The INNERview - Ep97C02 An Astronomy Photographer on a Long Journey in Search of Aurora
The INNERview Ep97 The one and only astrophotographer, Kwon O-chul A pioneer of astrophotography in Korea, Kwon O-chul! He is an avid follower of astronomica...
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The INNERview - Ep97C02 An Astronomy Photographer on a Long Journey in Search of Aurora - Video
The INNERview - Ep97C01 Kwon O-chul_An Astronomy Photographer Captivated by the Beauty of Aurora
The INNERview Ep97 The one and only astrophotographer, Kwon O-chul A pioneer of astrophotography in Korea, Kwon O-chul! He is an avid follower of astronomica...
By: ARIRANG CULTURE
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Moffett Field, CA - infoZine - Each will be paired with a professional astronomer to observe first-hand how airborne infrared astronomy is conducted. After their flight opportunities, Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors will take what they learn back to their classrooms and into their communities to promote science literacy.
SOFIA is a highly modified Boeing 747SP jetliner fitted with a 100-inch (2.5-meter) effective diameter telescope. The aircraft flies at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet (12-14 kilometers), above the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, and collects data in the infrared spectrum.
SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors for 2014:
SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The aircraft is based at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, CA NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA manages the program. Ames manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Columbia, MD and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart.
Related SOFIA Link X-Press Stellar SOFIA http://www.nasa.gov/sofia
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NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy Selects Educator Teams
NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, will become a flying classroom for teachers during research flights in the next few months.
Twelve two-person teams have been selected for SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program, representing educators from 10 states. Each will be paired with a professional astronomer to observe first-hand how airborne infrared astronomy is conducted. After their flight opportunities, Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors will take what they learn back to their classrooms and into their communities to promote science literacy.
SOFIA is a highly modified Boeing 747SP jetliner fitted with a 100-inch (2.5-meter) effective diameter telescope. The aircraft flies at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet (12-14 kilometers), above the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, and collects data in the infrared spectrum.
"SOFIA offers educator teams unprecedented access to infrared astronomers and the unique capabilities of an airborne observatory," said John Gagosian, SOFIA program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Previous Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors teams have witnessed SOFIA's world-class astronomical science and have used this experience in hundreds of science, technology, engineering and math teaching opportunities throughout the United States."
SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors for 2014 are:
-- Megan Tucker and Dan Molik, The Palmdale Aerospace Academy, Palmdale, Calif.
-- Barbel Sepulveda, Lincoln High School, and Chris Rauschenfels, Sierra Middle School, Stockton, Calif.
-- Nathan Mahoney, Pine Crest School, Deerfield Beach, Fla. and Hellen Tavora, South Florida Amateur Astronomers Association and Fox Astronomical Observatory, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
-- Marcella Linahan, Carmel Catholic High School, Mundelein, Ill., and Lynne Zielinski National Space Society, Long Grove, Ill.
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NASA Observatory Selects Educator Teams for 2014 Science Flights
A group of college students got more than they bargained for when they signed up for an astronomy class.
The non-astronomy majors at the University of Maryland discovered a rare eclipsing double asteroid that had yet to be studied. Dubbed 3905 Doppler, the binary asteroid had originally been spotted in 1984 but it was only last September when the students took a closer look that they made the surprising discovery.
"This is a fantastic discovery," University of Maryland Astronomy Prof. Drake Deming, who was not involved with the class, said in a statement. "A binary asteroid with such an unusual lightcurve is pretty rare. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the physical properties and orbital evolution of these objects.
Less than 100 asteroids of this type have been found along the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In September, the students picked the asteroid to study over a period four nights in October 2013, photographing the changes of intensity in the asteroids reflected light. The images, which came from a privately owned telescope in Spain, were then turned into a lightcurve a graph of space objects brightness over time.
"When we looked at the images we didn't realize we had anything special, because the brightness difference is not something you can see with your eyes," Hayes-Gehrke said.
But once the images were converted to a lightcurve graph, the students found the asteroids light occasionally practically disappeared.
"It was incredibly frustrating, Alec Bartek, a senior physics major said. "For some reason our light curve didn't look right."
The students professor, Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, suspected the asteroid was actually two space rocks that were orbiting each other. When one of the two blocked the other from view it formed an asteroid eclipse.
It took approximately 51 hours for the asteroids to orbit each other which is quite long and has yet to be explained.
"Even then I was not fully aware of how special the discovery was," sophomore economics major Brady Bent said. "I thought it just meant we would have to do more work. As we continued to analyze our data, other professors in the Astronomy Department came over to view our work. At this point I understood just how rare our find was."
