NASA Surprised by Unexpected Meteor Outburst

[rs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081111/sc_space/nasasurprisedbyunexpectedmeteoroutburst

NASA Surprised by Unexpected Meteor Outburst
Space.com Staff

space.com – 2 hrs 19 mins ago

When NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke arrived at the Marshall Space Flight Center and checked his email Sept. 9, 2008, he was very surprised to learn that he'd slept through a dramatic event.

A flurry of shooting stars had lit up the pre-dawn skies, including more than two dozen fireballs brighter than Venus. Cooke's all-sky Sentinel camera recorded the whole thing and had left him an email summarizing the outburst.

"Our Sentinel system consists of a computer-controlled camera, fisheye lens and digital video recorder," Cooke explained. "It was developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario for studies of meteors over Canada, and now we've adapted it for our purposes. Every night, Sentinel patrols the sky, looking for the unexpected, and it never gets sleepy."

An annual meteor shower around Sept. 9 was known to scientists, but it has always involved a few dim streaks coming from the constellation Perseus. It is called the September Perseids, and it had never measured up to the more dramatic August Perseid meteor shower. So few if any meteor enthusiasts ever bothered to watch the September event.

"Now we know better," Cooke said in a statement yesterday. "The September Perseids of 2008 were fantastic."

[The November Taurid meteor shower may generate a few bright fireballs through tomorrow.]

A meteor shower is typically generated by debris left behind by a comet -- grains of ice and dirt ranging from the size of sand grains to peas. The comet responsible for the September Perseids is unknown, but it must have laid down multiple debris streams as it orbited the sun. This year, Earth ran into a denser stream, Cooke figures.

There could be many unknown streams of debris crossing Earth's orbit, in fact. "We can discover new meteoroid streams that could pose a threat to spacecraft and satellites -- or just put on a pretty show from time to time," Cooke said.

Or rain fire and brimstone down on the earth.

Cooke's team has since set up a second camera, 100 miles away, to make the Sentinel system able to determine the direction from which a meteor comes. This would allow scientists to figure out the orbit of the comet involved.

The first successful test of the two-station Sentinel system came on Oct. 1, when a centimeter-sized meteoroid hit Earth's atmosphere over the southeastern United States with about as much energy as 500 pounds of TNT. Both cameras recorded the fireball.

Using software developed by Rob Weryk of the University of Western Ontario, the Sentinel system automatically calculated the orbit of the meteoroid and emailed the results to Cooke. "It came from the asteroid belt," he said.

Gee, if it came from the asteroid belt, I wonder why it suddenly decided to visit earth?

 

[spyraal]

Hello everyone,

This is interesting stuff from NASA. When i look at it, i cant' help the feeling that this article was written to be more cozy and reassuring than anything else... :/
I will try to explain myself:

When NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke arrived at the Marshall Space Flight Center and checked his email Sept. 9, 2008, he was very surprised to learn that he'd slept through a dramatic event.

This sounds like saying "Go on sleeping comfortably. Take a look at us. We do! Even dramatic events are just a routine-breaking morning surprise for us..."

Cooke's all-sky Sentinel camera recorded the whole thing and had left him an email summarizing the outburst.
...
Every night,Sentinel patrols the sky, looking for the unexpected, and it never gets sleepy.

Yeah, because "You don't need to worry of human oversight anymore!. No one even has to be there. This 21st century man! Technology works just for you and your safety. The Sentinel will emails us in any case!"

A meteor shower is typically generated by debris left behind by a comet -- grains of ice and dirt ranging from the size of sand grains to peas.

Meteors are typically grains of ice and dirt the size of sand grains to peas?? That thought could keep you awake at nights..! But fortunately:

There could be many unknown streams of debris crossing Earth's orbit, in fact. "We can discover new meteoroid streams that could pose a threat to spacecraft and satellites -- or just put on a pretty show from time to time," Cooke said.

So it is just one of two, right? Either damage to some spacecraft or satellite, or pretty fireworks. Nothing else can occur. But we can still worry about the satellites though, because our TVs might loose the signal. There had to be some bad news...

The first successful test of the two-station Sentinel system came on Oct. 1, when a centimeter-sized meteoroid hit Earth's atmosphere over the southeastern United States with about as much energy as 500 pounds of TNT. Both cameras recorded the fireball.

You cannot get more reassuring than claiming ONE centimeter as an easily detectable size by both cameras! Unless if there is someone who is still skeptic and believes that even the harder to detect 5mm meteoroids are dangerous to mankind, feel free to raise your hand...

