Video: Too weird to be believed - a new planet in the solar system?

Image by Lexinatrix via Flickr

From Denny: While most of us already know about this "maybe planet" what you will find interesting is its relationship to the solar system at a 45 degree angle on the illustration that certainly caught my eye. It reminds me of a lost ball in high weeds. :) BBC always does an entertaining presentation.

"Astronomers have a massive breakthrough as they discover a weird and very bright extraordinary object in the far reaches of our solar system. Is it a planet? Is it a block of ice? Whatever it is, it's bigger than Pluto. Fascinating science video from BBC Horizon show 'Bye Bye Planet Pluto.'"

Astronomy: Meteorite Grains Divulge Earth's Cosmic Roots

From Denny: A short article from the folks over at Science Daily. It seems like every few years there comes along a group of scientists telling us the Universe is either older or younger than previously thought. Who said Nature's laws are written in stone? Our maybe it's just our understanding is in a fluid state...

Pair of the grains Image via Wikipedia

Here's an excerpt:

"The interstellar stuff that became incorporated into the planets and life on Earth has younger cosmic roots than theories predict..."

"Heck and his colleagues examined 22 interstellar grains from the Murchison meteorite for their analysis. Dying sun-like stars flung the Murchison grains into space more than 4.5 billion years ago, before the birth of the solar system. Scientists know the grains formed outside the solar system because of their exotic composition."

For the rest of the article just click on the title link.

Astronomy: The eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

Alpha Monocerotid meteor shower in 1995. Perseid meteor shower, richest shower of the year, peaks in August. Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: You will want to get out of bed early come Wednesday morning to see the meteor showers! You can have your coffee later.

SpaceWeather.com is reporting:

Forecasters expect the 2009 eta Aquarid shower to peak on Wednesday morning, May 6th, with as many as 85 meteors per hour over the southern hemisphere. Sky watchers in Australia, New Zealand, South America and southern Africa are favored. Rates in the northern hemisphere will be less, 20 to 30 per hour. The best time to look is during the moonless hour before local sunrise. That is when the shower's radiant is high in the sky and the nearly-full Moon will have set, leaving the sky dark for meteors.




Sky Map for the Northern Hemisphere

Eta Aquarids are flakes of dust from Halley's Comet, which last visited Earth in 1986. Although the comet is now far away, beyond the orbit of Uranus, it left behind a stream of dust. Earth passes through the stream twice a year in May and October. In May we have the eta Aquarid meteor shower, in October the Orionids. Both are caused by Halley's Comet.

The shower is named after a 4th-magnitude star in the constellation Aquarius. The star has nothing to do with the meteor shower except that, coincidentally, meteors appear to emerge from a point nearby. Eta Aquarii is 156 light years from Earth and 44 times more luminous than the Sun.

The constellation Aquarius does not rise very far above the horizon in the northern hemisphere, and that's why northerners see relatively few meteors. But the ones they do see could be spectacular Earthgrazers.



Sky Map for Southern Hemisphere

Earthgrazers are meteors that skim horizontally through the upper atmosphere. They are slow and dramatic, streaking far across the sky. The best time to look for Earthgrazers is between 2:00 to 2:30 a.m. local time when Aquarius is just peeking above the horizon.

Experienced meteor watchers suggest the following viewing strategy: Dress warmly. Bring a reclining chair, or spread a thick blanket over a flat spot of ground. Lie down and look up somewhat toward the east. Meteors can appear in any part of the sky, although their trails will point back toward Aquarius.

Tidbits:

Eta Aquarid meteoroids hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 66 km/s.

Typical eta Aquarid meteors are as bright as a 3rd magnitude star.

Astronomy Blog Review: Nite Sky Girl

Image by Royalty-free image collection via Flickr

Nite Sky Girl Blog for Beginner Astronomers!

When you first land on this blog it feels like you just got dropped out into space and are floating in the vast blue ocean of space viewing the planets and galaxy! Your fun greeting welcome when you arrive on this Canadian astronomer’s blog? “Astronomy rocks and so do you for orbiting my blog!”
Curious about a particular planet? There is a section for that where you can click on your favorite planet and find out the latest news. There are also sections to find out and view photos of comets and meteors. She has sky videos galore as well.

Especially for the beginner astronomer and kids is a question and answer area about space and astronomy you will enjoy. Most of the material is geared for older kids who can learn some of the astronomy specifics and vocabulary.

Not to be missed are her very readable extensive listings on the Astronomy News Page, as it is on a separate blog, go here.

If you need night sky help she answers email questions about what is the right telescope or binoculars for you.

Nite Sky Girl is a rocking blog you will enjoy visiting again and again!

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Astronomy: Another Astreroid Buzzed Earth Today

From Denny: Apologies to everyone who has been looking for recent brain and astronomy articles from me. Spent the past couple of weeks recovering from allergy season which usually never affects me. Must be the global warming or something equally geeky...

Anyway, I'm getting back to finding more than just videos for you. Though I have recently discovered a real treasure chest of well-produced videos from reputable sources. YouTube may have quantity but it suffers from quality and a plethora of inaccurate, misleading or downright bad information that in good conscience I just can't put up here for the public. I vett everything that goes up here on all my blogs, especially keeping in mind that parents and children are a big part of my audience. Thanks for supporting this blog! Now on to the latest news to almost affect our little planet called Earth.

***

Image by anomalous4 via Flickr

Another so-called small asteroid buzzed us today of April 8th – welcome to the celestial Easter season – apparently, this size of asteroid whizzes past the Earth every few months. For a post by a Canadian astronomer, Nite Sky Girl, go here.

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Astronomy: New Effective Technique to Better Measure Asteroids

Tired of hearing about all those asteroid near-misses almost hitting our beloved planet Earth? Everyone on the planet is affected by scientists' new development!

photo of our main asteroid belt called Barbara from ESO.org


From Denny:

Apologies for getting this post out late this morning. Yesterday Louisiana had flooding rain and then lightning all afternoon and night. The internet was so slow yesterday was only able to pre-load a few blogs. Oh, that I could have the fun of blogging in real time but such is life on the Gulf Coast in the hurricane zone! Usually, I'm successful enough to at least get one post per blog scheduled a day...

On to astronomy news that relates to every person on the planet:

Lately, we are often hearing on the global news that an asteroid just barely missed colliding into planet Earth. Now for the good news! A team of scientists from France and Italy figured out how to increase the number of asteroids measured by a factor of several hundred. For some time traditional measuring techniques have prevented us from measuring asteroids too small or too far away to predict what might affect us.

The new technique is so powerful it has been likened to measuring an asteroid the size of a tennis ball from 1,000 kilometers away. The new technique is called interferometry.

Until now, the method of direct imaging, with adaptive optics, only allowed for measuring the 100 largest asteroids of the main belt called Barbara. With the other technique called radar measurements it is limited to those near-misses you keep hearing about: “asteroid near-miss to planet Earth” and scaring the hell out of everyone!

This new and powerful interferometric technique now combines the light from two or more telescopes. They have since applied this new technique to the main asteroid belt to discover it has unusual properties and shape never before seen.

For the infinitesimal astronomy and gadget details only science and astronomy buffs salivate over please click on the title link.