Wednesday, May 31, 2023

About Quasi-moon 2023 FW13,Earth's Heretofore Secret Companion - revised

Space rock 2023 FW13,also referred to as a Quasi-moon,was detected on 28 March 2023 by the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakala,Maui,Hawaii.Pan-STARRS stands for "Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System."It consists of telescopes and cameras dedicated to detecting near-Earth celestial objects.2023 FW13 is believed to have been Earth's companion since about 100 BC and will continue to circle Earth,in the course of 2023 FW13's elliptical orbit around the Sun,until at least 1500 years from now,in around 3700 AD.Controlled not by Earth's gravity,but by the Sun's,it will not likely be a hazard to Earth,since it travels in a wide ellipse largely,if not entirely,beyond the influence of Earth's gravity.Gravitational control areas are called Hill spheres.It is unlikely that Quasi-moons are affected by Earth's gravity at all. Some Quasi-moons are possibly near-Earth asteroids.After being detected by Pan-STARRS,2023 FW13 was confirmed by a number of other telescopes.Then it was officially listed by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).2023 FW13 has an estimated diameter of only 30-50 ft/10-15 m.2023 FW13 will hopefully continue to be studied by scientists who can ascertain its composition. Quasi-moons are also called Quasi-satellites.Space rock 2016 HO3 was detected in April 2016.Light reflected by it was analyzed and the results suggest it is composed of the same material as the Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions.So it could be a fragment of the Moon.It's only in recent times that we've become aware of Earth's previously secret companions through increasingly rigorous sky surveys.

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Huge meteor lights up the night sky over Cairns, Australia - 21 May 2023

Sunday, May 28, 2023

New Supercomputer Simulation Sheds Light on Moon’s Origin - NASA Ames Research Center

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Sonification of V838 Monocerotis Light Echo - NASA Goddard - astrophysics

This is the data sonification of the star V838 Monocerotis,which is 20,000 light years away at the outer edge of our Milky Way galaxy.Scientists mapped brightness to pitch and volume.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

NASA Gears Up to Train Artemis II Crew for Moon Mission

NASA Gears Up to Train Artemis II Crew for Moon Mission: NASA Gears Up to Train Artemis II Crew for Moon Mission Three of the Artemis II astronauts are active duty military:Captain Reid Wiseman,USN;Captain Victor Glover,USN;and Colonel Jeremy Hansen,Royal Canadian Air Force.

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Meteorite Confirmed by The College of New Jersey and Expert Consultant

The object that slammed through the roof of a Hopwell Township,New Jersey home has been confirmed to be a stony chondrite meteorite by physicists of The College of New Jersey and their expert consultant.That means it is a piece of an asteroid that formed in the early solar system.Tests performed included visual examination;scanning electron microscope images;density measurements;and an expert assessment by Jerry Delaney,a retired meteorite expert from Rutgers University and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.* The Associated Press reported that the Physics Department Chairman,Nathan Magee,said that: the object is a true chondrite meteorite,in excellent condition,and one of a very small number of similar witnessed chondrite falls known to science.* Indeed,the space rock was still warm when the Kop family found it in a bedroom.A stony chondrite meteorite is one which has not been modified by either melting or differentiation of the parent body.They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early solar system accrete to form primitive asteroids.Embedded in the dust are presolar grains which predate the formation of the solar system and came from elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.The chondrules,or round grains,from which the meteorite gets its name were molten or partially molten droplets in space believed to have formed when a shock wave passed through the solar system,perhaps a shock wave from the gaseous disk that formed Jupiter,a recent study suggests.* These meteorites of asteroid origin date back more than 4.54 billion years.They are pieces of small to medium asteroids that were never part of a celestial object large enough to undergo melting and planetary differentiation.

More About the Possible Space Rock That Hit the New Jersey Home

So the Physics Department of The College of New Jersey is going to start the analysis of the suspected space rock that struck a home in Hopewell Township,Mercer County,New Jersey.They will examine it with an electron microscope.What could it be?It could be a piece of an asteroid or comet.It could even be a piece of the Moon or Mars.A few of the rarest meteorites can be worth millions of dollars.The family who owns the home owns the suspected space rock that damaged it.* Follow up testing could be conducted at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.It's up to the family who owns the object it how far they want to take the analysis.It is extremely rare for a space rock to damage a building.* Once a meteor strikes a planet or a moon,it is called a meteorite.The largest meteorites cause an impact crater.* The College of New Jersey is located in Ewing Township,adjacent to the state capital,Trenton.It was founded in 1855 and has over 7,000 students.

Possible meteorite strikes house in New Jersey, police say - FOX 29 Philadelphia

The object,suspected of being a space rock,crashed through the home's roof and ricocheted around a bedroom,causing damage to a hardwood floor.Fortunately,no one was injured.The College of New Jersey is testing it to ascertain its composition and origin.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Private Japanese moon lander's view of solar eclipse shadow and Earth are amazing! - iSpace Hakuto-R lander - planetary science

It is possibly the first time the Moon's shadow on the Earth during a solar eclipse was photographed.Unfortunately,they lost contact with the lander and it is believed to have crashed on the Moon.Still,some remarkable images were obtained in the process of the attempted landing.

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Webb Looks for Fomalhaut’s Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More - astrophysics

Webb Looks for Fomalhaut’s Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More: Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our solar system in infrared light.