Well, I might be wrong, but all these just sound so "go home, nothing here to see" style. All that "safety" with just two "restless" cameras? How many objects can they track before their system gets saturated? From how far can they track them? What if there is overcast sky? How big a part of the sky they observe? How high is the resolution of these cameras? And so many other questions...

:)

 

[durabone]

Heya!

I found some pretty interesting stuff today regarding a science known as "Geophysical Electrophonics." Soundz like some new kind of underground stereo equipment I know, but in fact it is the study (partially) of the sounds made by these fireballs/bolides. There are a number of papers here:

"Publications on Electrophonics - Colin Keay"

and an introduction here:

"Geophysical Electrophonics"

He takes on historical evidence from 109AD, book of Acts, etc. here:

Witness Descriptions of Electrophonic Bolide Sounds

Now if I could just get some wave files, I could mix them in with my "Music of the Spheres"

ENJOY!

 

[Turgon]

WASHINGTON - NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth but does not have the money to do the job, a U.S. government report says.

That is because even though Congress assigned the space agency this mission four years ago, it never gave NASA money to build the necessary telescopes, the new National Academy of Sciences report says. Specifically, NASA has been ordered to spot 90 per cent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space by 2020.

Even so, NASA says it has completed about one-third of its assignment with its current telescope system.

NASA estimates that there are about 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system that are potential threats to Earth. They are larger than 460 feet (140 metres) in diameter - slightly smaller than a sports stadium in New Orleans. So far, scientists know where about 6,000 of these objects are.

Rocks between 460 feet and 3,280 feet (1,000 metres) in diameter can devastate an entire region but not the entire globe, said Lindley Johnson, NASA's manager of the near-Earth objects program. Objects bigger than that are even more threatening, of course.

Just last month astronomers were surprised when an object of unknown size and origin bashed into Jupiter and created an Earth-sized bruise that is still spreading.Jupiter does get slammed more often than Earth because of its immense gravity, enormous size and location.

Disaster movies like "Armageddon" and near misses in previous years may have scared people and alerted them to a serious issue. But when it comes to doing something about monitoring the threat, the academy concluded "there has been relatively little effort by the U.S. government."

And the U.S. government is practically the only government doing anything at all, the report found.
"It shows we have a problem we're not addressing," said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, an advocacy group.

NASA calculated that to spot the asteroids as required by law would cost about $800 million between now and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system, Johnson said. If NASA got only $300 million it could find most asteroids bigger than 1,000 feet (300 metres) across, he said.

But so far NASA has gotten neither sum.

It may never get the money, said John Logsdon, a space policy professor at George Washington University.

"The program is a little bit of a lame duck," Logsdon said. There is not a big enough group pushing for the money, he said.

At the moment, NASA has identified about five near-Earth objects that pose better than a 1-in-a-million risk of hitting our planet and being big enough to cause serious damage, Johnson said. That number changes from time to time, usually with new asteroids added and old ones removed as more information is gathered on their orbits.

The space rocks astronomers are keeping a closest eye on are a 430-foot (130-meter) diameter rock that has a 1-in-3,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2048 and a much-talked about asteroid, Apophis, which is twice that size and has a one-in-43,000 chance of hitting in 2036, 2037 or 2069.

Last month, NASA started a new Web site for the public to learn about threatening near-Earth objects.
-

On the Net:

NASA's near-Earth object site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

Quote from: Space.com
A meteor shower is typically generated by debris left behind by a comet -- grains of ice and dirt ranging from the size of sand grains to peas.

Meteors are typically grains of ice and dirt the size of sand grains to peas?? That thought could keep you awake at nights..! But fortunately:


Quote from: Space.com
There could be many unknown streams of debris crossing Earth's orbit, in fact. "We can discover new meteoroid streams that could pose a threat to spacecraft and satellites -- or just put on a pretty show from time to time," Cooke said.

So it is just one of two, right? Either damage to some spacecraft or satellite, or pretty fireworks. Nothing else can occur. But we can still worry about the satellites though, because our TVs might loose the signal. There had to be some bad news...

It seems NASA may be taking the Comet threat a little bit more serious now. And I stress the little bit, because it seems as if they cant even get the proper funding to create the telescopes or neccessary equipment to keep track of 90% of the comets they've been ordered to keep track of out there that are large enough to do major damage to the planet. It's as if The US Government really doesn't consider this to be a major threat, or its purposely being swept under the rug because the threat really is right at our door step and it would create panic.

