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Two very interesting links below. Ethiopia reports record volcanic eruption First paragraph: "A volcano in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region erupted on Monday, researchers said Wednesday, prompting a minor earthquake and record lava flows covering 300 square kilometres (115 square miles)." Meteosat-8 Rapid Scan captures asteroid impact First paragraph: "On 7 October, asteroid 2008 TC3 entered the atmosphere over northern Sudan and exploded. Amazingly, the Meteosat-8 Rapid Scanning Service managed to capture the impact."

A space rock a few metres across exploded over northern Sudan early in the morning of Tuesday 7 October. The small asteroid mostly disintegrated when it collided with Earth's atmosphere, but fragments may have reached the surface. Such an event happens roughly every three months. But this is "the first time we were able to discover and predict an impact before the event", says Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) programme at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Incoming! The story began on Sunday evening, when astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, discovered...

...Last night (Sunday, October 5th), a telescope on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, detected a tiny moving blip, the signature of a small chunk of rock moving rapidly through space. Twenty-five observations have been done since then by professional and amateur astronomers around the world, and the object's orbit has been pinned down with fairly high precision. It is almost certain to hit Earth's atmosphere around 10:46 p.m. EDT tonight, October 6th. (That's 2:46 a.m. October 7th, Greenwich Mean Time.) The rock is roughly 10 feet (3 meters) across, and it's expected to enter the atmosphere above northern Sudan at about 8...

WASHINGTON – Astronomers say a small asteroid is about to make a fiery but harmless dive into Earth's atmosphere early Tuesday morning over Africa. Harvard scientists announced late Monday afternoon that the unnamed asteroid will burn up in the sky, making a fireball that people in northern Africa should be able to see. The rock is between 3 feet and 15 feet in diameter. It's expected to enter Earth's atmosphere above Sudan at 10:46 p.m. EDT Monday, which is just before dawn in Africa.

Scientific Scenario Of A Comet's Impact With Earth And The "Wormwood Star" Prophecy by Marshall Beeber An Introduction In the First Century AD, the Apostle John wrote an apocalyptic book called "Revelation" in which he described among many "end-time" events the collision of a star called Wormwood with Earth. Revelation states: Rev. 8:10-11: The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-- the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people...

YOU'D think that by now we'd have a firm grip on the trajectory of the solar system's most worrisome chunk of rock. In fact we have only a hazy understanding of how likely the asteroid Apophis is to strike Earth. What's more, budget cuts may shut down the telescope that could clarify the situation. Since Apophis was discovered in 2004, asteroid-watchers have known that it has a slim chance of hitting Earth in 2036. At 270 metres wide, it is too small to rival the object that wiped out the dinosaurs, but it could cause devastating tsunamis were it to...

Exploding asteroid theory strengthened by new evidence located in Ohio, Indiana Space & Earth science / Earth Sciences Ken Tankersley seen working in the field in a cave in this publicity photo from the National Geographic Channel. Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans -- to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada. A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist...

The true impact of an asteroid or comet crashing near the Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago has been examined in detail for the first time. The analysis reveals the resilience of life in the aftermath of disaster. The impact crater, which is buried under 400 to 1,200 feet (120 to 365 meters) of sand, silt and clay, spans twice the length of Manhattan. The sprawling depression helped create what would eventually become Chesapeake Bay. About 10,000 years ago, ice sheets began to melt and once-dry river valleys filled with water. The rivers of the Chesapeake region converged directly over...

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated. Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported. NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right. The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of...

BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated. Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported. NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right. The schoolboy took into consideration...

"Dino Killer" Asteroid Was Half the Size Predicted? Ker Than for National Geographic NewsApril 10, 2008 The meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs might have been less than half the size of what previous models predicted. That's the finding of a new technique being developed to estimate the size of ancient impactors that left little or no remaining physical evidence of themselves after they collided with Earth. Scientists working on the technique used chemical signatures in seawater and ocean sediments to study the dino-killing impact that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. They...

