I am looking forward to more pictures and video from this event.

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: New sunspot 1302 is crackling with strong solar flares. This morning it unleashed an X2-class flare--its second X-flare in two days--quickly followed by an M7-class eruption. So far the blasts have not been Earth-directed, but this could change in the days ahead as the sunspot turns toward our planet. The sunspot is growing and there is no sign that it will quiet down soon. Visit http://spaceweather.com for movies and updates.

Update: September 26, 2011from http://spaceweather.com/

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: Having already unleashed two X-flares since Sept. 22nd, sunspot AR1302 appears ready for more. The active region has a complex "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field that harbors energy for strong M- and X-class eruptions. Flares from AR1302 will become increasingly geoeffective as the sunspot turns toward Earth in the days ahead.

On Sunday, Sept. 25th, Dutch astrophotographer Emil Kraaikamp took a magnificent picture of the active region, which is so big only half of it fits on the screen. Click to view the entire sunspot:

"This is how the sunspot looked through my solar-filtered 10-inch Newtonian telescope," says Kraaikamp. "Due to the always-variable daytime seeing here in the Netherlands, it took a couple of hours to finally capture one good set of images, but it was well worth the effort to get this view of the huge sunspot formation."

more images: from Andy Devey of Barnsley South Yorkshire; from Alan Friedman of Buffalo, NY; from Monika Landy-Gyebnar of Balatonfured, Hungary; from Piet Berger of Simpelveld, Netherlands; from Howard Eskildsen of Ocala, Florida; from Dzmitry Kananovich of Tallinn, Estonia; from Chris Schur of Payson, Az; from John Stetson of Falmouth, Maine; from Grenier of Paris France; from Maximilian Teodorescu of Magurele, Romania; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Philippe Van den Doorn of Rixensart, Belgium; ;

This is such a cool story. The thunder storm is weeks old! Not minutes or hours but weeks, like in almost two months!

Anyway, the pictures are awesome and the best part they are by an amateur astronomer!

STORM ON SATURN: A vast thunderstorm that erupted on Saturn during the closing weeks of 2010 is still going strong. "It looks like a comet plowing through Saturn's northern hemisphere," reports amateur astronomer Christopher Go. He took these pictures on Feb. 5th using an 11-inch Celestron telescope in Cebu City, the Philippines:

"The storm is very bright," says Go. "I spent a few minutes observing it visually (through the eyepiece) and it is very prominent."

Researchers call the storm the "northern electrostatic disturbance" because (1) it is in Saturn's northern hemisphere and (2) it is strongly charged with lightning. Receivers onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft are picking up radio crackles each time a bolt discharges--much like the static you hear on a car radio when driving through an electrical storm on Earth.

The storm is stretching around much of Saturn's northern hemisphere--and growing longer. This means there a good chance of catching it no matter when you look. Amateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor developments. Saturn may be found high in the southern sky before dawn shining like a yellow 1st-magnitude star.

FANTASTIC SOLAR ECLIPSE: When the sun rose over Europe this morning, a piece of it was missing.  The Moon had covered as much as 86% of the solar disk, producing a partial solar eclipse and a fantastic crescent-shaped sunrise.  The most amazing apparition, however, may have occurred in the Sultanate of Oman, where for a split second the Moon and the International Space Station partially eclipsed the sun at the same time.

DOUBLE SOLAR ECLIPSE: Not satisfied with an ordinary blow-your-socks-off partial eclipse,

celebrated photographer Thierry Legault traveled to the Sultanate of Oman to record a rare double eclipse. For a split-second on Jan. 4th the disk of the sun was partially covered by the Moon and the International Space Station. I can not share the awesome pictures here so you will have to goto Thierry Legault's website. Go there now!

Enjoy!

Asteroid Itokawa Sample Return

Dec. 29, 2010:  The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa spacecraft has brought home to Earth tiny pieces of an alien world–asteroid Itokawa.

"It's an incredible feeling to have another world right in the palm of your hand," says Mike Zolensky, Associate Curator for Interplanetary Dust at the Johnson Space Center, and one of the three non-Japanese members of the science team. "We're seeing for the first time, up close, what an asteroid is actually made of!"

Hayabusa photographs its own shadow on asteroid Itokawa in 2005 prior to collecting samples from the big space rock. [more]

He has good reason to be excited. Asteroids formed at the dawn of our solar system, so studying these samples can teach us how it formed and evolved.