 

[1984]

In case you missed it, this was posted yesterday on SOTT, just a different title. :) http://www.sott.net/articles/show/191160-Confession-NASA-can-t-keep-up-with-killer-asteroids

as well as today's http://www.sott.net/articles/show/191205-Earth-could-be-blindsided-by-asteroids-panel-warns

 

[anart]

It seems NASA may be taking the Comet threat a little bit more serious now. And I stress the little bit, because it seems as if they cant even get the proper funding to create the telescopes or neccessary equipment to keep track of 90% of the comets they've been ordered to keep track of out there that are large enough to do major damage to the planet. It's as if The US Government really doesn't consider this to be a major threat, or its purposely being swept under the rug because the threat really is right at our door step and it would create panic.

I think you might be missing the strong probability that it's not a matter of them not 'considering it a major threat' so much as them knowing there is nothing to stop it, and the fact that they already have their personal deep level bunkers ready. If you take a look at pictures of the Carolina Bays, you'll get a tiny glimpse into what will be incoming - it's not really something that can be shot out of the sky, or nudged away, osit.

 

[Turgon]

I think you might be missing the strong probability that it's not a matter of them not 'considering it a major threat' so much as them knowing there is nothing to stop it, and the fact that they already have their personal deep level bunkers ready. If you take a look at pictures of the Carolina Bays, you'll get a tiny glimpse into what will be incoming - it's not really something that can be shot out of the sky, or nudged away, osit.

I see what you're saying. I looked up the Carolina Bays, there are a LOT of impact marks there. I don't think anything can be done about shooting them out of the sky either. Although if 'they' know its inevitable, and that it will cause such devastation that their only option (that we know of) is to build underground bunkers, wouldn't they similarly want to know when a comet that can cause Earth Shattering effects is going to hit the Planet?

The report also points out that existing surveys are designed to gradually build up a catalogue of near-Earth objects over time, not to watch out for incoming asteroids that are just days or weeks from colliding with our planet.
Small asteroids could easily slip past existing surveys unnoticed until the moment of collision because telescopes currently devoted to the task are only capable of imaging a small part of the sky each night. And even then, clouds can prevent them from spotting asteroids, says Timothy Spahr of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a central clearinghouse for asteroid and comet data.

'No free lunch'

Asteroids approaching from the direction of the sun would also be missed, at least by ground-based telescopes, says Alan Harris. Sending a telescope to another vantage point in space could overcome this problem. "[But] it could be seriously expensive," says Harris. "So one must ask, 'What's it worth?'" "There is no free lunch," Shapiro agrees. But he adds, "We're talking about investing in an insurance policy."

(thanks 1984)

I would think that even if they have built Bunkers to house themselves in the event of what seems to be inevitable cometary strikes, they would take measures to ensure they are clearly out of the 'line-of-fire' when the comets hit. I'm not sure what the procedures are for the people who are going to house these bunkers are, but there has to be some sort of time-frame to safely get these people to bunkers, which means they need to know ahead of time when something big is about to hit. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think there would be some type of contingency for this, unless this whole NASA/Meteor Watch issue is just some type of cover-up and all the money that's supposed to be going to NASA is going to some other Meteor Observation Project that the public isn't supposed to know about.

 

[anart]

unless this whole NASA/Meteor Watch issue is just some type of cover-up and all the money that's supposed to be going to NASA is going to some other Meteor Observation Project that the public isn't supposed to know about.

That's probably closer to the the truth, though if you're familiar with the topic of the 'black budget' and the trillions that 'went missing' before September 11th, you'll realize it has nothing to do with public budgets, or NASA or anything you'd read in the main stream press about what NASA is doing. It has never had anything to do with protecting the public and when I speak of the underground bunkers, I'm not talking about the public servants who's names you would know, or could look up (well, perhaps a few of the higher ups) - but those behind the scenes and at the top who really pull the strings. Nothing is as it seems and never was - and that applies to pretty much everything.

 

[Joe]

I would think that even if they have built Bunkers to house themselves in the event of what seems to be inevitable cometary strikes, they would take measures to ensure they are clearly out of the 'line-of-fire' when the comets hit. I'm not sure what the procedures are for the people who are going to house these bunkers are, but there has to be some sort of time-frame to safely get these people to bunkers, which means they need to know ahead of time when something big is about to hit. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think there would be some type of contingency for this, unless this whole NASA/Meteor Watch issue is just some type of cover-up and all the money that's supposed to be going to NASA is going to some other Meteor Observation Project that the public isn't supposed to know about.

I'd say those guys reckon they have it all figured out. Which reminds me that one of the best things about wishful thinking is that it gets ya every time! :P