Comet Arrives....

Look out for a rare spectacle as a bright comet swings into the Northern Hemisphere.

The icy mass, called C/2011 L4 Pan-Starrs, should be visible with binoculars or a telescope from 8 March.
But in the following days, it will become even brighter and could be seen with the naked eye.



Find the latest news on the Pan-Starrs comet at the BBC.

Comet PANSTARRS

Starting about March 7, 2013. PANSTARRS will appear above the western horizon after sunset for Northern Hemisphere viewers. To see it, you will need an unobstructed, cloudless view of the west after sunset. It is best to pick a dark spot, away from streetlights. Look in the sunset direction, as soon as the sky darkens. The comet will be just above the horizon.



March 10. The comet passes closest to the sun – as close as our sun’s innermost planet, Mercury – at 0.30 AU – or about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). Comets are typically brightest and most active around the time they are closest to the sun when solar heating vaporizes ice and dust from the comet’s outer crust. Not only will the comet quickly brighten, but it should also develop the long classic comet dust tail.

Around March 12 and 13. Moonlight will interfere with the darkness of the night sky, but there should be some wonderful photo opportunities as the young moon returns to the same part of the sky as the comet.

Throughout March 2013. The comet could be visible in the Northern Hemisphere evening sky low in the west after sunset. It will move northward each evening during March 2013 as it moves from being in front of the constellation Pisces to being in front of the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda. At this time, the comet might have a bright dust tail, and perhaps visible to the unaided eye or binoculars. It should, at least, if it lives up to expectations. Remember to look for the comet in the vicinity of the waxing crescent moon on March 12, 13 and 14. The comet swings above the star Algenib on March 17/18, and above the star Alpheratz on March 25/26.

Thanks to http://earthsky.org/

Learn more about comets:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/other_solar_system_bodies/comet

Evidence that comets could have seeded life on Earth

A new experiment simulating conditions in deep space reveals that the complex building blocks of life could have been created on icy interplanetary dust and then carried to Earth, jump-starting life.

Chemists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, Manoa, showed that conditions in space are capable of creating complex dipeptides – linked pairs of amino acids – that are essential building blocks shared by all living things. The discovery opens the door to the possibility that these molecules were brought to Earth aboard a comet or possibly meteorites, catalyzing the formation of proteins (polypeptides), enzymes and even more complex molecules, such as sugars, that are necessary for life.
“It is fascinating to consider that the most basic biochemical building blocks that led to life on Earth may well have had an extraterrestrial origin,” said UC Berkeley chemist Richard Mathies, coauthor of a paper published online last week and scheduled for the March 10 print issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Learn more about comets:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/other_solar_system_bodies/comet

Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?

NASA Science News for March 1, 2013

Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, but solar activity is lower than expected. At least one leading forecaster expects the sun to rebound with a double-peaked maximum later this year.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j4bl57D_1U

Every meteorite fall on earth mapped

Or at least those we know about. And where are the known meteorite landing places on earth? These impact zones show where scientists have found meteorites, or the impact craters of meteorites, some dating back as far as the year 2,300BC. The data is from the Meteorological Society and doesn't show those places where meteorites may have fallen but not been discovered

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2013/feb/15/meteorite-fall-map

What's the difference between all those 'space rocks'?

Friday's Asteroid Fly-by

How to spot asteroid 2012 DA14

Amateur astronomers are eagerly anticipating the approach on Friday 15 February of an asteroid, 2012 DA14, which will be the closest 'near miss' to Earth than any other in recent years. At about 19:45 on that day the 50-metre asteroid will be just 35,000 km from the UK, which is just within the ring of geostationary satellites.
It will be possible to view the object from the UK, weather permitting, using amateur instruments, even binoculars. The map above shows the part of the sky where it will appear, looking north-east at 8 pm. But it won’t be a walk in the park, because the object will not be particularly bright, at 8th magnitude. Although in theory it will be visible using only small binoculars, in practice from most UK sites this will be close to the limit of what you can easily see.

And as it’s moving more quickly through the sky than any other predicted natural object we’ve observed, viewers will need to look in precisely that right place at any particular time to be sure of spotting it.

If you miss it you can watch the February 15 asteroid flyby online, in real-time.

Thanks to the Society for Popular Astronomy

Latest from NASA:

NASA Follows Asteroid Flyby
Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST)
For more information, including graphics and animations showing the flyby of 2012 DA14, visit:
www.nasa.gov/asteroidflyby

NASA's Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

Thanks to the BBC

Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover has finally drilled deep enough into a rock to acquire a powdered sample for analysis.

The fine grey material from the 6cm-hole will be sieved and inspected before being delivered to the robot's onboard labs in the coming days.

It will represent a historic first in planetary exploration - never before has the interior of a rock on another world been probed in such a way.

The US space agency said the drilling was an immense achievement. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America," said John Grunsfeld, Nasa's associate administrator for science.

Drilling is absolutely central to the rover's mission in Gale Crater, a deep bowl sited on Mars' equator.
Curiosity is investigating whether past environments at this location could ever have supported life, and getting inside rocks to analyse their make-up will provide some of the most telling evidence.