-fold by December. If current trends hold, 46P could ultimately reach magnitude +3, making it not a Great Comet but a very good one, visible to the unaided eye and an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes.



Comet Wirtanen passes through the inner solar system every 5.4 years. Right now it is near the orbit of Mars, and it is heading in our direction. Click on the image above to explore the comet's approach, courtesy of NASA/JPL.

[Aelin]

Well I wasn't outside to see the meteor shower, and I know nobody who saw it  Nothing on news here too

I hope we'll have more chance with the comet. Thank you for the information!

[Jherrith]

METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: Right now, specks of dust from Halley's Comet are disintegrating in Earth's atmosphere, kicking off the annual Orionid meteor shower. NASA cameras caught more than a dozen Orionid fireballs streaking across the USA during the past 48 hours, and the show is expected to improve during the weekend as Earth moves deeper into Halley's stream of debris:

"The upcoming Orionids should provide a fairly good show for most visual observers," says Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario Meter Physics Group. "The shower's radiant is already quite active and well defined in data from the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR)."

Orionids appear every year around this time when Earth crosses Halley's debris stream, with the shower typically producing about 20 meteors per hour. Some of the brightest stars and constellations in the sky--e.g., Orion the Hunter, Sirius the Dog Star, and Taurus the Bull--form the shower's backdrop. This makes the display extra-beautiful in disproportion to the raw number of meteors.

Some years, however, are even better than others. "Most notable was a short-lived outburst of relatively bright Orionids in 1993 observed several days before the predicted peak. This hints that there may be narrow filaments of larger meteoroids embedded in the overall debris stream," says Brown. "We also observed enhanced Orionid activity in the years 2006 through 2009 with rates 2 to 3 times normal."



This year's shower has one thing going against it: The nearly full Moon. Lunar glare could reduce visible meteor rates 2- or 3-fold. The best time to look, therefore, is during the dark hours before sunrise when the Moon is sinking below the western horizon and the shower's radiant in Orion is high in the southeast: sky map.

"Finding dark skies and clear weather in the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct 21st, just after the moon sets this year is the surest way to see these messengers from 1P/Halley," says Brown. Enjoy the show!

[thelufias]

Well, they say we'll have clear skies after Midnight Saturday...we shall see....

Haven't seen ANY this year...pisses me off......

[thelufias]

The Wonderful Star

The star Mira A (right), a highly evolved variable red giant star, and Mira B (left), a white dwarf. Image at right was created with data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The image at right is an artist’s conception of this interacting star system. Credit: X-ray image courtesy NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Karovska et al.; Illustration: CXC/M.Weiss.

[sidherose]

Looks like a vampiric star 

[sidherose]

I saw an Orionid meteorite hit the Moon once. It just happened to hit when I was looking at the Moon and I saw a big dust cloud rise off the surface. It was rather exciting to 'catch' something like that as it happened.

[thelufias]

I think it's an awesome star......Love that place.....love all my space places.....and the ones all of you share.....

I keep thinking some of my relatives live out there....somewhere  :AEN:

When I lived in the Apartment complex I had a lot of cool stuff in the sky that I could view....here....not so much....  I working with the new park owners about my putting up a permanent stand on top of the hill for a telescope ......  we shall see how that works out.

[sidherose]

I was just outside and right now, all I can see is the Moon, Mars and what is possibly Beta Ceti (Deneb Kaitos). And that is where your Mira is, isn't it? That's all I can see. Well, if I look up past the edge of the roof, I can see what I think is Altair of Aquila.

I was sitting there thinking how the Summer sky has always been like that for me - kind of a mystery. I know the Winter sky better. But I'm a Winter baby born in the sign exactly opposite of my 'fascination constellation' - Orion. (I wonder - does that make you partial to one or the other - born in Winter or Summer...Spring or Fall for that matter?)
When I look up at Orion, I feel like I lived there a long time ago. Particularly Rigel - his left foot. Silly, huh.

[thelufias]

Vincent Brady posted this beautiful photo to EarthSky Facebook this week. He wrote:

I was looking for auroras, but was pleasantly surprised to see light pillars early Tuesday morning, October 16, 2018. This is a shot north of Paradise, Michigan, looking east over Whitefish Bay toward Wisconsin. The red lights are around the Canadian island Ile Parisienne and wind turbines.

Light pillars are caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere reflecting and refracting light from artificial light sources.