Astronomy, Space Science

More on Asteroid 2014 DA14 and the Chelyabinsk meteor

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NASA’s Asteroids and Comets web site has a lot of good info about both the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 and the meteor fireball over central Russian.

* NASA – Asteroid 2012 DA14 as Seen from Siding Spring, Australia:

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* Near-Earth Asteroid Makes Preview Appearance –  a report and another GIF of the flyby
* Asteroid 2012 DA14 – Earth Flyby Reality Check – videos, trajectory diagrams and Q&A

 

A NASA report on the Chelyabinsk meteor event: NASA – Russia Meteor Not Linked to Asteroid Flyby

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This non-NASA site posts a nice infographic comparing asteroids that flew near or into earth: Comparing the Russian Meteor to Tunguska and Yesterdays Near Miss Asteroid – NextBigFuture.com.

Astronomy, Education

Astrobites – making leading edge astrophysics readable

The astrobites (astro-ph reader’s digest) project seeks to present the latest reports on leading edge astrophysics research in a way that is understandable at an undergraduate level.

 Astrobites is a daily literature journal summarizing new astrophysical research posted to astroph. Astrobites is written by graduate students for undergraduates. Read more about our goals.

For example, much of this description of a paper on exoplanets around M dwarf stars should be comprehensible by even non-science undergrads: The Frequency of (Habitable?) Planets Around M dwarfs – astrobites.

Activism

National Space Society’s Kickstarter success

The NSS ‘s first effort at crowd-funding went extremely well, raising almost twice their original goal: National Space Society Kickstarter Campaign – Thanks to you, we did it! – National Space Society Blog

Astronomy, Space Collecting, Space Science

Meteorite collecting + Sutter Mill fireball + Meteor/Fireball notices

Meteorite collecting has become a popular hobby and a big business worldwide. The pieces of the Ural fireball will no doubt become highly sought after by both collectors and scientists : Meteorites Could be Worth Big Bucks – RIA Novosti.

Find lots of information and web resources on meteorites in the Space Collectables section.

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A fireball  occurred above northern California on April 22, 2012 and meteorite hunters soon began combing the area. Now referred to as the Sutter Mill fragments after the local historical site, nearly 80 fragments were collected by volunteers for scientific analysis within a couple of days of the event.  The quick collection effort meant that there was less time for contamination of the samples, which was important since the object turned out to be a rare type of asteroid called a carbonaceous chondrite:

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Smaller scale fireballs and meteor trails happen somewhere in the world daily. There are various web sites and blogs devoted to reporting on the latest sightings. See, for example:

 

Everyone can participate in space