Mercury, Venus, Mars & Jupiter Converge in Night Sky

In May and June 2011, four planets will converge in the night sky.
CREDIT: Starry Night Software

During this month of May, four bright planets will engage in a fascinating dance with each other in the morning sky.

Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be involved in a series of conjunctions, joined at the end of the month by a very thin, waning crescent moon. We could even refer to this as a "celestial summit meeting," or more precisely, a series of summit meetings during May 2011.

Twice during May three planets will converge to form a "trio."

According to Belgian calculator Jean Meeus, a trio is when three planets fit within a circle with a minimum diameter of 5 degrees. Such a limit was one that Meeus chose more or less arbitrarily, but as he notes, "We have to make a choice."

On Wednesday (May 11), Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will converge within 2.05-degrees of each other, followed just 10 days later by another trio, this time formed by Mercury, Venus and Mars, which will crowd within a 2.13-degree circle. Then late in the month, on three successive mornings, May 29th, 30th, and 31st, the waning crescent moon will arrive, sweeping past Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury stretched out across the eastern sky from upper right to lower left.

Evil omen? Impending disaster?

What might ancient sky watchers from 500 or 1,000 years ago have ascribed to such a series of gatherings as this?

Most likely, they would have felt a mixture of fear and wonder. A fine example was a case in 1186 A.D. when an unusual gathering of the five planets visible to the naked eye resulted in a near-panic across the whole of Europe after religious leaders predicted that worldwide disasters would result!

Even today, in our modern world, similar fears sometimes arise.

You need only Google-search the date May 5, 2000, and you will find a number of different websites that predicted a variety of disasters attributed to the combined gravitational and tidal forces associated with a gathering of the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

One website proclaimed that it would be "one of the most exciting, powerful and transformative celestial events of our millennium according to astronomy and astrology experts."

In many ways, these words sound all too similar to the hype and tripe that has been bandied about during these past few years concerning the Mayan Long Count calendar in 2012.

Needless to say, we all survived the recent 2000 celestial summit and despite what you might hear or read in the coming days ahead, absolutely nothing cataclysmic will take place (at least nothing that can be directly attributed to this impending dawn gathering of the moon and planets).

Tough to see

The only tragedy regarding this display is that those living north of the equator will have a difficult time seeing it.

At first glance there doesn't appear to be any problem concerning the visibility of these objects. Their elongations from the sun will range from 18 degrees to 26 degrees, which should place them all in dark skies. Unfortunately, during May, as seen especially from mid-northern latitudes, the ecliptic is oriented at a shallow angle relative to the eastern horizon at dawn.

As a result, the moon and planets will rise into view during late twilight and will lie very low to the east-northeast horizon by sunrise. To see them, you'll have to make sure not to have any potential obstructions to your visibility such as trees or buildings in that direction.

But coming above the horizon so near to sunrise will also mean that you'll have a fighting chance of catching only Venus (magnitude -4) and Jupiter (magnitude -2) with unaided eyes. Whether you will be able to glimpse zero-magnitude Mercury is debatable, and certainly binoculars will be needed if you have any hope of seeing Mars (magnitude +1).

The crescent moon will also prove to be a visual challenge, being only 2 percent illuminated on May 31. Low-lying clouds or haze near the horizon on any given morning will only reduce your chances of success.

In contrast, those of our SPACE.com readers in the Southern Hemisphere, where the ecliptic at dawn appears at a somewhat steeper angle, will see this ever-changing array somewhat higher and in a somewhat darker sky; more like mid-twilight as opposed to late twilight in the north.

Indeed, those living in far southern locations such as Cape Town, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; or Dunedin, New Zealand, will have a much better chance of seeing and enjoying this month-long dance of the planets.

Article by: Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
Source: Space.com

Meteor Shower Tonight to Rain Bits of Halley's Comet on Earth

Bits and pieces of the famous Halley's Comet will light up the overnight sky in a promising meteor shower, weather permitting, skywatching experts say.

The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak early tomorrow morning (May 6) and is expected to put on a dazzling display of "shooting stars" for skywatchers graced with good weather and clear skies. That's because the moon, which is currently in its unlit new phase, won't interfere with the meteor light show as it did with last month's Lyrid shower.

The Eta Aquarids are meteors created by bits of left over material from Halley's Comet as it travels through the solar system on its 76 year orbit. This year, the display runs from April 28 through May 21, but May 6 should mark its peak, according to the American Meteor Society.

"Under ideal conditions (a dark, moonless sky) about 30 to 60 of these very swift meteors can be seen per hour," advises SPACE.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao. "And with a new moon on May 3 this is one of those years when observing conditions will be perfect."

