Meteor lit up sky over US east coast on March 22

People from North Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as Ohio, saw a very bright meteor streak across the sky on March 22.

At about 8 p.m. last night (Friday, March 22), people in the U.S. East – from North Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as Ohio – reported seeing a bright flash streaking quickly across the sky. It appears to have been a small meteor, or rock from space. The object didn’t explode and cause damage like the Russian meteor on February 15, 2013. The object over Russia is now believed to have been 17 meters in diameter before it struck Earth’s atmosphere. The March 22 meteor was probably much smaller, more like one meter, according to NASA experts.

Did you see the meteor? Post your pictures or videos to EarthSky’s Facebook page

When is the next meteor shower?

This is what the American Meteor Society (AMS) calls a “heat map.” It’s a compilation of eye-witness reports of the March 22, 2013 meteor. Read more about the March 22 meteor from the AMS here.

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, told The Associated Press that, based on the reports, it was a “single meteor event.” He said:

Judging from the brightness, we’re dealing with something as bright as the full moon. The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the Northeast.

The video below is from a security camera in Thurmont, Maryland.

There were no reports of damage from the March 22 meteor. It was just over a month ago that a meteor exploded over Russia’s Ural mountains. That explosion, which occurred some 8-12 miles (14-20 kilometers) above ground, shattered windows in and around the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia and caused some 1,000 injuries, but thankfully no deaths. Scientists are now saying it was the most powerful meteor explosion in Earth’s atmosphere since the Tunguska event in 1908.

This next video comes from security camera footage uploaded by CBS WUSA 9 - http://bcove.me/0qma7y2v

Astronomers sometimes use the word bolide to describe an exceptionally bright fireball such as this one, especially if it makes a sound (no reports so far of sound from this one, that we know of). The term bolide comes the Greek word bolis, meaning a missile or to flash. Bright meteors are seen pretty often, if you consider the whole Earth. In 2012, bright meteors or bollides were seen in the U.K. and New Zealand, and over San Francisco on October 17. So they are not uncommon.

However, from any one spot on Earth, they are uncommon, Among astronomers, it’s sometimes said you might witness one bolide, or very bright fireball, in your lifetime. So if you saw this one, this was yours!
If you observed it, you might want to tell someone what you saw. Here’s a place to report your meteor sighting.

Here’s an estimated trajectory model for the March 22, 2013 meteor. This model is calculated by computing the intersection points of each witness with all other witnesses. The points are then averaged for the starting and ending points of the meteor. Via American Meteor Society.

Bottom line: Many across the U.S. East on March 22, 2013 saw a very bright meteor streak across the night sky. It was a rock from space – probably about one meteor across – that vaporized in Earth’s atmosphere.

- EarthSky

Photos - ISS - Johannesburg, South Africa ( This photo was taken from the Intenational Space Station.)

(Click on image for larger view.)

Chris Hadfield ‏@Cmdr_Hadfield: Johannesburg, South Africa, distinctively multi-coloured on the Witwatersrand range.

When is the next meteor shower?

The radiant point of the Lyrid meteor shower is near the bright star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp.

The 2013 Quadrantids were good fun in early January, but now we’re in that yearly lull in major meteor activity. The next major shower won’t happen until April. It’s the Lyrid meteor shower – April’s “shooting stars.” These meteors tend to be bright and often leave trails. About 10-20 meteors per hour at peak can be expected. Plus, the Lyrids are known for uncommon surges that can sometimes bring the rate up to 100 per hour. Those rare outbursts are not easy to predict, but they’re one of the reasons the tantalizing Lyrids will be worth checking out. The radiant for this shower is in the constellation Lyra, which, as seen from mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, rises in the northeast at about 10 p.m. in April. In 2013, the waxing gibbous moon lights up the nighttime from sunset until the wee hours of the morning. However, the greatest number of Lyrid meteors commonly fall in the dark hours just before dawn. Best time to watch is the morning of April 22, 2013 between moonset and dawn. To find out when the moon sets in your sky, check out these recommended almanacs.

