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Every year, Earth passes through the tail of the comet Encke - twice. This isn’t unusual. We regularly cross cometary trails of ice and dust. But this one may be different. It could have been the source of the dramatic 1908 Tunguska airburst which flattened hundreds of square kilometres of Russian forest. The 45m wide comet fragment struck on June 30, at the height of the Beta Taurid shower. Was it, in fact, a part of that shower? Astronomer and science advocate Dr Phil Plait says it is possible. Calculations of its trajectory indicate the Tunguska object came from the...

The startling finding means that experts may not be able to spot the massive space rock hidden in the annual Taurids meteor shower until it is too late. According to a group of researchers, one of the fragments could hit Earth in 2022, 2025, 2032 or 2039 during the annual meteor shower. The Taurids is a spectacular meteor shower that lights up the night skies every November. The meteor shower is the trail of debris left by the comet Encke. But the debris could be obscuring two asteroid chunks known as 2015 TX24 and 2005 UR that are potentially Earth-bound....

This is a follow up posting to Younger Dryas -The Rest of the Story!Guest post by Don J. Easterbrook Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University.The Younger Dryas was a period of rapid cooling in the late Pleistocene 12,800 to 11,500 calendar years ago. It followed closely on the heels of a dramatically abrupt warming that brought the last Ice Age to a close (17,500 calendar years ago), lasted for about 1,300 years, then ended as abruptly as it started. The cause of these remarkably sudden climate changes has puzzled geologists and climatologists for decades and despite much effort to find...

The theory that the great beasts living in North America 13,000 years ago were killed off by a space impact can now be discounted, a new study claims.Mammoths, giant bears, big cats and the like disappeared rapidly from the fossil record, and a comet or asteroid strike was seen as a possible culprit. But tiny diamonds said to have been created in the collision have been misinterpreted, a US-UK team says. Without these diamonds, the theory falls, the group tells PNAS journal. "This was really the last pillar for this theory and I think it's time now everyone moved on,"...

UK impact crater debate heats up By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News Seismic surveys show a trough surrounded by concentric fractures A deep scar under the North Sea thought to be the UK's only impact crater is no such thing, claims a leading geologist. Professor John Underhill, from the University of Edinburgh, says the Silverpit structure, as it is known, has a far more mundane explanation. Detailed surveys reveal nine similar vast chasms in the area, he says. This suggests it was part of a more widespread process, probably the movement of salt rocks at depth, not...

(actual link) Corvid meteors observed only in late June of 1937 may be secondaries from the Giordano Bruno impact in June of 1178. Objects that products meteorite falls, fireballs, airwaves, and flashes on the Moon do not show a preference for late June and, therefore, are not part of the Taurid Complex.

An Impact Event in 3114BC? The Beginning of a Turbulent Millennium. Recurring Phenomenon: The Cosmic DisasterThe Mayan CalendarStonehengeA Possible Source for the 3100 BC Event Collected and commented by Timo Niroma, Helsinki, Finland Go to the Evidence of Astronomical Aspects of Mankind's Past and Recent Climate Homepage Recurring Phenomenon: The Cosmic Disaster Besides the most evident cosmic catastrophes ca. 2200 BC and 2345 BC there are other events during the Holocene that are so widely global and difficult to explain by only the Earth's own mechanisms that a cosmic explanation must evidently be taken into account. The first so-called...

Explanation: Still intact, on November 21 Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) swept into this animated field of view (left) from the HI-1 camera on the STEREO-A spacecraft. The camera has also captured periodic Comet Encke, Mercury, and Earth, with the Sun cropped out of the frame at the right, the source of the billowing solar wind. From STEREO's perspective in interplanetary space, planet Earth is actually the most distant of the group, seen in its orbit beyond the Sun. Mercury is closest, but both planets are still so bright they create sharp vertical lines in the camera's detector. Both comets clearly...

The Dark Ages : Were They Darker Than We Imagined? By Greg Bryant Published in the September 1999 issue of Universe As we approach the end of the Second Millennium, a review of ancient history is not what you would normally expect to read in the pages of Universe. Indeed, except for reflecting on the AD 837 apparition of Halley's Comet (when it should have been as bright as Venus and would have moved through 60 degrees of sky in one day as it passed just 0.03 AU from Earth - three times closer than Hyakutake in 1996), you may...

Comet Encke next perihelion will be in November 21, 2013. It should become visible with binoculars, beginning in late September of 2013 in the evening skies. It will be one of the brightest comets in 2013, but will pale in comparison to Comet ISON (C/2012 S1). After Comet Encke transits the Sun, it will become visible in the morning sky in December... Earth's position in space and the outgassing of Comet Encke are two of the factors that determine when, and if, this comet will become visible to the naked eye at some point in its path around the Sun....

One of the most studied comets in history will be favorably passing by the Earth in the next few days. Aside from Halleys Comet, Comet Encke is the most famous and richest in history of all of those mysterious icy wanderers that wend their way among the planets. While Encke is not expected to be visible to the unaided eye, it will be an interesting target through binoculars and small telescopes, for those experienced enough to find it. Encke is the comet with the shortest orbital period known taking about 3.3 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. It...