Biggest Solar Storm for 6 years hits the Earth - Auroras seen all over the World

Radiation from the most intense solar storm for 6 years hit the Earth on Tuesday 24th January 2012. The high-energy charged particles came from a powerful flare produced by a geomagnetic solar storm that erupted at 0400 UT on Monday. The bombardment is expected to last for at least a day or two.

There is no risk to people on Earth although as a rare precaution, some airlines re-routed polar flights to avoid communication lapses and exposing pilots and passengers to excessive radiation. NASA officials have modelled the flare's predicted impact and have decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station are also safe and do not need to take any additional precautions to protect themselves from the incoming stream of particles.

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Venus and a thin crescent Moon together just after sunset on January 26th

Venus is currently visible shining brightly towards the western/southwestern horizon during dusk. The brightest of all planets is now at magnitude -3.9 and by months end will set about 2 to 3 hours after sunset depending on location. On the 26th January there is a nice opportunity to spot Venus close to a thin crescent Moon. About 90 minutes after sunset, given an unobstructed low south western horizon and clear skies, an observer from London, England should be able to pick out Venus about 6 degrees below the Moon. For a viewer from Sydney, Australia look towards the western horizon about 1 hour after sunset and the Moon will hover only 5 degrees above the terminator with Venus another 7 degrees higher. Similar views will obtained from other worldwide locations.

Venus, the Moon and Jupiter on 26th January - pdf format

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Rare Mars meteorites land in Morocco

Scientists have confirmed that 7 kilos of rocks that fell to Earth in July 2011 originated from Mars. A great fireball was spotted at the time the rocks plunged through the Earth's atmosphere, but it was not until December when the extremely rare material was found on the ground in Morocco.

The discovery has sent the scientific and meteorite collecting communities into a spin, as it is only the fifth time in history that people have witnessed falling meteorites, which have later been chemically confirmed to be of Martian origin. The previous occasion was in 1962 and in total the mass of all the Martian rocks on Earth adds up to less than 109 kilograms.

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Russia's doomed Phobos mission about to return to Earth **UPDATED**

The failed Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft that has been circling the Earth since the 8th November 2011 is predicted to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere on the 14th January 2012. Officials at Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, admitted that up to 30 fragments, weighing a total of 200kg, might survive re-entry and hit the Earth. This is a small amount of the total spacecraft weight of 13.5 tonnes.

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft is not considered by scientists to be one of the more high-risk spacecraft re-entries. Dr Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency (ESA's) space debris office at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany said, "It's a very delicate structure and it will break up fairly quickly. Largely it consists of propellant to take it to Mars, which is still left in the tank, and none of that is expected to survive re-entry."

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Mars sized Exoplanet discovered

Astronomers have discovered the three smallest exoplanets yet, each tinier than the Earth orbiting a small red dwarf star (known as KOI-961) 130 light years away. Of the three new planets, the smallest is only slightly larger than Mars and just 0.57 times the radius of the Earth.

The latest discovery comes from a team of astronomers led by Philip Muirhead at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. They performed follow-up observations on publically released data from the Kepler space telescope using the Palomar Observatory located in San Diego County, California and the W.M. Keck Observatory near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

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GRAIL – NASA's twin Moon gravity probes successfully reach orbit

NASA latest Moon mission GRAIL (The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) has successfully entered lunar orbit. The mission to map the Moons gravity in unprecedented detail consists of two small identical space probes each weighing only 132kg. After a journey to the Moon lasting nearly four months, the US space agency announced on the 1st January 2012 that after a series of braking manoeuvers both spacecraft were successfully placed in preliminary orbits around the Earths only natural satellite.

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Quadrantids - The first major meteor shower of the year

The first week of January yields the first major meteor shower of the year, the famous but sometimes illusive Quadrantids. Like other meteor showers, the Quadrantids are named after the constellation (or nearby star) where the radiant is located, but you may have difficulty figuring out the associated region; the reason is that the constellation no longer exists!

Today, the Quadrantids radiant is located in the northern constellation of Boötes, not far from the tail of Ursa Major. When the shower was discovered by Adolphe Quetelet of the Brussels Observatory in the 1830s, the radiant was located in the now obsolete constellation of Quadrans Muralis, hence the name 'The Quadrantids'.

Quadrantids Radiant and Star Chart - pdf format

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Venus well placed in the evening sky

The brightest planet Venus is now easily visible in the evening sky from most parts of the World just after sunset. With a magnitude of -3.9, the second planet from the Sun is hard to miss as it dazzles in the evening twilight. At the start of December Venus sets about one and a half hours after the Sun, increasing to three hours by months end.

On the evening of the 26th December there is the opportunity to catch Venus close to a very slim crescent Moon. When viewed from London at latitude of 51.5N, the 4% lit two day old Moon will appear 9.5 degrees to the SW (right) of Venus. Both objects are visible low down in the southwest, about 10 degrees above the horizon 1 hour after sunset.

Venus and Moon - December 2011 Northern Hemisphere view - pdf format

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Kepler space telescope spots first Earth sized planets

Astronomers have been announcing on a regular basis for some time now major discoveries from NASA's exoplanet hunting Kepler space telescope. On Tuesday 20th December they revealed the latest find made by the orbiting telescope, the detection of the first planets outside our Solar System that are about the same size as the Earth and orbit a star similar to the Sun.

The two new planets have been named Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f. Of these, Kepler-20f is almost exactly the same size as the Earth while Kepler-20e is slightly smaller at 0.87 times the radius of the Earth. Both planets are substantially closer to their parent star than the Earth is to the Sun, hence orbit much faster than the Earth does. Kepler-20f completes one orbit around the host star in 20 days, while Kepler-20e requires just six days. The Earth of course takes one year to orbit the Sun. Since they are much closer, they are far too hot to support life, although scientists say that Kepler-20f could have a thick water-vapour atmosphere. Kepler-20f has a surface temperature of 425C (approx. 800F), which is similar to the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e is hotter still at more than 760C (1400F), high enough to melt glass.

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