Composite image of Lyrid and no-Lyrid meteors over New Mexico from April 21-23, 2012. Image via NASA/MSFC/Danielle Moser

On April 22, 2012 a fireball seen over California and Nevada resulted in some meteorite fragments being recovered. These fragments – and that fireball – were likely NOT associated with the 2012 Lyrid meteor shower, even though they happened at the same time. Image of Sutter’s Mill meteorite fragments collected by astronomer Peter Jenniskens on April 24. Image via NASA / Eric James

By the way, in 2012, at the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower on April 22, people in California and Nevada saw a large fireball streak across the sky and heard a sonic boom. The boom rattled windows, and the fireball was so bright that some people were said to see “spots” afterwards. Later, the incoming object was said to be the size of a mini-van. Was this object related to the Lyrid meteor shower? Probably not. Meteors in annual showers are the result of rice-grain-sized, icy debris left behind in the orbits of comets. They rarely survive the fiery trip through Earth’s atmosphere and make their way to the ground.

The April 22, 2012 fireball, on the other hand, was clearly rocky. In fact, two days after the fireball – thanks to tracking of the meteor by Doppler weather radar – a small rocky fragment was picked up in the Henningsen Lotus Park just west of Coloma, California. It turned out to be the meteorite from the April 22 fireball. NASA scientists later said they struck scientific gold with this object, whose rapid recovery let them study for the first time a primitive meteorite with little exposure to the elements.

- EarthSky

Curiosity Zaps First Martian Rock

August 19, 2012: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has fired its laser for the first time on Mars. On Aug. 19th the mission's ChemCam instrument hit a fist-sized rock named "Coronation" with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

The energy from the laser creates a puff of ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the rock. The spectrometers record 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light.

"We got a great spectrum of Coronation -- lots of signal," said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M. "Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it's payoff time!"

This composite image, with magnified insets, depicts the first laser test by the ChemCam, instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP [Full image and caption] [Latest images]

ChemCam recorded spectra from each of the 30 pulses. The goal of this initial use of the laser on Mars was to serve as target practice for characterizing the instrument, but the activity may provide additional value. Researchers will check whether the composition changed as the pulses progressed. If it did change, that could indicate dust or other surface material being penetrated to reveal different composition beneath the surface.

"It's surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio," said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. "It's so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years."

The technique used by ChemCam, called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, has been used to determine composition of targets in other extreme environments, such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, and has had experimental applications in environmental monitoring and cancer detection. Today's investigation of Coronation is the first use of the technique in interplanetary exploration.

More information about ChemCam is available at www.msl-chemcam.com .


Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Nasa Mars rover makes detailed crater image

(Click on image for larger view.)

Nasa has released the first full colour mosaic from its Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.

Scientists have remarked that the rover's surroundings resembled parts of the southwestern US.

Curiosity's ultimate goal is to drive towards a peak - informally known as Mount Sharp - to study its rocks.

Shown in the mosaic is a section on the crater wall where a network of valleys are believed to have formed through water entering from the outside.

This high-resolution picture is the first view scientists have had of a fluvial system - one relating to a river or stream - from the surface of Mars.

Team members are also studying a section looking south of the landing site that provides an overview of the eventual geological targets Curiosity will explore, including the rock-strewn, gravelly surface nearby, a dark dune field and the sedimentary rock of Mount Sharp.

The rover will also study a patch of ground where rocks have been uncovered by the blast of the rockets used on the "skycrane", which lowered Curiosity to the surface.

- BBC

NASA's New Mars Rover Sends Higher-Resolution Image

This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption

PASADENA, Calif. - About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html .

"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," said John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from?  It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our new home on Mars."

While the image is twice as big in pixel size as the first images beamed down from the rover, they are only half the size of full-resolution Hazcam images. During future mission operations, these images will be used by the mission's navigators and rover drivers to help plan the vehicle's next drive. Other cameras aboard Curiosity, with color capability and much higher resolution, are expected to be sent back to Earth over the next several days.

Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles (about five kilometers) tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles (nearly 155 kilometers) 7in diameter. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech.

For more information on the mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity
Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-6278 / 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington                                                              
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
2012-231

Space station crew launches into orbit on Russian craft

A Russian Soyuz rocket rises on a pillar of flame from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday, sending a three-person crew to the International Space Station.

A Russian Soyuz rocket launched into orbit late Saturday, carrying three new crew members toward the International Space Station.

The rocket rose from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, lofting the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft into orbit. Liftoff came at 10:40 p.m. ET Saturday, which means it was early Sunday at the Central Asian spaceport. Onboard were an American, a Russian and a Japanese astronaut due to take up residence for four months at the orbiting outpost.

NASA TV showed the Soyuz soaring smoothly into a blue sky dotted with clouds, punching a hole through a cloud layer on its way up. It is due to dock at the station early Tuesday, at which time the three newcomers will join the existing crew of three on the space station's Expedition 32 mission.

The new complement includes NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, and Japanese spaceflier Akihiko Hoshide.

"Unfortunately our mission is only four months — I wish it would be years and years and years," Williams said during a preflight briefing. "I'm really lucky to be flying with Yuri and Aki. I think we're going to have a great time."

An international milestone

By coincidence, the U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew's launch and docking is coinciding with the 37th anniversary of the world's first international space mission: the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

On July 15, 1975, NASA launched an Apollo capsule and the Soviet Union launched its Soyuz 19 capsule to perform the first international space docking test. The mission set the foundation for the international partnerships that have led to the $100 billion International Space Station in orbit today.

In September, the current station crew — Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin of Russia, and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba — will return to Earth, and Williams will relieve Padalka as space station commander. She will be the second female space station commander in the facility's history. (NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was the first, in 2007.)

"I'm not good at bossing people around — but my husband might say that's not so true," Williams joked. "If I say we're going to do this, they all jump on it. Everybody's also felt free to offer their two cents. I think it's going to be really, honestly, pretty easy, and part of that is communication."

The international crew will each be bringing a taste of home and their own cultures with them to share.

"I'm not a very good cook, but fortunately we have a couple of Japanese foods that I'm bringing up, so I'd like to share that with my fellow crewmates during my stay," Hoshide told Space.com. "Just sharing stories, talking to each other provides a great base of international cooperation."

Busy flight ahead

The Expedition 32 mission will be chock full of activities, highlighted by space station maintenance, visits by robotic cargo spacecraft, spacewalks (also known as extravehicular activities, or EVAs), and a full load of science experiments.

"That's a whole lot of work the crew has to do to do the berthings, the dockings and the EVAs," said Mike Suffredini, International Space Station Program manager. "In addition we will allocate 35 hours per week to research."

Several visiting unmanned spacecraft are expected to deliver supplies to the space station during Expedition 32. One of those space freighters, a Japanese HTV-2 cargo ship, is slated to launch in just six days, NASA officials said.

There is at least one Russian spacewalk planned during the crew's stay, and possibly an American-led one as well.

"To do an EVA, this is always something special; I can compare it to docking a vehicle to station, and going outside, it's something unusual," Malenchenko said. "So we are looking forward to do this."

Commercial delivery

Williams, Malenchenko, and Hoshide may also be in space to see the first routine cargo delivery by a private spacecraft, if SpaceX launches its first Dragon supply-delivery run while they're there.

Dragon flew a test mission to the space station in May, and is now prepping to launch the first of 12 delivery flights the company is contracted for over the coming years.

"Getting the commercial sector involved, I think it's a good thing," Hoshide said. "It opens up new doors. I'm looking forward to that very much."

- MSNBC

Golden planet

Credit: ESA/NASA - Andre Kuipers

Perpetual Sun

Flight Engineer Don Pettit downloaded a video of the sun seen from the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth in a phase of continuous twilight.

Image: Venus and Jupiter - Noordhoek Cape Town

Not a very clear photo, but you can see Jupiter on top and venus down below. Its from Noordhoek, Cape Town facing west - Obs. Jakes

The Milky Way and Storms over Africa [video]

NASA video posted January 18, 2012

The following video has been created by the Crew Earth Observations team at Johnson Space Center from a series of still images taken onboard the International Space Station.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken December 29, 2011 from 20:55:05 to 21:14:09 GMT, on a pass from over central Africa, near southeast Niger, to the South Indian Ocean, southeast of Madagascar. The complete pass is over southern Africa to the ocean, focusing on the lightning flashes from local storms and the Milky Way rising over the horizon. The Milky Way can be spotted as a hazy band of white light at the beginning of the video. The pass continues southeast toward the Mozambique Channel and Madagascar. The Lovejoy Comet can be seen very faintly near the Milky Way. The pass ends as the sun is rising over the dark ocean.

To download the files go to: eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/

Credit: NASA