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Jan. 7, 2014 Students in a University of Maryland undergraduate astronomy class have made a rare discovery that wowed professional astronomers: a previously unstudied asteroid is actually a pair of asteroids that orbit and regularly eclipse one another.
Fewer than 100 asteroids of this type have been identified in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, said Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, who teaches the hands-on class for non-astronomy majors in which eight students made the find in the fall semester 2013.
The students' discovery that 3905 Doppler is an eclipsing binary asteroid will be presented in a poster session Jan. 7 at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland and published in April in the Minor Planet Bulletin.
"This is a fantastic discovery," said University of Maryland Astronomy Prof. Drake Deming, who was not involved with the class. "A binary asteroid with such an unusual lightcurve is pretty rare. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the physical properties and orbital evolution of these objects."
"Actually contributing to the scientific community and seeing established scientists getting legitimately excited about our findings is a very good feeling," said Terence Basile, a junior from Beltsville, MD majoring in cell biology.
One of hundreds of thousands of pieces of cosmic debris in our solar system's main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, 3905 Doppler was discovered in 1984, but over the coming decades it attracted scant attention. In September 2013 Hayes-Gehrke's students picked it and two other asteroids from an astronomy journal's list of asteroids worth observing because they were well positioned in the autumn sky and were scientific enigmas.
Student teams studying 3905 Doppler met over four nights in October 2013. Each four-person team observed and photographed the asteroid, using a privately owned telescope in Nerpio, Spain, which they accessed and controlled over the internet. Their main task was to photograph changes in the intensity of each asteroid's reflected light and turn those images into a lightcurve.
A lightcurve is a graph of a celestial object's brightness over time. Variations in brightness are often due to the object's shape, with spherical objects like planets yielding lightcurves that do not vary, and asymmetrical objects like asteroids producing peaks and valleys as the amount of reflected light varies. By measuring the time between maximum light intensities, planetologists can tell how fast an asteroid is rotating. Most asteroids complete a rotation in a few hours to a day.
"When we looked at the images we didn't realize we had anything special, because the brightness difference is not something you can see with your eyes," Hayes-Gehrke said. But when the two teams studying 3905 Doppler used a computer program to chart its lightcurve, they found the asteroid's light occasionally faded to nearly nothing.
"It was incredibly frustrating," said Alec Bartek, a senior physics major from Brookeville, MD. "For some reason our light curve didn't look right."
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January 7, 2014
Image Caption: In this artist's rendering, the newly-identified binary asteroid 3905 Doppler approaches an eclipse as the larger asteroid begins to pass in front of the smaller one, as seen from a vantage point on Earth. Credit: Illustration by Loretta Kuo
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online
An undergraduate astronomy class for non-astronomy majors at the University of Maryland has made a rare discovery that was completely overlooked by professional scientists: a pair of asteroids that orbit and regularly eclipse each other located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
There are currently fewer than 100 known eclipsing binary asteroids and the students discovery will be presented on Tuesday at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Md.
Actually contributing to the scientific community and seeing established scientists getting legitimately excited about our findings is a very good feeling, said Terence Basile, a cell biology major at from Beltsville, Md.
This is a fantastic discovery, said Drake Deming, a University of Maryland astronomer who was not involved with the class. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the physical properties and orbital evolution of these objects.
The dual asteroids, collectively known as 3905 Doppler, are just one object from hundreds of thousands in our solar systems main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The object was first discovered in 1984, but given little thought over the following decades. In September 2013, students in Dr. Melissa Hayes-Gehrkes astronomy class picked it and two other asteroids to observe because they were easy to see in the autumn sky and somewhat mysterious.
Over the course of four nights in October, four-person student teams tracked and photographed the asteroids with a privately-owned telescope in Nerpio, Spain, which was controlled remotely over the Internet. The main goal of the assignment was to capture changes in the brightness of each asteroids reflected light.
These images were then used to create a light curve, or graph of an objects light intensity over time. Changes in brightness are often the result of the objects shape, with asymmetrical objects having a range of brightness and symmetrical objects producing a constant intensity. After finding the time between maximum light intensities, scientists can determine how fast an asymmetrical object is rotating.
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1. Fireball over Russia The event with the biggest impact - in every sense - was a 20-meter meteor over Chelyabinsk in February. A forceful reminder about detection and deflection of space rocks! This one exploded at high altitude, so when 20-30 times as much energy as the Hiroshima atomic bomb was released, the atmosphere absorbed most of it. Nonetheless the shock wave broke windows and caused other damage to thousands of buildings. About 1500 people suffered injuries needing medical treatment. Oddly, it happened on the day that asteroid 2012 DA14 was due to make a close approach. The asteroid came and went, as predicted. The two objects weren't related.
