... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . Asteroid 2010 SO16 and the Earth follow similar orbits around . the Sun. ... out a horseshoe shape in space, taking 175 years to go from . ... Asteroid 2010 SO16 takes 175 years to make the trip from one end of the horseshoe to the other. ... Currently, three other horseshoe companions of the Earth are known to exist but, unlike 2010 SO16, these linger for a few thousand years at most before moving on to different orbits. ...

... More on 51 Peg: . The discovery of a Jupiter--mass planet in orbit around the solar--type star 51Peg has been reported by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz (Geneva Observatory) on October 6th at the 9th Cambridge workshop on "cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun" held at Florence (Italy). ... Recall that the measurements of radial velocity only yield v sin i which in turn gives us M sin i. For most values of i, sin i will be greater than 0.5 and this gives a mass estimate of 0.5 Jupiter masses. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Bad Astro Store . ... Slacker Astronomy . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... Life Under the Moon . ... Seeing Jupiter's Moons . ... Time Zones and the Spherical Earth . A Companion to the Earth? ... December 19, 1999) . ... Big Moon, Little Moon . ... How Big is the Moon? ... 14, 2000) . ... 2008 Phil Plait. ... Subscribe to the Bad Astronomy Newsletter! Talk about Bad Astronomy on the BA Bulletin Board! ...

Astronomy Picture of the Day . Animation of Asteroids Passing Near Earth . ... The above time-lapse animation follows the orbit of the Earth around the Sun for two months in 2002 as numerous asteroids , also known as minor planets , approach and pass by. ... Although none of the plotted objects came inside the orbit of our Moon, our Solar System is filled with objects as small as bits of sand, usually left by a comet, that appear as meteors as they streak into the Earth's atmosphere every day. ...

... In addition to the planets and their satellites the solar system contains a large number of smaller but interesting objects. There are thousands of known asteroids and comets and undoubtedly many more unknown ones. ... There are also some asteroids whose orbits carry them closer to the Sun than the Earth (Aten, Icarus, Hephaistos). Most comets have highly elliptical orbits which spend most of their time in the outer reaches of the solar system with only brief passages close to the Sun. ...

... Comet Tutorial . ... On July 1, 1993 an image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that clearly shows at least 15 individual fragments in one image frame of the train. ... This made an accurate orbit (or orbits) difficult to determine; however, after numerous observations of the comet, astronmers determined that the comet had passed within 96,000 kilometers (60,000 miles) of the center of Jupiter or 25,000 kilometers (16,000 miles) from the cloud tops during the July 8, 1992, approach. ...

... The awsome spectacle of a brilliant comet, with its long ghostly tail streaming behind it, is a rare event. ... Only one other comet, Comet Halley, was seen so far from the Sun, giving scientists an opportunity to watch it as it slowly warmed up and sprouted a tail. ... Comets are the Rip Van Winkles of the solar system -- mini-worlds that have changed little during their 4.5-billion-year nap far from the Sun. ... Observing Comets . ... Once, comets inhabited the entire solar system. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Moon . Planets . ... Monthly Sky Notes . ... February . ... The ringed planet will be quite bright, but unlike Jupiter it will not be the brightest point of light in the sky, this accolade will return to Sirius which is the brightest star in our night sky in the constellation of Canis Major. ... Seven days later on February 18, the Moon will be in its full Moon phase. ... Tweets that mention Wonders of the February Night Sky | ... Astronotes . ...

... Asteroid Introduction (This Page) . ... Asteroid Summary . Asteroids . Gaspra , Ida & Dactyl , Toutatis , Castalia , Vesta , Geographos, Mathilde . ... NEAR Spacecraft Homepage . Near-Earth Asteroid 3753 - Earth's Curious Companion . ... Then on October 1991 asteroid 951 Gaspra was visited by the Galileo spacecraft and became the first asteroid to have hi-resolution images taken of it. ... Both Gaspra and Ida are classified as S-type asteroids composed of metal-rich silicates. ... Gaspra . ...

The AstroGuide . ... AstroGuide | ... AstroGuide Listing . ... See many more Astronomy Listings by: Category or Alphabet . LONEOS is a system designed to find Earth-crossing asteroids (ECAs) and comets (ECCs), collectively known as near-Earth objects (NEOs). ... Listed Since July 15, 1998 . ... Web Site . http://www.lowell.edu/users/elgb/loneos_disc.html . ... Web . www.astronomy.net . About Astronomy Net | ... dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET" . ...

