... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Risks Comparable to NEOs . ... The Increasing Rate of Discovery of Asteroids . ... Comet and Asteroid Collision Probabilities . ... Extreme albedo comets and the impact hazard (PDF Format) . ... Asteroid Impact Animations . ... Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids - 2002 . ... The Spaceguard Survey Report, 1992 (PDF) . Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts . ...

... 2004 October 2 . Toutatis Nears Planet Earth . ... Explanation: On Wednesday, September 29, asteroid Toutatis came within one million miles of Earth -- the closest predicted aproach of a sizable asteroid or comet to our fair planet in this century. Coming within one million miles or about 4 times the Earth-Moon distance, Earth would have appeared to be nearly the size of the full moon in the asteroid's sky . ... About APOD | ... NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers . ...

... Venus On The Horizon . ... Credit Copyright: STS 30 Crew , NASA Explanation: The month of October features a sky full of planets, including Venus as the brilliant evening star. Besides the sun and moon, Venus is the brightest object visible in Earth's sky. ... Because it is closer to the sun than Earth, Venus never strays far from the sun in its apparent position and is seen during the year as either a bright morning or evening star . ... October . ... Comet Meets Moon and Morning Star . ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Moon . ... Earth Satellites . ... By admin October 4, 2012 Posted in: Moon . A tiny second moon.This is Phobos (27 km across) seen over Mars by ESA's Mars Express (Image credit:ESA) . ... They concluded that at any given time Earth probably has a second moon. ... But, just perhaps, briefly the Earth had a second natural satellite seen by thousands of people.Remember the spectacular fireball witnessed over the UK and Ireland on 21 September 2012 ? ...

... 2000 October 28 . Moonrise, Planet Earth . Credit: STS-35 Crew, NASA . ... In the foreground, towering clouds of condensing water vapor mark the extent of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's life-sustaining atmosphere . ... Moon and clouds are strong visual elements of many well known portraits of planet Earth , including Ansel Adams' famous "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" , photographed in 1941. ... About APOD | ... NASA Technical Rep.: ... A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC . ...

... What's New? Bad Astronomy . ... August 24, 2005 . ... That says Mars will be closer to the Earth on August 27th than it has in 5000 years, and it may be 2267 until it gets this big again? ... Mars won't be closest in August, it won't be as big as the full Moon, and it was actually closer back in 2003. ... It's a near-exact duplicate of an email sent around the internets back in 2003, August 2003 , to be exact, when Mars really did have a close apparition with the Earth. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... 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. ...

... For a timeline of the exploration of the magnetic environment of the Earth, Sun and Planets, see here . ... Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) builds the first astronomical telescope and observes for the first time craters on the Moon, satellites around Jupiter, and the way Venus goes through phases like the Moon (crescent, etc.) ... 17 December--First successful flight by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. ... 16 March--Goddard launches his first liquid-fuel rocket. ...

... SUN MOON MERCURY VENUS MARS, JUPITER SATURN . ... Mars . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Comet to make close flyby of Red Planet in October 2014 . ... COMETS | ... Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will make a close approach to Mars in October 2014. ... During the close Mars approach, the comet likely will achieve a total visual magnitude of 0 or brighter, as seen from Mars-based assets. ... Only registered members of Astronomy.com are allowed to comment on this article. ...

... 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. ...

... 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. ...