2. Chang'e and Yutu go to the Moon Chang'e is China's lunar program. In December Chang'e-3 landed safely on the Moon and released the rover Yutu. The last soft landing on the Moon was in 1974 by the Soviet probe Luna-24. Chang'e is named for a Moon goddess in Chinese folklore and Yutu (Jade Rabbit) was her pet. In addition to those watching on Earth, the landing was observed from lunar orbit by NASA's recently-arrived LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer).
3. Rare solar eclipse There was a hybrid solar eclipse in November. It began as an annular eclipse in which the Moon is surrounded by a ring of light because it doesn't quite cover the Sun. But then it quickly changed to a total eclipse, which was also seen as a partial eclipse in many areas. Hybrid eclipses are rare. The last one occurred in 1854 and the next will be on October 17, 2172.
4. Ancient habitable environments on Mars The evidence has been growing for a Mars that was once wet, but it doesn't mean that Mars was habitable. NASA Mars probe Curiosity's job is to search for evidence of habitability. The rover is not only a field geologist, but also a well-equipped geochemical laboratory. In March, chemical analysis of a rock sample indicated an ancient environment in which water existed for a long time. It was also neutral (neither acidic nor alkaline), not saline, and contained a number of the key chemicals of life. This doesn't prove that microbial life ever existed on Mars, but it shows that it could have.
5. Inauguration of ALMA The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, for short) was officially inaugurated in March, and is now a fully operational observatory. An array of 66 movable radio telescopes can work together in various combinations as one telescope. ALMA is designed to have ten times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. Millimeter wavelengths can penetrate dust, so are used to study starbirth and planet formation. Although water vapor in the air blocks these wavelengths, ALMA won't have a problem in Chile's Atacama Desert at 5000 m (over 16,000 ft) where the air is very dry.
6. Exoplanet search comes of age The very first exoplanets were discovered in 1992. They were orbiting a pulsar, the remains of a collapsed star. The first planets discovered orbiting sun-like stars were massive, because these are the easiest to detect. Twenty-one years later in 2013, the 1000th exoplanet was added to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. It now includes many smaller planets and multiplanet systems.
7. Earth says cheese In July, two distant NASA spacecraft photographed the Earth. Astronomy groups worldwide had organized events to wave at Saturn as the Cassini spacecraft took its pictures. There had already been evenings of observation of Saturn. Only two other images of Earth have been taken from the outer Solar System. One was also taken by Cassini, showing Earth through Saturn's rings. The other was Voyager 1's pale blue dot photo. MESSENGER, too, took pictures from its Mercury orbit. However it wouldn't have been a good idea to encourage people to stare at Mercury since it's so close to the Sun.
8. Voyager 1 became a starship Voyager 1 is the first human object to enter the space between the stars. After many previous announcements of its leaving the Solar System, in September NASA officially announced that Voyager is now bathed in the plasma of interstellar space, not the solar wind. It's still in the Solar System, as it won't pass the Oort Cloud for a few hundred years.
9. Gaia launched Astronomers have been waiting for Gaia for a long time. It's one of the most ambitious space missions ever devised and has been two decades in the making. The European Space Agency (ESA) launched Gaia in December, and in the next five years it's expected to map positions of and distances to over a billion stars. The measurements will be done with such high precision that the error will be equivalent to the size of a euro coin on the Moon as seen from Earth. (A euro coin is slightly smaller than a U.S. quarter.)
10. Comet ISON Comet ISON wasn't the comet of the century. Or even the comet of the year there were several that fared better. Yet ISON was still unique. It was the first sun-grazer known to have come from the Oort Cloud, and it was studied extensively. Over a dozen space observatories, many large telescopes and countless amateurs provided a detailed record of its visit. This data will give astronomers valuable information about its structure, composition and how sun-grazers survive - or don't - a close passage by the Sun.
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Astronomy I Minitage #1
Like Comment if you can for my 1st minitage which is my last black ops 2 clips and my 2 leftovers on ghosts! and subscribe if your new (: My 1st ghost ep. ...
By: Adrian M.
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In 2007, astronomer Duncan Lorimer was searching for pulsars in nine-year-old data when he found something he didnt expect and couldnt explain: a burst of radio waves appearing to come from outside our galaxy, lasting just 5 milliseconds but possessing as much energy as the sun releases in 30 days.
