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– February 20, 2011

“Comets could pose a serious threat”-Interview with the Russian astronomer who discovered the comet in the past 20 yearsComet Elenin (C/2010 X1) made its debut on December 10th when Leonid Elenin, an observer in Lyubertsy, Russia, remotely acquired four 4-minute-long images using an 18-inch (45-cm) telescope at the ISON-NM observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico. Follow-up images by Aleksei Sergeyev and Artyom Novichonok at Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan revealed more about the new find: a teardrop-shaped, very diffuse coma just 6 arcseconds across and a tiny tail.

What’s gotten hearts beating a little faster since the discovery is that Comet Elenin is still more than 4 astronomical units (375 million miles) from the Sun and headed inbound. It’s still early, and the orbit is certain to change in the weeks ahead, but right now it appears the comet’s perihelion will occur well inside Earth’s orbit, about 0.45 a.u. (42 million miles) from the Sun, on September 5th.

Right now, odds are that Comet Elenin will become an easy target for binoculars around mid-August and reach naked-eye visibility for a couple of weeks around perihelion. The comet’s elongation from the Sun shrinks to just 1° following perihelion, but soon thereafter the comet gets enough separate to position itself nicely for viewing in the predawn sky.

The tail will be pointing directly at Earth on 27-Sep-2011 (or it looks as though it will). The question is “How long will the tail be and will it reach Earth at this time?”. On that day the Earth will be “.381″ AU’s away from the comet (approx. 30-35,000,000 miles). No matter how you look at it, the Earth will pass through the tail’s debris (in one way or another) on that day or there after as the comet moves in front of Earth.

 

Friday 29 April 2011

 

By the CNN Wire Staff

March 11, 2011 — Updated 1916 GMT (0316 HKT)

 

Editor’s Note: Read live blogging of the Japan tsunami and earthquake. Are you there? Send your video, pictures to iReport. For more news visit CNN affiliates KHON and KHNL.

Tokyo (CNN) — The most powerful earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history struck off the island nation’s shore on Friday, collapsing buildings, touching off widespread fires and unleashing walls of water up to 30 feet high.

The waves swept across rice fields, engulfed towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. It reaching as far as about six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan’s east coast.

Hundreds of people were dead and hundreds more missing, Japanese media reported, citing local and national police. Tens of thousands of people were displaced, according to Japan’s Kyodo News agency.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the “enormously powerful” earthquake had caused “tremendous damage over a wide area.”

The 8.9-magnitude quake prompted the U.S. National Weather Service to issue tsunami warnings for at least 50 countries and territories, although initial reports as the waves reached locations outside of Japan indicated no damage.

But Japanese government officials said large tsunami waves are still a risk to coastal Japan, and urged residents in coastal areas to move to higher ground.

The epicenter was offshore of Miyagi Prefecture, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) from Tokyo, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Residents there continued to feel aftershocks hours after the quake. More than 30 aftershocks followed, with the strongest measuring 7.1.

Japanese broadcasters reported collapsed buildings, power outages and transportation disruptions throughout Japan. In Tokyo, 230 miles from the hardest hit areas, rail service was suspended, elevated highways were shut down early Saturday and surface streets remained jammed as commuters continued trying to get to their homes in outlying areas.

Video aired by Japanese broadcaster NHK showed extensive fires in Miyagi and widespread fires in the port city of Hakodate, in the southern part of Hokkaido island in northern Japan. An oil refinery was burning in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo, according to NHK, and firefighters could not get close enough to fight it because of the heat. And Kyodo News said fires could be seen in extensive areas of Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture.

Also in Miyagi, officials reported that a train had derailed and authorities had lost contact with another train, Kyodo reported.

And a dam in Fukushima Prefecture failed, washing away homes, Kyodo reported. There was no immediate word of casualties, but the Defense Ministry said 1,800 homes were destroyed.

Japan’s trade minister, Banri Kaieda, said a small radiation leak could occur at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported Saturday.

Prime Minister Kan is planning to inspect the plant, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

The government had ordered the evacuation of residents nearest the plant as efforts to keep it cool after it was shut down were initially hampered.

The official death toll stood at 151, with 539 injured and 351 missing, according to Kyodo, citing police, but that death toll seemed almost certain to rise — from 200 to 300 bodies have been found in the coastal city of Sendai alone, said NHK, citing police who said the victims may have been struck by a massive tsunami.

Kyodo said the death toll is likely to surpass 1,000.