... Asteroid . ... In case you didn't hear about it, which you probably didn't: On Jan. 7, an asteroid 1,000 feet across -- nearly three times the current diameter of Marlon Brando -- barely missed the Earth, which is most likely your planet of residence. ... What if this asteroid had hit the Earth? ... As it happens, the American Astronomical Society was holding a conference in Washington AT THE VERY SAME TIME as the asteroid nearly hit the Earth. ...

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office . ... This paper briefly presents the history, interactions and current activities of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. The Program Office utilizes near-Earth object (NEO) astrometric data from the international community, received from the Minor Planet Center, to refine orbits and provide predictions for coming Earth close approaches. ... Recent studies of some of the issues surrounding the deflection of an Earth threatening NEO are also described. ...

... The remote planet Pluto and its moon Charon orbit the Sun at a mean distance of almost 6,000 million kilometres, or nearly fourty times farther out than the Earth. During a recent investigation by an international group of astronomers [1], the best picture ever of Pluto and Charon [2] was secured with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera at the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). ... The new HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto (0.9 arcseconds). ...

КОСМИЧЕСКИЙ КАЛЕНДАРЬ ЯНВАРЯ 2000 ГОДА . ... Jan 01 - Year 2000 . Jan ?? ... Jan 01 - Asteroid 1996 AX1 Closest Approach To Earth (0.702 AU) . ... Jan 03 - Asteroid 3745 Petaev Closest Approach To Earth (1.862 AU) . ... Jan 05 - Asteroid 1999 VO11 Near-Earth Flyby (0.218 AU) . ... Jan 08 - Comet P/1998 VS24 (LINEAR) Closest Approach To Earth (2.915 AU) . ... Jan 12 -[Image][Dec 02] Asteroid 1999 WA2 Closest Approach To Earth (1.100 AU) . ... Jan 14 - Mercury Occults 53 Sgr (6.9 Magnitude Star) . ...

T he Siding Spring Survey (SSS) is a Near-Earth Object search program that utilises the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, N.S.W., Australia. ... The mission of the Siding Spring Survey is to contribute to the inventory of near-earth objects (NEOs), or more specifically, the potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) and comets (PHOs) that may pose a threat of impact and thus harm to civilization. ... Based on the CSS Mission page . ... Siding Spring Survey Main Page . ...

... For the past years I have been working on the problem of synthesis of light curves of close binary systems, consisting of a normal star and a compact object (point object with fixed X-ray luminosity). ... Possible existence of a bright spot on the disk's lateral surface is taken into account. ... The last of then will be published in Gordon and Breach Publishers ( Cherepashchuk A.M., Katysheva N.A., Khruzina T.S., Shugarov S.Yu. ... Cherepashchuk A.M., Katysheva N.A., Khruzina T.S., Shugarov S.Yu. ...

Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how close did it get? ... As Elizabeth Flock reported: An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier missed Earth by only 200,000 miles as it flew by Tuesday night the closest an asteroid has been to Earth in 200 years Asteroid 2005 YU55, as it has been dubbed, streaked by at about 30,000 mph, but some scientists and lucky amateur astronomers caught a glimpse in their telescopes, where they saw strange structures on the asteroid\u2019s dark-colored surface. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Star Atlas . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... The planet has extreme temperature swings and perhaps active lava flows. ... A digital supplement to Astronomy magazine. ... Join TravelQuest International with Astronomy and Discover magazines on one of three great tour options surrounding this celestial spectacle . ... Astronomy Magazine . ...

... Spacecraft . ... To space by cannon? Finally, the deep space explorers --spacecraft which break away from the Earth's gravity . ... The "Luna" series of the USSR conducted 7 soft landing of unmanned probes, two of them with wheeled robotic "Lunokhods," and two of those missions returned samples to Earth. Others spacecraft have visited the major planets of the Solar system. ... The Mariner series have explored Venus and Mars--and Mariner 10 even reached Mercury, for three separate encounters! ...

This service is intended as an aid to visually observing close-approaching asteroids. ... By clicking on the column headers for "Object Name", "Maximum Brightness", and "Maximum Angular Speed", you can sort the list by those fields. ... When This is the predicted time when the asteroid will be closest to the Earth. ... This field shows red if an asteroid comes as close as the moon. ... PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) This does NOT mean that this is going to hit the Earth. ...