This sky map of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower shows where the meteors will appear to originate from during their display. The best time to see them will be early Friday morning before 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Local Time.

The Earth passes through the comet Halley's debris trails twice a year – once in May, and again in October – offering an appetizer for the comet's next trip through the inner solar system in 2061. Halley's comet last swung by in 1986.

NASA scientists say that the combination of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower and lack of moonlight should offer a rare chance for avid meteor-hunting skywatchers.

"This is your one chance this year to see meteors blaze across the sky without glaring moonlight dimming them," said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a member of the Space Environments team at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., in a statement.



Here's how to see the Eta Aquarid meteor shower created by Halley's Comet, according to NASA:

The Eta Aquarid meteors appear to radiate out of the east-southeastern sky in the constellation Aquarius. But according to Cooke, you don't have stare in the constellation's direction to see the meteors.

"Meteors can appear in any part of the sky," Cooke explained. "In fact their trails will tend to point back toward the radiant, so if you look that way the meteor may appear somewhat stubby. They'll appear much longer going by you than coming at you."

If you have a dark, wide view of the night sky, you should be able to see some meteors by just lying down and gazing upwards. A good blanket or a comfortable outdoor chair is useful for long skywatching vigils.

"Eta Aquarids are fast, moving at 66 km/s (148,000 mph), and often trace long paths across the sky, sometimes leaving glowing, persistent trains," Cooke said. "In the Northern Hemisphere, depending on your latitude [the closer to the equator the better], you should see from 10 to 40 meteors just before dawn."

Article by: Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor
Source: Space.com

Meteor Shower Spawned by Halley's Comet Peaks Friday

An image of Halley's Comet taken in 1986.
CREDIT: NASA

It has been 25 years since Halley's Comet last passed through the inner solar system, but an annual meteor shower keeps the icy wanderer's legacy on Earth alive this week.

Halley's Comet takes roughly 75 years to circle the sun, but if you're 30 years old or younger, you either have little or no memory of this famous cosmic vagabond's 1986 trip by Earth. And your next chance will come in the summer of 2061.

But if you don’t want to wait until 2061, you might want to step outside before sunrise during these next few mornings and try to catch a view of some "cosmic litter" that has been left behind in space by Halley's comet — a summer display of "shooting stars". [Video: Meteors from Halley's Comet]

The orbit of Halley's Comet closely approaches the Earth's orbit at two places, creating a rain of striking meteors for skywatchers during both instances. One point is in the middle to latter part of October, producing a meteor display known as the Orionids. The other point comes now, in early May, producing the annual Eta Aquarids meteor shower.

When and where to watch

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is predicted to peak early Friday morning (May 6).

Under ideal conditions (a dark, moonless sky) about 30 to 60 of these very swift meteors can be seen per hour. And with a new moon on May 3 this is one of those years when observing conditions will be perfect. The shower appears at about one-quarter peak strength for about three or four days before and after May 6. [Spectacular Leonid meteor shower photos]

There is, however, a drawback if you plan to watch for these meteors this year — at least for those watching from north of the equator.

The radiant (the emanation point of these meteors) is at the "water jar" of the constellation Aquarius, which comes above the southeast horizon around 3 a.m. local daylight time, never gets very high as seen from north temperate latitudes, so the actual observed rates are usually much lower than the oft-quoted 30 to 60 meteors per hour.

From North America, typical rates are 10 meteors per hour at 26-degrees north latitude (Brownsville, Texas; Naples, Fla.), half of this at 35-degrees latitude (Albuquerque, N.M.; Chattanooga, Tenn., and practically zero north of 40 degrees (Philadelphia, Penn.; Salt Lake City, Utah).

Catch an 'Earthgrazer'

For most, perhaps the best hope is perhaps catching a glimpse of a meteor emerging from the radiant that will skim the atmosphere horizontally — much like a bug skimming the side window of an automobile. Meteor watchers call such shooting stars "Earthgrazers." They leave colorful, long-lasting trails.

"These meteors are extremely long," said Robert Lunsford, of the International Meteor Organization. "They tend to hug the horizon rather than shooting overhead where most cameras are aimed."

"Earthgrazers are rarely numerous," advises Bill Cooke, a member of the Space Environments team at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "But even if you only see a few, you're likely to remember them."

Comet crumbs

If you do catch sight of one early these next few mornings, keep in mind that you'll likely be seeing the incandescent streak produced by material that originated from the nucleus of Halley's comet.

When these tiny bits of comet collide with Earth, friction with our atmosphere raises them to white heat and produces the effect popularly referred to as "shooting stars."

