Sunday, November 13, 2011

Earth visit of big, dark asteroid widely observed with all means

Only a fraction of the scientific data recorded with everything from big radar dishes to a 10-meter telescope with adaptive optics to the large IR satellite Herschel have been reported yet, but it can already be stated 2005 YU55 will probably be the best studied minor planet (not directly visited by a spacecraft) ever: a live-blog tracked the news from Nov. 6 til 10 and has many pictures, videos and links; since wrapping I've seen more videos here, here, here, here and here - also an improved radar movie, a late wire story and a simulation of what would have happened had YU55 impacted Earth.

In other planetary system news a long press release on a meteorite found by a Missouri farmer - a 17-kilogram pallasite! - and pictures of a bright Dutch bolide of Nov. 12. • Another - very faint - detection of (ex-)Elenin on Nov. 8, a great picture of comet Garradd of Oct. 30 - and C/2010 S1 (LINEAR) approaching the Bubble Nebula on Nov. 12. • How Venus & Mercury were easy - when you were in Australia. • Some selected Jupiter images of Nov. 13, Nov. 6 (more) and Oct. 23 - and a breathtaking animation of Jupiter images taken with the Pic du Midi 1 m telescope in October!

The huge sunspot group 1339 is almost history after - despite breathless articles like here, here and here - crossing the solar disk w/o further incidents: some selected pictures of a fine prominence today, the white and H-Alpha Sun (more) and a huge filament on Nov. 12, the white Sun full of spots on Nov. 11, a spotted sunrise on Nov. 10, the full disk + detail on Nov. 9, the group at the center on Nov. 8, the group and a spotty sunset (another one = an APOD) on Nov. 7, the full disk, detail, H-Alpha and spotty sunset on Nov. 6, detailled drawings of Nov. 5 (also a photo) of Nov.5 and earlier drawings of AR 1339. • Plus no superflares (more), strange jumping sundogs - and the likely end of the leap second.

No comments: