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| David Williams |
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| Another Chance to See an Aurora |
Oct 30, 2003 - Well, for those of you who missed an aurora, it looks like you're going to get another chance. This second X-class flare is going to give us another show tonight and tomorrow. So, once again, head outside after dark and see if you can see an aurora in the night sky. Dozens of you have sent in your reports for last night, so keep them coming! I'll publish everyone's stories and pictures on Friday. People have been asking me when and where to look, but the only answer I can give you is: in the sky, at night. So be patient, stay outside as long as you can and bring some company.
In other news, Mars Society's Robert Zubrin testified in front of Congress yesterday to give the government some ideas of how to get NASA back on track. And you'll never guess what he suggested… humans to Mars. :-) Okay, okay, I'm sure you saw that coming. Anyway, you can read a transcript of his testimony here (it's a PDF document).
The rumour mill is churning that President Bush is going to announce that NASA will be sending humans back to the Moon on December 17 (the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brother's first flight). Here's a report from SpaceDaily.
I'm not holding my breath.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
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| Image credit: ESO |
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| Black Hole Flares as it Gobbles Matter |
| Oct 30, 2003 - Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory recently spotted a flare in the infrared spectrum as matter was consumed by the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. They calculated that the flare, which only lasted for a few minutes, happened only a few thousandths of an arc second away from the centre of the Milky Way - this corresponds to the event horizon of the black hole. This observation allowed the astronomers to measure that the black hole is spinning very rapidly. |
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| Image credit: SOHO |
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| Sun Hurls Another Flare at the Earth |
| Oct 30, 2003 - Just when we thought it was over, the Sun blasted another gigantic X-class flare directly at the Earth. The flare was detected by the GOES satellite on October 29 at 2037 GMT (3:37 pm EST), and it peaked about 10 minutes later. The solar storm from this flare should reach us in a little less than a day, and cause another round of communication disruptions and beautiful auroras. The timing of two X-class flares happening this close together, and aimed directly at the Earth is unprecedented in solar astronomy. |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| Hubble Sees a Huge Star Forming Region |
| Oct 30, 2003 - The Hubble Space Telescope was recently used to peer into a star forming region that's a million times more active than the Orion Nebula. The Lynx Arc contains a million blue-white stars (the Orion Nebula has four) which are twice as hot as similar stars in our own Milky Way galaxy; but this cluster is located 12 billion light-years away, and seen when the Universe was only 2 billion years old. This discovery will help astronomers understand how some of the first stars formed shortly after the Big Bang. |
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| Image credit: SOHO |
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| Solar Storm Buffets the Earth |
| Oct 30, 2003 - It started as the largest flare ever seen by the SOHO spacecraft, and only 19 hours later, the associated solar storm reached the Earth. The storm arrived as a G-5, the largest they get on the NOAA space weather scale. There was little disruption on Earth, however, with only some communications disrupted, and it appears that the Japanese might have lost contact with one of their satellites. Beautiful auroras were visible from many parts of the world, as far south in North America as Texas and Florida. People in Scotland reported that the aurora had already started when the Sun went down, and it was still going past midnight. |
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