A cuneiform clay tablet that has puzzled scholars for over 150 years has been translated for the first time. The tablet is now known to be a contemporary Sumerian observation of an asteroid impact at Köfels, Austria and is published in a new book, 'A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels' Impact Event.' The giant landslide centred at Köfels in Austria is 500m thick and five kilometres in diameter and has long been a mystery since geologists first looked at it in the 19th century. The conclusion drawn by research in the middle 20th century was that it must be...

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky. He referred to the...

Could An Asteroid Hit Planet Earth, Again?Asteroid impact on early Earth. Some scientists believe that impacts such as this during the Late Heavy Bombardment period, 4 billion years ago, may have delivered primitive life to Earth. (Credit: Copyright Don Davis) ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2008) — Earth dodged a bullet today, when asteroid TU24 passed within 540,000 kilometers of our planet, which is just down the street on a galactic scale. Tomorrow, another asteroid – 2007 WD5 – will zip past Mars at a distance of only 26,000 kilometers away. Will we dodge the bullet the next time a near-Earth object...

An asteroid at least 500 feet long will make a rare close pass by Earth next week, but there is no chance of an impact, scientists reported Thursday. The object, known as 2007 TU24, is expected to whiz by Earth on Tuesday with its closest approach at 334,000 miles, or about 1 1/2 times the distance of Earth to the moon. The nighttime encounter should be bright enough for medium-sized telescopes to get a glimpse, said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which tracks potentially dangerous space rocks. However, next week's asteroid...

PASADENA, Calif. - Scientists tracking an asteroid approaching Mars say that an impact with the Red Planet has become less likely. Refined estimates of the asteroid's orbit were made using new observations from a telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, according to the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The impact probability fell to 2.5 percent, the NEO office said in Jan. 8 update posted on the NEO Web site. The miss distance was holding steady at about 30,000 kilometers, or 18,600 miles. The asteroid, dubbed 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November by the NASA-funded...

Insect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2008) — Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new argument is that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force -- biting, disease-carrying insects.Tick found in Burmese amber. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University) An important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs, experts say, could have been the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers. And the evidence...

Additional position observations for asteroid 2007 WD5 taken on December 29 through January 2 have been used to improve the accuracy of the asteroid's orbit. As a result, the range of possible paths past Mars has narrowed by a factor of 3 and the most likely path has moved a little farther away from the planet, causing the Mars impact probability to decrease slightly to 3.6% (about one chance in 28). The new positional observations were made using the 2.4 meter telescope at New Mexico Tech's Magdalena Ridge Observatory and reported by astronomer Bill Ryan. It seems likely that as...

Updated Dec. 28, 2007 -- Astronomers have identified asteroid 2007 WD 5 in archival imagery. With these new observations, scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif have refined their trajectory estimates for the asteroid. Based on this latest analysis, the odds for the asteroid impacting Mars on Jan. 30 are now 1-in-25 -- or about 4 percent.

The chance of a football field-sized asteroid plowing into Mars next month has been increased to 4 percent, scientists said Friday after analyzing archival data. Though still a long shot, some researchers are hoping for a cosmic smash. "I think it'll be cool," said Don Yeomans, who heads the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Usually when an asteroid is headed toward Earth, I'm not rooting for an impact." The space rock, known as the nondescript 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Based on the latest information available, scientists...

Astronomers Monitor Asteroid To Pass Near MarsThis artist rendering uses an arrow to show the predicted path of the asteroid on Jan. 30, 2008, and the orange swath indicates the area it is expected to pass through. Mars may or may not be in its path. (Credit: NASA/JPL) ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — Astronomers funded by NASA are monitoring the trajectory of an asteroid estimated to be 50 meters (164 feet) wide that is expected to cross Mars' orbital path early next year. Observations provided by the astronomers and analyzed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory...

LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday. "These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to the Tunguska object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing...