So it is that the shooting stars that we have come to call the Eta Aquarids are really an encounter with the traces of a famous visitor from the depths of space and from the dawn of creation.

Article by: Joe Rao
Source: Space.com

6.3-magnitude quake hits Indonesia

CILACAP, Indonesia (AFP) – A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit Central Java on Tuesday, around 120 kilometres southwest of Cilacap at a depth of 24 kilometres (14.9 miles), according to local officials.

The local meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency said there was no tsunami alert but the quake was followed by an aftershock of 5.0 magnitude.

The US Geological Survey measured the original quake at a much weaker 5.4-magnitude and a depth of 78 kilometres (48 miles).

A disaster management official in Cilacap said that so far there was no report of damage from the area although it had caused panic.

"When the quake hit, we felt a strong tremor. Many people ran outside their houses," the official Suherman, who uses only one name said.

"Now the disaster management officials are trying to calm people here," he added.

An AFP reporter said there was no report of damage so far at a refinery belonging to state oil and gas firm Pertamina in Cilacap.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where the meeting of continental plates causes high seismic activity, and is frequently hit by earthquakes.

Source: Yahoo! News

Satellite Photographs 'Black Hole' on Earth

A Korean satellite has caught an eye-catching view of an island in Mexico known for a deep, rocky hole and waters so dark that they earned it the name Holbox, a name that means "black hole."

The photo was taken by the Korea Multi-purpose Satellite 2, or Kompsat-2, and shows Holbox Island and its Yalahau lagoon at the northeast corner of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. [Photo of Earth's "black hole"]

Holbox Island is a 26-mile-long (42-kilometers) strip of land separated from the mainland by the lagoon.

"The freshwater lagoon has a deep rocky hole that surrounds the island, making the water appear black," officials with the European Space Agency, which is a partner in the Kompsat-2 mission, explained in a statement. "It is thought that Holbox, which in Mayan translates as 'black hole,' was named after the dark lagoon water."

Holbox Island is situated at an oceanic meeting point of sorts where the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean converge. The mixing of these waters creates a nutrient-rich environment that supports an abundant array of marine life, ESA officials said. [The World's Biggest Oceans and Seas]

At Caboe Catoche, a cape at the eastern tip of the island, the mixing of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico creates a veritable kaleidoscope of watery turquoise and emerald colors.

Because of its host of marine life, Holbox Island and its surrounding waters are protected as part of the Yum Balam Biosphere Reserve. The island's beaches of white coralline sand serve as a vital home for turtle nests and more than 500 species of birds, while dolphins, manta rays and several shark species swim offshore.

The region is also home to the world’s largest known gathering of whale sharks — the largest fish on the planet — for five months of the year, ESA officials said.

The Kompsat-2 satellite has been snapping photos of Earth from orbit since it launched into space in 2006. The satellite was built for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute to provide uninterrupted Earth observation coverage following its predecessor, Kompsat-2.

ESA serves as a third-party partner in the mission and uses ground-based infrastructure to receive, process and distribute the images from Kompsat-2.

This article was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to SPACE.com.

Source: Yahoo! News

At least 35 dead in 6 states after storm's rampage

RALEIGH, N.C. – A furious storm system that kicked up tornadoes, flash floods and hail as big as softballs has claimed at least 35 lives on a rampage that began in Oklahoma days ago, then smashed across several Southern states as it reached a new and deadly pitch in North Carolina and Virginia.

Emergency crews searched for victims in hard-hit swaths of North Carolina, where 62 tornadoes were reported from the worst spring storm in two decades to hit the state. Ten people were confirmed dead in Bertie County, county manager Zee Lamb said. At least three deaths were reported in Virginia. Authorities warned the toll was likely to rise further Sunday as searchers probed shattered homes and businesses.

The storm claimed its first lives Thursday night in Oklahoma, then roared through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Seven people each were killed in Arkansas and Alabama, two people in Oklahoma and one person in Mississippi, authorities have said.

In North Carolina, Gov. Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency after reporting fatalities in at least four counties. But she declined to immediately confirm an exact number of deaths. She said the 62 tornadoes reported were the most since March 1984, when a storm system spawned 22 twisters in the Carolinas that killed 57 people — 42 in North Carolina — and injured hundreds.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody in North Carolina who has been through this horrible day," Perdue said.

Daybreak brought news of a horrific death toll in Bertie County, a place of about 21,000 people about 130 miles east of Raleigh. The tornado moved through about 7 p.m. Saturday, sweeping homes from their foundations, demolishing others and flipping cars on tiny rural roads between Askewville and Colerian, Lamb said.

