On October 8th Earth is going to plow through a stream of dust from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and the result could be an outburst of Draconid meteors.”We’re predicting as many as 750 meteors per hour,” says William Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at
Yesterday, October 4th, something exploded on the far side of the sun and propelled a spectacular CME into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud as it emerged from behind the sun’s limb:Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have
A comet discovered by amateur astronomers on Friday, Sept. 30th, disintegrated in spectacular fashion the very next day when it plunged into the sun. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the comet’s last hours. The end was punctuated by an unexpected
On October 1st around 10:17 UT, widely-spaced sunspots 1302 and 1305 erupted in quick succession, revealing a long-distance entanglement which was not obvious before. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the movie of the double blast:Since it was
With NASA’s announcement of its new, mammoth Space Launch System (SLS), preparations can begin in earnest for the first human mission to an asteroid. The SLS will take the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) on the first human forays into deep space, out of the
A comet is diving into the sun today. Discovered on Sept. 29th by a group of four independent comet hunters (M. Kusiak, S. Liwo, B. Zhou and Z. Xu), the icy visitor from the outer solar system is evaporating furiously as it approaches the hot star. SOHO (the Solar and
At a NASA teleconference yesterday, researchers working with data from the Messenger spacecraft offered new evidence that gusts of solar wind are penetrating Mercury’s magnetic field and eroding material off the planet’s surface. The spacecraft has actually flown
China launched their first space station module into orbit today (Sept. 29), marking a major milestone in the rapidly expanding Chinese space program. The historic liftoff of the man rated Tiangong 1 (Heavenly Palace 1) space lab on a Long March 2F rocket took
A CME hit Earth’s magnetic field on Sept. 26th, sparking one of the strongest magnetic storms in years. At the peak of the Kp=8 disturbance, auroras were sighted around both poles and more than half a dozen US states. Magnetic reverberations continued for more than 48
NASA will announce new findings about Mercury during a press conference on Thursday, Sept. 29th. Tune in at 2 pm EDT to find out what the MESSENGER spacecraft has been learning about the innermost planet.MESSENGER Spacecraft Reveals New Details of Mercury2 p.m. EDT,