Astronauts, space buffs and an unimpressed public hunger for space exploration that's more dramatic, more heroic, more new. Something like, say, landing astronauts on a distant rock hurtling through space at 15 miles per second. That's exactly the kind of trip NASA has been studying. In fact, scientists at the space agency recently determined that a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid would be possible using technology being developed today... This wouldn't be our first trip to an asteroid. We've been visiting them by proxy for years now, using unmanned space probes. In 2000 NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft arrived at...

Source: SETI Institute Date: October 15, 2007 Long-lost, Dangerous Asteroid Is Found Again Science Daily — Echoing the re-discovery of America by the Spanish long after an earlier Viking reconnaissance, astronomers have learned that a recently observed asteroid - one that could potentially hit the Earth - was actually first observed nearly a half-century ago. Researchers at the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA have confirmed work by SETI Institute astronomer Peter Jenniskens that the recently discovered asteroid 2007 RR9 is in fact the long-lost object 6344 P-L. So far, this object has not yet...

A piece of outer space named for George Takei is in kind of a rough neighborhood for somebody who steers a starship: an asteroid belt. An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies. "I am now a heavenly body," Takei, 70, said Tuesday, laughing. "I found out about it yesterday. ... I was blown away. It came out of the clear, blue sky — just like an asteroid." The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers...

I'm mainly posting this because the liftoff image is one of the most impressive I've seen.

It’s a disaster scenario that Hollywood has picked up on (think Deep Impact). An incoming object menaces the Earth. Scientists try to destroy it with nuclear weapons, but the horrified populace soon discovers that the blast has simply broken the object into pieces, each with the potential to wreak havoc planet-wide. Now we learn that an impact between two asteroids causing a similar crack-up may have resulted in the cataclysmic event some 65 million years ago that destroyed the dinosaurs. Researchers from Southwest Research Institute and Charles University (Prague) have been studying the asteroid (298) Baptistina, combining their observations with...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The planned weekend launch of a spacecraft to explore two of the solar system's largest asteroids was delayed again because of problems with a tracking ship and aircraft. NASA set Monday afternoon as a new launch time for the Dawn spacecraft, which will embark on a years-long journey to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, which lie between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft originally had been set to launch Saturday but that was nixed because thunderstorms and lightning at the launch pad prevented loading its fuel. On Friday, the space agency called off a Sunday launch, too,...

An asteroid will fly past Earth tonight (March 30) about 2 million miles away. That's about nine times farther away than the Moon. There is no danger of collision. And that's a really good thing. This space rock, named 2006 VV2, is more than a mile wide (about 2 kilometers), according to the web site Spaceweather.com. If one that big did hit Earth, it'd destroy everything for hundreds of miles around and likely upset global commerce and create climate change unlike anything seen in modern history. The rock will be far too dim to see with the naked eye. Seasoned...

[F]or now at least, the asteroids will be known officially as KO7D84U and KO7D84W. Another group of Cordova students also found an asteroid, known as KO7C54Q. Vang and her five classmates achieved the discoveries through the International Asteroid Search Campaign -- an educational program for high school and college students. Their discoveries, made last month in teacher Glenn Reagan's astronomy classroom, were confirmed by the Harvard University Minor Planet Center March 1... He added that Cordova High is one of only a dozen high schools and colleges worldwide selected to take part in the most recent worldwide asteroid search. As...

Did a giant impact create the two faces of Mars? 16:29 15 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga, Houston Mars's northern hemisphere is lower in elevation – by about 5 kilometres – than its southern hemisphere (see image below). This coloured topographical map shows low elevations in blue and high elevations in yellow and red. The map is centred on a latitude of 55° north (Illustration: Mike Caplinger/MSSS) Mars's southern hemisphere is higher and more heavily cratered than the northern hemisphere, suggesting it is older terrain. The two low elevations (blue) in this map, which is centred on the...