Pulsars, Lorimers original objects of affection, are strange enough. Theyre as big as cities and as dense as an atoms nucleus, and each time they spin around (which can be hundreds of times per second), they send a lighthouse-like beam of radio waves in our direction. But the single burst that Lorimer found was even weirder, and for years astronomers couldnt even decide whether they thought it was real.
The burst belongs to a class of phenomena known as fast radio transients objects and events that emit radio waves on ultra-short timescales. They could include stars flares, collisions between black holes, lightning on other planets, and RRATs Rotating RAdio Transients, pulsars that only fire up when they feel like it. More speculatively, some scientists believe extraterrestrial civilizations could be flashing fast radio beacons into space.
Astronomers interest in fast radio transients is just beginning, as computers chop data into ever tinier pockets of time. Scientists call this kind of analysis time domain astronomy. Rather than focusing just on what wavelengths of light an object emits or how bright it is, time domain astronomy investigates how those properties change as the seconds, or milliseconds, tick by.
In non-time-domain astronomy, astronomers essentially leave the telescopes shutter open for a while, as you would if you were using a camera at night. With such a long exposure, even if a radio burst is strong, it could easily disappear into the background. But with quick sampling in essence, snapping picture after picture, like a space stop-motion film its easier to see things that flash on and then disappear.
The awareness of these short signals has long existed, said Andrew Siemion, who searches the time domain for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. But its only the past decade or so that weve had the computational capacity to look for them.
Siemion believes the fields rapid growth will revolutionize astronomy as a whole, not just his own search for ET. History has shown us that any time we sort of look into parameter space in astronomy any time we develop a capability to look in a new way we find something, he said. I think that our exploration of the time domain is just getting started. Were going to find things we never expected.
Lorimers discovery, which took his name, is one such unexpected find. The search for its mysterious origin initially energized the field. Everyone was really jazzed, said his research partner Maura McLaughlin, who first discovered RRATs. We thought the Lorimer burst could be a new kind of source. Some theorists suggest that it was a primordial black hole evaporating or a spark from a superconducting cosmic string.
Exotic possibilities, to be sure. But some scientists didnt think it was real. For a long time, Lorimer was the only one whod found a seemingly extragalactic burst, and doubts crept in. All we had were a few milliseconds of data from the late 1990s, said McLaughlin. I was even at a conference where somebody stood up and said, How many people here believe the Lorimer burst? Raise your hands. But Dunc always believed in his bursts.
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How a New Type of Astronomy Investigates the Most Mysterious Objects in the Universe
Welcome to Astronomy Online A legally blind photographer/astronomer on disability so I use this site to contribute to society.
Last Updated: October 24, 2012 added graphics for the 88 constellations under Observation/The Night Sky.
This site is a testament that even though I have a physical disability - legally blind - I can still do things that helps other people. I even have a new project: Astro-Drummer, a site dedicated to my other hobby.
I also have a new image gallery. I call it Second Site Image Gallery.
This is an educational website. It's never too late to learn astronomy, even for those who have not completed their primary (High School) education. A GED can get you in the door to college level courses and a good place to start is a website like Kokopeli High School Academy - free evaluation and a 75% success rate.
InboxAstronomy:Hubble Sees Cloudy Super-Worlds with Chance for More Clouds Weather forecasters on a pair of exoplanets would have an easy job. Today's forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: overcast. Extended outlook: more clouds. Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have characterized the atmospheres of two of the most common type of planets in the Milky Way galaxy and found both may be blanketed with clouds. The best guess is that the clouds are not like anything found on Earth. Their scorching atmospheres are predicted to be hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit too hot for a rainy day.
APOD:Titan's Land of Lakes Image Credit: Cassini Radar Mapper, JPL, USGS, ESA, NASA
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Observation - This section includes information on coordinate systems, constellations, objects visible in the night sky, and some images of the night sky of the northern and southern hemispheres.
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Jovian atmosphere evolution through amatorial telescopes
Jupiter is a gas giant with clouds and vortices moving at different velocity, and the planet itself make a full rotation in almost 10 hours. To understand th...
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Jovian atmosphere evolution through amatorial telescopes - Video
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
5-Jan-2014
Contact: Dave Finley dfinley@nrao.edu 575-835-7302 National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a unique stellar system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense neutron star, all packed within a space smaller than Earth's orbit around the Sun. The closeness of the stars, combined with their nature, has allowed the scientists to make the best measurements yet of the complex gravitational interactions in such a system.
In addition, detailed studies of this system may provide a key clue for resolving one of the principal outstanding problems of fundamental physics -- the true nature of gravity.