Hayabusa launched in 2003 and set out on a billion kilometer voyage to Itokawa, arriving a little over two years later. In 2005, the spacecraft performed a spectacular feat -- landed on the asteroid's surface⁽¹⁾. The hope was to capture samples from the alien world.

But there was a problem. The projectiles set to blast up dust from the surface failed to fire, leaving only the particles kicked up from landing for collection. Did any asteroid dust made it into the collection chamber?

The return of Hayabusa went exactly according to plan, according to JAXA:full story.

Zolensky and other eager scientists, with eyes riveted skyward, watched the answer plunge back into Earth's atmosphere at 27,000 miles per hour on the night of June 13th, 2010. Hayabusa's main bus shattered over the Australian outback during reentry, and the intact sample return capsule drifted to Earth via parachute.

"We were mesmerized," says Zolensky. "As we waited for it to land, no one even moved."

But the waiting was only just beginning. Because attempting retrieval of the capsule in the dark was too dangerous, he spent a sleepless night before getting a closer look.

"I was one of the first people to board the helicopter that flew to the landing site the next morning. And I was the first person to walk up to the capsule."

He had to stop within 10 feet of it. More waiting.

"I watched the retrieval team recover it. They wore face masks and gloves and blue padded suits. They had to disable the unexploded parachute release charges, and that was pretty nerve wracking. Then they picked up the capsule oh so carefully and placed it in a box."

The precious cargo was flown via charter jet to Japan for analysis. Guess who was waiting for it when it arrived?

"I was ready to work," says Zolensky, who along with fellow team member Scott Sandford of NASA Ames Research Center had traveled to Japan for the opening.

"The first results were disheartening. When we scanned the capsule with a modified CAT scan, there appeared to be nothing inside."

Next, Japanese members of the team painstakingly dismantled the capsule, piece by piece. "They had to use a micromanipulator to avoid contamination, and the process took months."

More waiting.

Electron microscope photos of material found inside Hayabusa's sample return container. Red arrows point to particles from the asteroid. [more]

"Once we got inside the capsule, we could see dust on the interior walls. I thought to myself, 'we've got asteroid dust here!' But there was still a possibility the contents could be contamination from launch or reentry and landing."

The next step was to remove and analyze the particles -- another agonizingly slow process, and more waiting.

"The particles are each smaller than the diameter of a human hair. We finally used a Teflon spatula to sweep out a large number of tiny particles."

Though most of the particles are still in the capsule, the team has removed and analyzed 2000 of them with an electron microscope.

And?

"At least 1500 of them are from the asteroid! We're seeing pieces of another world. It looks like a very primitive type asteroid. We'll tell you more in March at the 2011 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston."

This is only the third time ever that samples of a solid extraterrestrial body have been brought back to Earth. The Apollo astronauts and Soviet Luna robots were first – they brought us samples of moondust. And NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned samples of comet Wild 2 in 2006.

"The Japanese people are thrilled, and so are we. The emperor even requested a personal tour of the capsule. This is their Apollo mission. They're showing us all a new world!"

Author: Dauna Coulter | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

For More Information

Web Links:

Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa -- JAXA mission home page

Identification of origin of particles brought back by Hayabusa -- JAXA press release

Bringing Hayabusa Back to Earth -- JAXA feature story

End Notes:

(1) This is only the second time an asteroid landing has been achieved. The only other time in history a spacecraft landed on an asteroid's surface was when NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft landed on asteroid Eros in February 2001.

Observing a lunar eclipse is very easy. All you have to do is look up in the cloud less sky, find the moon and look. I have observed many and they are cool. This will be the first time in hundreds of years that a lunar eclipse will fall on the winter solstice. From AOL News: Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years for NASA. "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," Chester said, according to NASA. "Fortunately we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one ... that will be on 2094 DEC 21."

From SpaceWeather.com: LUNAR ECLIPSE:  For the first time in many years, northern winter is beginning with a total lunar eclipse.  On Dec. 21, 2010, the date of the northern winter solstice, the full Moon will pass through Earth's shadow, turning the lunar orb a delightful shade of coppery-red. Sky watchers in North America are favored with an overhead view as the eclipse unfolds on Tuesday morning between 02:41 am and 03:53 am EST. Visit http://spaceweather.com for full coverage of the event including live webcasts, observing tips, and a look at the surprising connection between lunar eclipses and Earth's climate.