Sorry for the shameless vanity, but I was just outside in the back yard in Northern Georgia, and an incredibly bright light illuminated the dark yard like an arc lamp. I looked up and saw a meteor streaking overhead, white hot, which then broke up into orange, glowing fragments. This happened at 10:21PM EST. I apologize for posting something random like this, but it was astonishing. Perhaps it was a piece of space junk that reentered the atmosphere tonight. Did anyone else see this? It was truly spectacular.

Hollywood got it wrong, this is how you stop an apocalyptic asteroid Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007 Attempts to save mankind by smashing asteroids as they head towards Earth may do more harm than good, scientists believe. Rather than Hollywood's preferred option, engineers are trying to develop unmanned rockets that can land on space rocks and use the asteroids' own material to propel them into a safer orbit. The plan will be detailed at a conference, sponsored by Nasa next month, at which its scientists will reveal their -estimate that 100,000 asteroids orbiting near...

Scientists reported this week that on April 13, 2036, an asteroid has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting Earth. The good news: No Tax Day, 2036. The bad news: An entire city or region could bite the dust. "We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue," explains former astronaut Rusty Schweickart. To that end, scientists are calling on the United Nations to take action. The Association of Space Engineers will present a plan to the UN in 2009 involving the construction of a "Gravity Tractor," which would alter the course of potentially threatening asteroids. You...

SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 18) - An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday. Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036. Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near...

Asteroid threat demands response, experts warn 16:26 17 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Ivan Semeniuk, San Francisco If the asteroid Apophis hits Earth in 2036, it could slam into the Pacific Ocean, generating a tsunami that could devastate the west coast of North America (Illustration: Don Davis/NASA) Kamchatkans and Venezuelans beware. A 20-million-tonne asteroid could be heading your way. Californians have even more reason to worry - the asteroid is more likely to hit the Pacific Ocean, triggering a tsunami that could devastate the west coast of North America. These are among the scenarios projected for asteroid Apophis, which researchers...

A draft UN treaty to determine what would have to be done if a giant asteroid was on a collision course with Earth is to be drawn up this year. The document would set out global policies including who should be in charge of plans to deflect any object. It is the brainchild of the Association of Space Explorers, a professional body for astronauts and cosmonauts. At the moment, Nasa is monitoring 127 near-Earth objects (NEO) that have a possibility of hitting the Earth. The association has asked a group of scientists, lawyers, diplomats and insurance experts to draw up...

Asteroid 2007 BB to pass between 0.0026 au or 0.0025 au. The distance to the moon is 0.00256 au(238,855 miles). Earth is okay from any impact. Just for your information.

Friday the 13th of April 2029 could be a very unlucky day for planet Earth. At 4:36 am Greenwich Mean Time, a 25-million-ton, 820-ft.-wide asteroid called 99942 Apophis will slice across the orbit of the moon and barrel toward Earth at more than 28,000 mph. The huge pockmarked rock, two-thirds the size of Devils Tower in Wyoming, will pack the energy of 65,000 Hiroshima bombs -- enough to wipe out a small country or kick up an 800-ft. tsunami. On this day, however, Apophis is not expected to live up to its namesake, the ancient Egyptian god of darkness and...

Heavenly bodies stir up routine catastrophes March 18 2003 at 01:30PM By Graeme Addison Legend has it that when two people get together and er... bond, the Earth will move – at least in a metaphorical sense. Likewise, it takes two heavenly bodies, an impactor and a target, to come together with Earth-shattering force to form a crater. There’s nothing dreamlike about this: it happens, frequently, throughout the solar system. Impact catastrophes are routine. Just over two-billion years ago, a chunk of asteroid at least the size of Table Mountain struck the landmass that is now South Africa. It hurtled...

I don’t want to get you worried, or even mildly concerned. No need to panic. In fact, just read this little piece, and remark with interest that an asteroid is going to get really really close to the Earth on October 31, 2041. It might - I repeat might - have a small, insignificant chance of hitting the Earth and causing regional devastation. Like a 1 in 40,000 chance. Those are pretty good odds when you think of it. Still not panicking? Good. The asteroid in question is called 2006 XG1. It was discovered on September 20, 2006 by the...