The news agency, citing Japan’s defense forces, also said 60,000 to 70,000 people were being evacuated to shelters in the Sendai area of Miyagi Prefecture.

VIDEO

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/11/japan.quake/index.html

Christchurch. Photo by Martin Hunter/Getty Images

02/21/11

 

A strong earthquake shook New Zealand on Tuesday afternoon, according to reports.

The 6.3-magnitude quake, per the USGS, shook New Zealand’s South Island and its largest city of Christchurch at 12:50 p.m. local time.

Scroll Down For Live Updates

The New Zealand Herald reported that the quake’s epicenter was Lyttelton with a depth of 5 kilometers, though it was felt as far away as Wellington and Dunedin per Twitter reports. It shook the Canterbury region, which has a population of approximately 500,000. Radio New Zealand reports “that some people have been killed.”

Radio New Zealand also noted some of the damage from the quake in Christchurch: a church collapsed, a bridge is impassible, the airport has been shut down and the mayor is urging people not to drive due to road damage.

HuffPost reader Laura Campbell submitted these photos of the damage in Christchurch. A local New Zealand media outlet posted this photo of damage to Chirstchurch’s historic Christchurch Cathedral.

Videos of the quake are beginning to surface on YouTube. One video (watch below) shows shaking, presumably an aftershock, and fallen rocks among the damage outside Christchurch.

VIDEO

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/21/new-zealand-earthquake-20_n_826283.html

February 3, 2011 by David Dickinson  
Filed under Astro News, Astro News & Commentary, Weekly Astro-events

The Brave New Worlds of Kepler-11…  (Credit: NASA/Tim Pyle).

The number of potential exoplanets has more than doubled… in one press release! Wednesday at 1PM EST, NASA researchers have revealed the latest findings from the Kepler spacecraft. And what a mother lode… Today’s Kepler announcement jumps the number of exoplanet candidates to over 1,200. Keep in mind, that’s potential exoworlds needing confirmation. The results were based on 4 months of observation. Launched in 2009, the Kepler mission stares in the direction of the constellation Cygnus looking for a tiny dimming as a hidden world passes in from of a star as seen from the vantage point of Kepler. Remember, the dips that Kepler is measuring are tiny; in the order of 0.01 magnitudes of brightness or smaller. The fact that Kepler is staring off into Cygnus is not by chance… the region is along the galactic plane and very star rich.

A quick snapshot of the “Kepler 1200″ planet candidates breaks down as follows= 68 Earth-sized, 288 “super Earths,” 662 Neptune-sized, & 165-Jupiter-size worlds. Keep in mind the term “Earth-like world” is still pretty general in terms of exoplanets…at a distance, Venus would appear Earth-like. Not the kind of destination you would be inclined to dispatch a multi-generational space ark to! Kepler is also seeing smaller candidates in more leisurely orbits, a sign that detection ability is getting more refined over time. Yale astronomer Debra Fisher stated in the conference Wednesday that, “The detection of large planets is always going to be easier than the small guys.” What’s interesting is that the Kepler discovery of potential multiple systems will finally allow us to characterize and perhaps classify various solar systems. The Kepler discoveries may even go a long way towards telling us how rare/common our own solar system is: the vaulted f_p in the Drake Equation. Fischer’s primary specialty is detection of planets via the other preferred method of radial velocity. During the interview, Fischer stated that radial velocity techniques would have to refine their sensitivity to within 10 centimeters per second to confirm an Earth-sized world in the Kepler data. Fischer also made mention of Galaxy Zoo and their new exoplanet search program; yay, citizen science! (Did you know-students have discovered exoplanets in the past while learning to construct search algorithms!)

Kepler scientists also announced a fresh confirmed discovery-a system with the most transiting exoplanets yet detected clustered within an equivalent radius of the orbit of Venus. Kepler-11 is a star system 2,000 light years distant consisting of a sun like star with six transiting worlds: the animation is fairly mind-blowing! Earlier this year: Kepler’s 1^st rocky planet Kepler-10b, and the hits just keep on coming.

Kepler only grabs a tiny slice of the sky on a short mission- imagine if the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder series could ever get off the ground? The possibility could exist that we could have spectral signatures hinting at life processes on distant worlds in our lifetime. In any event, its definitely “raining exo-worlds” as we eventually knew it would… astro-bloggers are gonna be busy! I can hear the keys clattering…

VIDEO

http://astroguyz.com/2011/02/03/03-02-11-kepler-hits-paydirt/#

Kepler-11 System With 6 Planets [720p]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2BqZaHlII