November 7th, 2011
by J.L. Galache
Looking up at the sky is so passée in the modern world that few of us do it, which is probably why perfectly normal sights are misidentified when observed under uncommon circumstances. For example, everybody knows what a plane looks like, flying high in the sky, right? Not necessarily! Take a look at the video below, it was titled Asteroid ”2011 MD” – Cuernavaca-Mexico, yet this was not an asteroid (and certainly not 2011 MD)—it was just an aeroplane flying high in the sky at dusk in the direction of the Sun, which is why its contrails appear … Continue reading…
Posted in Meteors | No Comments »
October 5th, 2011
by J.L. Galache
Asteroid 2005 YU55 was discovered in late 2005 (duh!) by Bob McMillan and Jim Scotti of Spacewatch, at the Lunar and Planetary Lab within the University of Arizona. Once the orbit was refined thanks to continued observations it became clear 2005 YU55 would not hit the Earth…though it would pass near. In a few weeks, late on November 8 (UTC), 2005 YU55 will fly by the Earth and Moon and continue, barely perturbed, on its 446 day orbit around the Sun.
Its closest approach of 325,162 km (202,089 miles) will take place around 23:29 UTC (18:29 ET). … Continue reading…
Posted in Asteroids, Near Earth Objects | 1 Comment »
September 22nd, 2011
by J.L. Galache
Canon, the digital camera giant, has just announced the development of a new CMOS sensor with dimensions of 202 x 205mm, which is about 48 times the area of film or sensors used in traditional 35mm photography, and some 108 times the area of sensors currently used in most consumer DSLRs by Canon and others.
But why the need for a such a large sensor? In photography, size matters, and the larger your light-sensitive surface, the more light you can capture, and thus the dimmer the objects you’ll be able to record. That’s exactly what researchers at the University of … Continue reading…
Posted in Meteors, News | No Comments »
August 29th, 2011
by Gareth Williams
“In the red corner, weighing in at 1048 Earth masses, King of the Planets, give it up for Juuuupiteeeer! And in the blue corner, weighing in at one ten-billionth of an Earth mass, the new kid on the block, Comet 2011 P1!”
A recent comet discovery by prolific comet discoverer Rob McNaught has turned out to be an interesting example of large short-term orbit changes. Even before we put out the initial discovery announcement on MPEC 2011-P19 it was apparent that the comet was physically close to Jupiter. This caused some problems with determining the initial orbit and deciding whether … Continue reading…
Posted in Comets, Planets | 2 Comments »