Data supports the single-impact theory in a controversial discussion COLUMBIA, Mo. – The dinosaurs, along with the majority of all other animal species on Earth, went extinct approximately 65 million years ago. Some scientists have said that the impact of a large meteorite in the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is today Mexico, caused the mass extinction, while others argue that there must have been additional meteorite impacts or other stresses around the same time. A new study provides compelling evidence that "one and only one impact" caused the mass extinction, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher. "The samples we...

Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth David Adam Friday November 17, 2006 It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs. To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could...

Building shielding on Earth to launch with the spacecraft would add a lot of extra weight to the vehicle and would increase the cost of the mission as a result. Other ideas, like a lightweight plasma bubble that could be generated in space are being explored, but have disadvantages of their own (see Plasma bubble could protect astronauts on Mars trip)... A small population of asteroids pass by both the Earth and Mars in their orbits. So the idea is that a spacecraft containing Mars-bound astronauts could rendezvous with one of these objects as it goes by the Earth and...

Wanted: small asteroid for use as slingshot to slay a Goliath Ian Sample, science correspondent Saturday July 15, 2006 The Guardian (UK) It worked for David as he squared up to Goliath, and now scientists hope a slingshot will help save the planet. Scientists at the French space agency, CNES, have calculated how to capture an asteroid and manoeuvre it into a near-Earth orbit, from where it can be flung into the path of a larger asteroid that threatens to collide with Earth. The plan joins a growing list of strategies put forward to protect our home planet should scientists...

Barry Bonds has played in 13 All-Star Games during his career, but during yesterday's All-Star media sessions he seemed like one of those old Soviet leaders who were airbrushed out of photographs when they fell out of favor with their peers. While the players themselves tried to avoid any topic outside the gentle fairways of good news, the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco is mulling over whether it will seek an indictment against Bonds, perhaps as soon as next week. Bonds is facing possible indictment for perjury and tax evasion, and the grand jury that has been hearing evidence...

An asteroid that's about one-half-mile wide is hurtling toward Earth, expected to narrowly miss the planet early Monday. Astronomers say the space rock, called 2004 XP14, will pass "exceptionally close" to Earth in astronomical terms -- 268,624 miles away at its closest approach, The Scotsman reported. That's a little more than the moon's average distance from Earth. The asteroid, discovered in December 2004, at first produced concerns that it could hit Earth later in the century but subsequent studies ruled out such a collision. However, 2004 XP14 has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, or PHA, by the Minor...

As the U.S. continues to express concern about the possibility of a North Korean missile test directed toward American territory and the rest of the world holds its breath over a close encounter with an asteroid, several U.S. air bases are on heightened alert. But no one is talking about why. The Cheyenne Mountain Air Station, which houses NORAD – charged with monitoring the North Korea situation – is now at "Bravo-Plus." Other air bases in Colorado, California and Florida are also on heightened alert status. There are five levels of alert: normal, Alpha (low), Bravo (medium), Charlie (high) and...

An asteroid possibly as large as a half-mile or more in diameter is rapidly approaching the Earth. There is no need for concern, for no collision is in the offing, but the space rock will make an exceptionally close approach to our planet early on Monday, July 3, passing just beyond the Moon’s average distance from Earth. Astronomers will attempt to get a more accurate assessment of the asteroid’s size by “pinging” it with radar. And skywatchers with good telescopes and some experience just might be able to get a glimpse of this cosmic rock as it streaks rapidly past...

New Scientist for Dec 14, 2002, had a cover story for Planet X: The Hunt for Planet X by Heather Couperand Nigel HenbestJust over a year after the New Horizons' launch, it will... pick up enough velocity to reach Pluto, possibly as early as July 2015... In their new research, Melita and Brunini have explored three possible reasons for the Kuiper Cliff... The third possibility is that the region beyond was brushed clear by the gravity of Planet X... the KBO orbits they have investigated so far fit in best with the influence of a Planet X.