The sky: August 6-13

The sky: August 6-13

Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 10, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 ■ The Big Dipper hangs diagonally in the northwest after dark. From its midpoint, look to the right to find Polaris (not very bright) glimmering due north as always. MONDAY, AUGUST 7 ■ A few Perseids trickle in starting in late July, then they […]

Comet dust over central Texas

Comet dust over central Texas

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Jared Tennant Dusty debris from periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle was swept up by planet Earth this week. Vaporized by their passage through the dense atmosphere at 59 kilometers per second, the tiny grains produced a stream of Perseid meteors. A bright, colorful Perseid meteor flash was captured during this 20 […]

Heaven above, North Korea below

Heaven above, North Korea below

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Jia Hao] Known in the north as a winter meteor shower, the 2014 Geminids rain down on this rugged, frozen landscape. The scene was recorded from the summit of Mt. Changbai along China’s northeastern border with North Korea as a composite of digital frames capturing bright meteors near […]

Looking down on the Perseid meteor shower from space

Looking down on the Perseid meteor shower from space

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Ron Garan, ISS Expedition 28 Crew, NASA [People on] planet Earth typically watch meteor showers by looking up. But this remarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down. From Garan’s perspective onboard the International Space Station orbiting at […]

Evidence suggests naturally-occurring quasicrystals had extraterrestrial origins

Evidence suggests naturally-occurring quasicrystals had extraterrestrial origins

Results from an expedition to far eastern Russia that set out to find the origin of naturally occurring quasicrystals have provided convincing evidence that they arrived on Earth from outer space. Writing in IOP Publishing’s journal Reports on Progress in Physics, Paul J Steinhardt and Luca Bindi reveal that new, naturally occurring quasicrystal samples have […]