"This triple system gives us a natural cosmic laboratory far better than anything found before for learning exactly how such three-body systems work and potentially for detecting problems with General Relativity that physicists expect to see under extreme conditions," said Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).
West Virginia University graduate student Jason Boyles (now at Western Kentucky University) originally uncovered the pulsar as part of a large-scale search for pulsars with the GBT. Pulsars are neutron stars that emit lighthouse-like beams of radio waves that rapidly sweep through space as the object spins on its axis. One of the search's discoveries was a pulsar some 4200 light-years from Earth, spinning nearly 366 times per second.
Such rapidly-spinning pulsars are called millisecond pulsars, and can be used by astronomers as precision tools for studying a variety of phenomena, including searches for the elusive gravitational waves. Subsequent observations showed that the pulsar is in a close orbit with a white dwarf star, and that pair is in orbit with another, more-distant white dwarf.
"This is the first millisecond pulsar found in such a system, and we immediately recognized that it provides us a tremendous opportunity to study the effects and nature of gravity," Ransom said.
The scientists began an intensive observational program using the GBT, the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands. They also studied the system using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the GALEX satellite, the WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Pulsar in stellar triple system makes unique gravitational laboratory
Astronomy Forecast- Happy New Year, Asteroids, Fireballs
December 31, 2013 No NEO (Near Earth Objects) 35 Fireball/ Meteor Sightings for December 30 31, 2013 2775 Fireball/Meteors for December 18362 Fireball/Met...
By: Sarah Hockensmith
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Astronomy Forecast- Happy New Year, Asteroids, Fireballs - Video
Astronomy Pictures of the Day (2013 Edition)
Discover the Cosmos! Go to http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html for more information! Songs: David Helpling and John Jenkins - Beyond Words David Helpling...
By: The Lone Deranger
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Astronomy group's ambitious plans for observatory in upper Teesdale
12:00am Friday 3rd January 2014 in News By Stuart Laundy, Reporter (Barnard Castle & Teesdale)
A GROUP of amateur astronomers are hoping to establish an observatory in rural County Durham so they can watch the sky at night.
Bishop Auckland Astronomical Society officials want to base the group in upper Teesdale.
They say remote parts of the dale offer some of the darkest skies in the region, creating the perfect conditions for stargazing.
The society was launched almost three years ago and has grown to more than 30 members.
Co-founder Duane Cox said the group currently met at Bishop Auckland Fire Station, with outdoor observations taking place at Grassholme Reservoir, in Teesdale.
We are looking for funding and we've got one or two sites in mind up in Teesdale, he said.
He said the next step would be to contact landowners to gauge support for the idea while efforts to secure cash were ongoing.
Mr Cox admitted that attracting funding would be difficult, as astronomy was not considered as popular and mainstream a pastime as other activities.
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Astronomy group's ambitious plans for observatory in upper Teesdale
Astronomy Forecast - Asteroids, Fireballs, Super Moon, Comet C/2013 V2 Linear, Algol
December 30, 2013 2009 XZ1 0.0508 AU 19.8 LD Size 130-300m Close Approach 8:29 p.m. UT 30 Fireball/Meteor Sightings for December 29 30, 2013 What to see th...
By: Sarah Hockensmith
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Astronomy Forecast - Asteroids, Fireballs, Super Moon, Comet C/2013 V2 Linear, Algol - Video
Astronomy Forecast-Asteroids, Fireballs, Leonis Minorids, Mars, Comet Lovejoy
December 27, 2013 2013 WV45 0.0611 AU 23.8 LD Size 28-63m Close Approach 2:22 p.m. UT 2013 YF 0.1516 AU 59.0 LD Size 68- 150m Close Approach 11:21 p.m. UT 85...
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Astronomy Forecast-Asteroids, Fireballs, Leonis Minorids, Mars, Comet Lovejoy - Video
How, precisely, can astronomy be of benefit to anyone?
M. Bernard JONES, UK Confrence : International Astronomical Union Symposium : The Rle of Astronomy in Society and Culture http://journals.cambridge.org/act...
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How, precisely, can astronomy be of benefit to anyone? - Video
Astronomy Forecast - Asteroids, Fireballs, NEOWISE, Comet Lovejoy, Mercury, ALgol
December 29, 2013 2013 YP2 0.1435 AU 55.8 LD Size 63-140m Close Approach 4:28 p.m. UT 2010 XZ67 0.0639 AU 24.9 LD Size 310-680m Close Approach 11:49 p.m. UT ...
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Astronomy Forecast - Asteroids, Fireballs, NEOWISE, Comet Lovejoy, Mercury, ALgol - Video