What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! It is being reported that a meteoroid hit the Moon while it was totally eclipsed. Multiple reports from observers as well as photographic evidence seem to indicate that this was in fact a real impact. The Moon is monitored during favorable lunar surface viewing conditions - when the Moon's phase has large areas not in sunlight- with telescopes and sensitive cameras to be on the lookout for such Lunar Transient Phenomena. There have been hundreds of impacts detected. These are small impacts and nothing that we could see with our eyes alone from Earth. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will be looking for this new crater as it has been very successful in finding new craters. It is worth noting that the impact rate picks up during meteor showers which makes sense as Earth and the Moon are moving through large debris fields left by comets and an asteroid. Of course Earth gets bombarded 24 hours a day like the Moon but our atmosphere vaporizes the incom...

Hey Space Placers! Ever wonder how our place in the Universe, the solar system formed? Here is a great 4K video that gives us insight on how astronomers think the solar system came to be. It also gives a description of the NASA  OSIRIS-REx  mission which will reach the asteroid Bennu in December of this year. The spacecraft is in good health and will begin its    last   deep space   maneuver June 28 and instrument checkout in July. I n the video chondrules (thought to be the first solid matter to form in the solar system and basic building blocks for planets) are mentioned. Here is what a large chondrule looks like - it is the large gray spherical shape in this Chelyabinsk meteorite specimen . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Read all about the close call we had by an asteroid this weekend that we discovered only hours before it flew by by just over 119,000 miles. This asteroid was 3 to 6 times larger than Chelyabinsk which hit Earth on 2/15/13. Spaceweather.com   in its 4/16/18 posting placed  2018 GE3  in the 48-110 meter range which makes it A Tunguska size asteroid - Tunguska wiped out 80 million trees over 800 square miles in Tunguska on 6/30/1908. Once again we are reminded that space rocks are all around us and we need to step up our efforts to detect them and build a defense system. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! At 2:15 p.m. EDT today, 9/7/14, a 60-foot space rock (asteroid) named 2014 RC will make its closest approach to the Earth at a mere 25,000 miles. The space rock will safely pass below Earth and our geosynchronous satellites as can be seen in this NASA JPL graphic: NASA JPL GRAPHIC 2014 RC was discovered initially on August 31 by  the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson AZ, and independently detected the next night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, located on the summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii. Astronomers will study 2014 RC as it passes by to add to our knowledge of these roamers of the solar system. The orbit of the asteroid will also be refined so that it can be monitored for any future potential threat to Earth. 2014 RC will be visible to observers with telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere so we should get some pictures of this cosmic interloper. This asteroid is about the same size as the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2/15/1...