From Nasa's Press Release:Solstice Lunar Eclipse

Dec. 17, 2010:  Everyone knows that "the moon on the breast of new-fallen snow gives the luster of mid-day to objects below."

A similar lunar eclipse in Nov. 2003. Credit: Jim Fakatselis. [more]

That is, except during a lunar eclipse.

The luster will be a bit "off" on Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth's shadow. For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow.

The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST (Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST). At that time, Earth's shadow will appear as a dark-red bite at the edge of the lunar disk. It takes about an hour for the "bite" to expand and swallow the entire Moon. Totality commences at 02:41 am EST (11:41 pm PST) and lasts for 72 minutes.

If you're planning to dash out for only one quick look -­ it is December, after all -­ choose this moment: 03:17 am EST (17 minutes past midnight PST). That's when the Moon will be in deepest shadow, displaying the most fantastic shades of coppery red.

From first to last bite, the eclipse favors observers in North America. The entire event can be seen from all points on the continent. Click to view a world map of visibility circumstances. Credit: F. Espenak, NASA/GSFC.

Why red?

A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.

Back on Earth, the shadowed Moon paints newly fallen snow with unfamiliar colors--not much luster, but lots of beauty.

Enjoy the show.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

The Geminid Meteor Shower is one of my favorites. On a clear winter's night the sky is so much darker then in the summer so it is even easier to see this spectacular light show.

From SpaceWeather.com:

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER: This week, Earth is entering a stream of debris from asteroid 3200 Phaethon, source of the mysterious Geminid meteor shower. Although the shower's peak won't come until Dec. 13th and 14th, people are already seeing a smattering of bright shooting stars. Fredrik Broms photographed this Geminid streaking over the snowy hills of Kvaløya, Norway, on Dec. 7th:

Geminid meteor rates are low now, less than 5 to 10 per hour, but they will climb ten-fold early next week when Earth passes through a denser part of the debris stream. People who go outside between midnight and sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 14th, could count as many as 120 Geminds per hour. Urban light pollution will reduce number of visible meteors by factors of 2 to 5, so get away from city lights if you can. A rural setting is best for meteor watching.

PLAN B: Got clouds? If you can't see the Geminids, you can listen to them instead on Space Weather Radio. We're transmitting live meteor echoes from the US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar in Kickapoo, Texas.

M5 SOLAR FLARE: Active sunspot 1121 has unleashed one of the brightest x-ray solar flares in years, an M5.4-class eruption at 15:36 UT on Nov. 6th. Click on the image to view a movie of the blast from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

Radiation from the flare created a wave of ionization in Earth's upper atmosphere that altered the propagation of low-frequency radio waves. There was, however, no bright CME (plasma cloud) hurled in our direction, so the event is unlikely to produce auroras in the nights ahead. This is the third M-flare in as many days from this increasingly active sunspot. So far none of the eruptions has been squarely Earth-directed, but this could change in the days ahead as the sun's rotation turns the active region toward our planet. Now might be a good time to sign up for space weather alerts.

I find reading about NASA's various spacecraft always interesting. I just wish I had more time to keep up with the volume of information NASA makes available. This Cassini story is from February and is about the flyby in late Novemver 2009 of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did. - @dmgerbino

In this unique mosaic image combining high-resolution data from the imaging science subsystem and composite infrared spectrometer aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, pockets of heat appear along one of the mysterious fractures in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/SWRI/SSI
› Full image and caption
› See related images

Newly released images from last November's swoop over Saturn's icy moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a forest of new jets spraying from prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yield the most detailed temperature map to date of one fracture.

The new images from the imaging science subsystem and the composite infrared spectrometer teams also include the best 3-D image ever obtained of a "tiger stripe," a fissure that sprays icy particles, water vapor and organic compounds. There are also views of regions not well-mapped previously on Enceladus, including a southern area with crudely circular tectonic patterns.

The images and additional information are online at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

"Enceladus continues to astound," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "With each Cassini flyby, we learn more about its extreme activity and what makes this strange moon tick."

For Cassini's visible-light cameras, the Nov. 21, 2009 flyby provided the last look at Enceladus' south polar surface before that region of the moon goes into 15 years of darkness, and includes the most detailed look yet at the jets.

Scientists planned to use this flyby to look for new or smaller jets not visible in previous images. In one mosaic, scientists count more than 30 individual geysers, including more than 20 that had not been seen before. At least one jet spouting prominently in previous images now appears less powerful.