One of the volunteers who scoured the rubble was an Iraq war veteran who told Lamb he was stunned by what he saw.

"He did two tours of duty in Iraq and the scene was worse than he ever saw in Iraq — that's pretty devastating," Lamb said.

As dawn broke, dozens of firefighters, volunteers and other officials were meeting in a makeshift command center to form search teams to fan out to the hardest-hit areas.

"There were several cases of houses being totally demolished except for one room, and that's where the people were," he said. "They survived. Pretty devastating."

Authorities in North Carolina said they would provide more details of the death toll later Sunday after checking on the reports of fatalities in at least four counties and in the capital city of Raleigh. Search and rescue teams operated through the night, Perdue said, with damage assessments starting in earnest Sunday after daylight.

"There's a lot of work that needs to be done in these areas that are most heavily impacted," said Doug Hoell, the state's director of emergency management. "There's a lot of debris out there that's got to be cleaned up."

In Virginia, disaster officials said one apparent tornado ripped across more than 12 miles through Gloucester County, uprooting trees and pounding homes to rubble while claiming three lives. Another person was confirmed dead and another remained missing early Sunday after flash flooding elsewhere in Virginia.

Scenes of destruction across the South looked eerily similar in many areas.

In North Carolina, rooftops were ripped off stores, trees were plucked from the ground and scores of homes were damaged, Hoell said.

At one point, more than 250,000 people went without power in North Carolina before emergency utility crews began repairing downed lines. But scattered outages were expected to linger at least until Monday.

Among areas hit by power outages was Raleigh, a bustling city of more than 400,000 people where some of the bigger downtown thoroughfares were blocked by fallen trees early Sunday.

Police and rescue crews began conducting house-to-house searches later Saturday at a mobile home park in north Raleigh, where the storm snapped some trees in half, ripped others out of the ground and tossed some trailers from one side of a street to the other.

In Sanford, about 40 miles southwest of Raleigh, a busy shopping district was pummeled by the storms, with some businesses losing rooftops in what observers described as a ferocious tornado. The Lowe's Home Improvement Center in Sanford looked flattened, with jagged beams and wobbly siding sticking up from the pancaked entrance. Cars in the parking lot were flipped by the winds.

"It's very, very bad here," said Monica Elliott, who works at the nearby Brick City Grill. "We saw a tornado that just rode up over the restaurant."

Remarkably, no one was seriously injured at the Lowe's, thanks to a quick-thinking manager who herded more than 100 people into a back area with no windows to shatter.

"It was really just a bad scene," said Jeff Blocker, Lowe's regional vice president for eastern North Carolina. "You're just amazed that no one was injured."

Cindy Hall, a Red Cross volunteer and outreach minister at First Baptist Church in Sanford, said dozens of homes in the area were damaged.

"It wiped out our St. Andrews neighborhood, which includes about 30 homes," she said.

To the west, hikers stranded by flash floods had to be rescued.

In Virginia, Department of Emergency Management spokesman Bob Spieldenner, said an apparent tornado ploughed through communities of Gloucester County, destroying or damaging homes, uprooting trees in a quiet farming and fishing region along the Chesapeake Bay.

"I know it was a pretty long path," he said of the reported tornado. "They estimated it was 12 to 14 miles" based on 911 emergency calls.

Authorities said at least three deaths had been confirmed in Gloucester County and at least 60 were injured, most with minor injuries. Spieldenner said one person was killed when a vehicle ran into flash flooding near Waynesboro. Another person was missing and a third rescued.

He reported homes and mobile homes damaged and destroyed in a series of other Virginia counties and flash flooding west of Charlottesville that prompted water rescues — including four people rescued unhurt from a car that had plunged into deep water flowing over a street.

___

Associated Press writers Page Ivey in Columbia, S.C., Jackie Quinn in Washington, D.C., and Jeff Martin and Jacob Jordan in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Source: Yahoo! News

April's Full Moon Arrives Sunday With Easter Name

Astronaut Paolo Nespoli took this image of the moon aboard the International Space Station on March 20, 2011, and wrote, "#Supermoon was spectacular from here!"

Sunday (April 17) brings us the first full moon of the new spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, bringing a lunar delight named – in part – for Easter.

The official moment that the moon will turn full is 10:44 p.m. EDT (7:44 p.m. PDT). Traditional names for the full moons of the year are found in some publications such as The Farmers' Almanac and we published the complete list on SPACE.com earlier this year.

The origins of these names have been traced back to native America, though they may also have evolved from old England or, as Guy Ottewell, editor of the annual publication, "Astronomical Calendar" suggests, "writer's fancy."

