Potentially Hazardous Asteroids:

The most underrated threat to our planet might be impact events that threaten our small world. Most meteors and asteroids may be incredibly small; however, even the largest are discreet and almost undetectable until it"s too late to do anything about them -- a situation that played out just last year, with the Chelyabinsk Meteor in Russia. If that impact didn"t open your eyes to the danger of these objects, perhaps this newly released image will.

Learn about the significance of this image at
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/14300/

Image via
NASA

Tonight, Meteors will light up the winter sky:

If you"re in the Northern Hemisphere, you"re in luck! Tonight, turn your eyes towards the Big Dipper"s handle and look to the west of the bright star Arcturus. If the weather is favorable (and light pollution isn"t clouding the skies and obscuring your view), then you should be able to see some 80-200 meteors per an hour streaking through the sky. If you"ve never seen a meteor shower before, be sure to check it out this evening starting at midnight and carrying on until dawn. They are truly glorious events, and definitely worth a little lost shut-eye.

These meteors will blast into Earth"s atmosphere at about 90,000 miles per hour (144,800 km/h), but you"ve no need to fear any deadly cataclysms. The typical bright meteor is produced by a particle with a mass less than 1 gram...no larger than a pea. So even if the Quadrantids set the sky aglow, you"ve nothing to fear.

Want to learn more amazing facts about meteors and how to find them? See:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/tonight-meteors-will-light-up-the-winter-sky/

Image via
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73449134@N04/8343003942/in/photolist-dHf5py-dH9EGv-dH6aWh-97BHji-b7byEF-b7byVX

Alien Stars in Our Solar System: Threats That are Out of This World (literally)

Our solar system is located about 2/3rds of the way from our galactic center, in the Orion spur (of the Perseus spiral arm), which is relatively empty compared to the more cluttered area surrounding the super-massive black hole situated at the center of the Milky Way. However, that"s not to say that no stars or celestial objects pose a danger to us here on Earth. In fact, one particular star may actually pose a significant danger to us. New models uncovered in 2010 say the rogue star could seriously upset the icy comets in the Oort cloud, a theoretical region located on the edges of our solar system.

Read about this cosmic wanderer at:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/alien-stars-in-our-solar-system-threats-that-are-out-of-this-world-literally/

Image:
NASA

Could we prevent an asteroid collision?

In its early life, the Earth would have been peppered nearly continuously with asteroids and debris. Today, the Earth still receives thousands of tons of matter from space, but this is in the form of microscopic dust particles. Fortunately, a large asteroid colliding with the surface of the Earth is very rare. Nevertheless, it does happen from time to time. You probably heard about the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor which hit in February of this year. It entered at a shallow angle at 60 times the speed of sound, and it exploded in an air burst. The size of this body of rock (before it burnt up and shattered) was estimated to be around 20 m across and weighec13,000 metric tons. This isn"t large by any means, but it was enough to injure over a thousand people and damage nearly 20,000 buildings.

Lucky for us, larger impacts are very rare. Most notable of all these larger impacts is the 10 km sized object that is widely believed to have initiated the dinosaurs" extinction some 65 million years ago. But what would happen if we were faced with such a threat today?

Read all about this at:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/could-we-prevent-an-asteroid-collisio/

Image source:
ALAMY

Astronomy Photo of the Day: Nov. 14 2013

In this amazing image, Comet Lovejoy blasts past the Earth (just visible near Earth"s horizon). This comet was discovered in November of 2011 by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy. From the get-go, scientists did not believe that the comet would have had a happy ending or make another pass by the Earth.

As Lovejoy sped into the Sun’s corona in 2011, passing within just 87,000 miles of the sun’s surface (well within spitting distance—astronomically speaking), most were assured that the comet would not survive the encounter. Scientists believed that the Sun would consume (melt off) most of the comet"s material. However, the comet managed to withstand the several million degree solar corona for close to an hour, and it headed back out into the solar system.

Lovejoy is a fascinating object: It belongs to the Kreutz family of sun-grazing comets (likely all pieces of a single giant comet that splintered apart in approximately 1106 AD), and it is believed to be the largest fragment of the giant comet. Since it was able to withstand the intense heat of the Sun, astronomers believe that the comet is larger than initially anticipated.

The photo was taken on Dec. 22, 2011 by NASA astronaut Dan Burbank while he was on the International Space Station.

For sources, see: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/astronomy-photo-of-the-day-nov-14-2013/

Image source:
NASA

Life Beyond Earth: A day Living on Shoemaker-Levy 9

Today, I would like to tell you what it would be like to live on my favorite comet, Shoemaker-Levy 9. But I can’t. Not really anyways, because it no longer exists. Well, technically it exists. But now we call it “Jupiter.”

Confused? Let me explain. In 1993, astronomers discovered a comet orbiting Jupiter, and they immediately noticed something strange about this comet. First, its orbital period was only about two years. And second, well, it was orbiting Jupiter. Comets’ orbital periods vary wildly; some take a few hundred years, while others (a majority) take a few hundred thousand years. To most of us, a two year orbital period might not seem so peculiar. After all, the Earth’s revolution takes a year, and we aren’t that strange. Right?

Wrong. An overwhelming majority of the objects in our solar system have an orbital period that takes thousands of years. Remember Hale-Bopp? Well, I hope that you have a really long memory because it won’t be back for about 2,500 years. So Shoemaker-Levy 9"s two year orbital period is odd. Remarkably odd…especially since its orbit is around a planet, and not the Sun. And you know how people always say that being unique is a good thing? Well, it"s not.

Find out why at: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/life-beyond-earth-a-day-living-on-shoemaker-levy-9/

Image source:
http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/27/27.html