"This last flyby confirms what we suspected," said Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "The vigor of individual jets can vary with time, and many jets, large and small, erupt all along the tiger stripes."

Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice out from many locations along the famed "tiger stripes" near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
› Full image and caption
› See related images

A new map that combines heat data with visible-light images shows a 40-kilometer (25-mile) segment of the longest tiger stripe, known as Baghdad Sulcus. The map illustrates the correlation, at the highest resolution yet seen, between the geologically youthful surface fractures and the anomalously warm temperatures that have been recorded in the south polar region. The broad swaths of heat previously detected by the infrared spectrometer appear to be confined to a narrow, intense region no more than a kilometer (half a mile) wide along the fracture.

In these measurements, peak temperatures along Baghdad Sulcus exceed 180 Kelvin (minus 135 degrees Fahrenheit), and may be higher than 200 Kelvin (minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit). These warm temperatures probably result from heating of the fracture flanks by the warm, upwelling water vapor that propels the ice-particle jets seen by Cassini's cameras. Cassini scientists will be testing this idea by investigating how well the hot spots correspond with the jet sources.

"The fractures are chilly by Earth standards, but they're a cozy oasis compared to the numbing 50 Kelvin (-370 Fahrenheit) of their surroundings," said John Spencer, a composite infrared spectrometer team member based at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "The huge amount of heat pouring out of the tiger stripe fractures may be enough to melt the ice underground. Results like this make Enceladus one of the most exciting places we've found in the solar system."

Some of Cassini's scientists infer that the warmer the temperatures are at the surface, the greater the likelihood that jets erupt from liquid. "And if true, this makes Enceladus' organic-rich, liquid sub-surface environment the most accessible extraterrestrial watery zone known in the solar system," Porco said.

The Nov. 21 flyby was the eighth targeted encounter with Enceladus. It took the spacecraft to within about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of the moon's surface, at around 82 degrees south latitude.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built.

More details are also available at the imaging team's website http://ciclops.org and the composite infrared spectrometer team's website http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov.

› See related images

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

2010-061

The Mutating Mars Hoax

August 25, 2010:  It spreads, it mutates, it refuses to die.

For the seventh year in a row, the Mars Hoax is infecting email boxes around the world. Passed from one reader to another, the message states that on August 27th Mars will approach Earth and swell to the size of a full Moon. "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN," the email declares--always in caps.

News flash: It's not true.

Here are the facts. On August 27, 2010, Mars will be 314 million km from Earth, about as far away as it can get. Mars will shine in the western sky after sunset like a tiny red star of ordinary brightness. If you didn't know it was there, you probably wouldn't notice.

The only way to see Mars as large as the full Moon is to board a spaceship.

The origins of the Hoax can be traced back to 2003 when Mars really did swell to unusual proportions. On August 27th of that year, Mars came within 56 million km of Earth—the nearest it has been in 60,000 years. People marveled at the orange brilliance of Mars in the night sky and crowded around telescopes for clear views of the planet's towering volcanoes, ruddy plains and glistening polar ice caps. At the height of the display, Mars was about 75 times smaller than the full Moon.

That's when "the virus" was born.

Someone, somewhere, reasoned as follows: If Mars is 75 times smaller than the Moon, then magnifying it 75 times should make it equal to the Moon. Early versions of the Hoax encouraged readers to get out their telescopes and insert a 75x eyepiece: "At a modest 75 times magnification," the message stated, "Mars will look as big as the full Moon to the naked eye."

Soon, the Hoax was vectoring around the internet, making copies of itself and mutating. Advanced versions of the virus, sleeker and less wordy than its ancestors, omitted the magnification and simply stated, "Mars will look as big as the full Moon to the naked eye!" Before long, the year was omitted, too. August 27, 2003, became August 27, and the Hoax became immortal. Indeed, years of stories contradicting the Hoax have failed to stamp it out. This is the fourth vaccination by Science@NASA alone.

Tolerant readers point out that the Mars Hoax is not really a hoax, because it is not an intentional trick. The original composer probably believed everything he or she wrote in the message. If so, even the name of the Mars Hoax is wrong!

Here's what you should do on August 27th. Go outside at sunset and face west. The bright light you see shining through the twilight is lovely Venus. Grab a pair of binoculars and scan the sky around Venus. A few degrees to the right, you'll come across a little orange star-like object. That is Mars.

Now go back inside and delete that email.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

For additional information check out Joe Rao's article, Mars Watch: A Complete Viewing Guide on Space.com