Traditionally, the April full moon is known as the "Pink Moon,"supposedly because the grass pink or wild ground phlox is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other monikers were the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and – among coastal tribes – the Full Fish Moon, when the shad come upstream to spawn. ['Supermoon' Photos from Around the World]

Easter's full moon twist
The first full moon of spring, however, is usually designated as the Paschal Full Moon or the Paschal Term. Traditionally, Easter is observed on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. So if the Paschal Moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter is the following Sunday.

Following these celestial rules, we find that Easter can fall as early as March 22 and as late as April 25.

Pope Gregory XIII decreed this in 1582 as part of the Gregorian calendar. So according to the current ecclesiastical rules Easter in 2011 is to be celebrated nearly as late as it can come, on April 24.

Interestingly however, these rules also state that the vernal equinox is fixed on March 21, even though at European longitudes from the years 2008 through 2101 the equinox will occur no later than March 20.

Hence, there can sometimes be discrepancies between the ecclesiastical and astronomical versions for dating Easter.

In the year 2038, for instance, the equinox falls on March 20 with a full moon the next day, so astronomically speaking, Easter should fall on March 28 of that year. In reality, however, as mandated by the rules of the Church, Easter in 2038 will be observed as late as it can possibly come, on April 25!

Adding additional confusion is that there is also an "ecclesiastical" full moon, determined from ecclesiastical tables and whose date does not necessarily coincide with the "astronomical" full Moon, which is based solely on astronomical calculations. [Infographic: Earth’s Moon Phases Explained]

In 1981, for example, the full moon occurred on Sunday, April 19, so Easter should have occurred on the following Sunday, April 26. But based on the ecclesiastical full Moon it occurred on the same day of the Full Moon, April 19!

So, in practice, the date of Easter is determined not from astronomical computations, but rather from other formulae such as Epachs and Golden Numbers.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, a proposal to change Easter to a fixed holiday rather than a movable one has been widely circulated, and in 1963 the Second Vatican Council agreed, provided a consensus could be reached among Christian churches. The second Sunday in April has been suggested as the most likely date.

Spring Counterpart to the Harvest Moon

Traditionally the full moon ccurring nearest to the autumnal equinox is traditionally called the Harvest Moon. What sets the Harvest Moon apart from the others is that instead of rising at its normal average of 50 minutes later each day, it seems to rise at nearly the same time for several nights.

But in direct contrast to the Harvest Full Moon, the Paschal Full Moon appears to rise considerably later each night. Below we’ve provided some examples for ten North American cities.

The local moonrise times for April 16, 17, 18 are provided, the middle date being that of the Paschal Full moon.

This table shows moonrise times for April 16-18, 2011, at North American locations.
CREDIT: Joe Rao

Although normally the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night, over this three-night interval for our relatively small sampling, we can see that the rising of the moon comes, on the average, 77 minutes later each night.

A quick study of the table shows that the night-to-night difference is greatest for the more northerly locations (Edmonton, located at latitude 53.6 degrees north, sees moonrise come a full 90 minutes later on average). Meanwhile, the difference is less at southerly locations (at Miami, Florida located at latitude 26ºN, the average difference is about 68 minutes).

The reason for this seasonal circumstance is that the moon appears to move along the ecliptic and at this time of year when rising, the ecliptic makes its largest angle with respect to the horizon for those living in the Northern Hemisphere.

In contrast, for those living in the Southern Hemisphere, the ecliptic at this time of year appears to stand at a more oblique angle to the eastern horizon. As such, the difference for the time of moonrise is noticeably less than the average of 50 minutes per night. In Sydney, Australia, for instance, the night-to-night difference amounts to just 40 minutes.

Some final thoughts
For all who are making preparations for the upcoming Easter holiday, here's something to consider: Last month, had the moon officially turned full just 29 hours 50 minutes later than it actually did, it would have been designated as the Paschal Moon and Easter would have already occurred on March 27.

And while much ado was made about the near coincidence of last month's full moon with perigee (the closest point in its orbit relative to earth) the full moon of April 17 also occurs close to perigee.

In this case, perigee occurs about 21 hours before the moon turns full. Its distance from Earth: 222,506 miles (358,090 kilometers) is less than a half percent more distant than last month’s so-called "Super" moon. So, as was the case last month, the April full moon will appear to loom abnormally large when it rises or sets and will cause the daily range of ocean tides to be more extreme for a few days after full moon.

It’s just not considered a "super" moon. Go figure …

So while this April full moon wins the title of Paschal Moon by a margin of less than 30 hours, it falls short of being called a "Super" moon by just 941 miles (1,515 km); a distance that measures less than half of the diameter of the moon itself!

Source: Space.com