Posted on by David Dickinson

Standing in the Shadow: Amazing Images of Today’s Total Solar Eclipse

Totality! A fine capture featuring the 'diamond ring' effect as sunlight streams through lunar valleys. Image credit and copyright: Justin Ng Astrophotography

The Moon’s shadow kissed the Earth earlier today, providing a fine show from southeast Asia, to the southern shores of Alaska. We wrote about the only total solar eclipse for 2016 yesterday. This is it, the last total solar eclipse prior to the return of totality for the contiguous United States on August 21st, 2017.

Cloud cover over the region was a toss up, with clear skies for some, and cloudy skies for others. Those towards the western end of the track where the eclipsed rising Sun sat low on the horizon seemed to have fared worst.

Image credit:
Clouds thwarted a Malaysian team that had journeyed to Indonesia to view the eclipse (including Sharin Ahmad @shahgazer), though they were at the ready. Image credit and copyright: Sharin Ahmad.

Update: Sometimes, the camera sees what the eye misses. The Malaysian team did indeed manage to nab a fine display of Bailey’s Beads in the moments leading up to totality through a thin gap in the clouds:

Sunlight, interupted. A welcome photobomb courtesy of the Earth's Moon. Image credit and copyright: Shahrin Ahmad. (@shahgazer)
Sunlight, interupted. A welcome photobomb courtesy of the Earth’s Moon. Image credit and copyright: Shahrin Ahmad. (@shahgazer)

Skies dawned clear to the east over the Indonesian islands on the morning of the eclipse, and the joint NASA/Exploratorium webcast from the remote atoll of Woleai in Micronesia was a success.

Image credit
A ‘helipad solar observatory’ readied for the eclipse. Image credit and copyright: Patrick Poitevin.

Observing from a helipad Balikpanpan, Indonesia, veteran eclipse chaser Patrick Poitevin said: “What an eclipse! Vertically clear sky throughout the entire eclipse from our ‘private’ helipad in Balikpapan. Only slight haze now and then. Asymmetric corona, with bright and prominent snow white streamer. Venus, Mercury easily visible long before, and shadow bands post totality. Fabulous! All so pretty!!! Marked the second Saros 130 for Jo and the 3rd for me.”

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Many viewers noted a fine solar prominence on the solar limb seen during totality. Patrick Poitevin caught the prominence using a hydrogen-alpha solar telescope just moments before the onset of totality. Image credit: Patrick Poitevin.

Indeed, catching a ‘triple saros’ known as an exeligmos is a noteworthy lifetime accomplishment.

09 March 2016 - Total Solar Eclipse from Palu, Indonesia. Image credit and copyright: Justin Ng.
09 March 2016 – Total Solar Eclipse from Palu, Indonesia. Image credit and copyright: Justin Ng.

Many witnessed the eclipse via Slooh’s live webcast from the path of totality, which is now archived in its entirety on YouTube.

Totality, as witnessed by the Slooh team in Indonesia. Image credit: www.slooh.com
Totality, as witnessed by the Slooh team in Indonesia. Image credit: www.slooh.com

As of writing this, no views from space have surfaced, though we suspect this will change as the day goes on. Word is that the Alaskan Airlines flight that modified their flight plan to catch the eclipse was successful as well. Check back, as we’ll be dropping in more images as they trickle in from the field throughout the day.

The partial phases of today's eclipse as seen from Lava Lava, Hawaii. image credit and copyright: Rob Sparks (@halfastro)
The partial phases of today’s eclipse as seen from Lava Lava, Hawaii. Image credit and copyright: Rob Sparks (@halfastro)

Update: Scratch that… Japan’s Himawari-8 weather satellite did indeed nab views of the umbra of the Moon as it raced across the Pacific:

An animation of today's total solar eclipse as seen from space. Image credit: The Meteorological Satellite Center of JAMA.
An animation of today’s total solar eclipse as seen from space. Image credit: The Meteorological Satellite Center of JAMA.

Though the eclipse was almost entirely over water after the umbra departed SE Asia, regions around the path were treated to a fine partial eclipse, including residents of Hawaii:

August 21st 2017 is now the very next total solar eclipse in the queue!

Update: and the amazing images just keep on coming… here’s an amazing image and time lapse video courtesy of astrophotographer Justin Ng:

09 March 2016 - Total Solar Eclipse from Palu, Indonesia. Image credit and copyright: Justin Ng Photography.
09 March 2016 – Total Solar Eclipse from Palu, Indonesia. Image credit and copyright: Justin Ng Photography.

And timelapse:

2016 Total Solar Eclipse – Palu Indonesia from Justin Ng Photo on Vimeo.

Wow. just wow!

Posted on by David Dickinson

Chasing the Shadow: Our Guide to the March 9th Total Solar Eclipse

Totality! The total solar eclipse of November 14th, 2012. Image credit: Narayan Mukkavilli

Ready for the ultimate in astronomical events? On the morning of Wednesday, March 9th, the Moon eclipses the Sun for viewers across southeast Asia.

Many intrepid umbraphiles are already in position for the spectacle. The event is the only total solar eclipse of 2016, and the penultimate total solar eclipse prior the ‘Big One’ crossing the continental United States on August 21st, 2017.

Image credit: Great American Eclipse/Michael Zeiler
The path of tomorrow’s eclipse. Image credit: Great American Eclipse/Michael Zeiler

Tales of the Saros

This particular eclipse is member 52 of 73 eclipses in saros cycle 130, which runs from 1096 AD to 2394. If you saw the total solar eclipse which crossed South America on February 26th, 1998, then you caught the last solar eclipse from the same cycle.

Image credit: NASA/GSFC/A.T. Sinclair
An animation of the event. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/A.T. Sinclair

Weather prospects are dicey along the eclipse track, as March is typically the middle of monsoon season for southeast Asia. Most eclipse chasers have headed to the islands of Indonesia or cruises based nearby to witness the event. The point of greatest eclipse lies off of the southeastern coast of the Philippine Islands in the South China Sea, with a duration of 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Most observers, however, will experience a substantially shorter period of totality. For example, totality lasts only 2 minutes and 35 seconds over island of Ternate, where many eclipse chasers have gathered. The Sun will be 48 degrees above the horizon from the island during totality.

A great place to check cloud cover and weather prospects along the eclipse track is the Eclipsophile website.

Image credit; SkippySky
A dicey sky: prospects for cloud cover over Australia. Image credit; SkippySky

The umbra of the Earth’s Moon will sweep across Sumatra at sunrise and across the island of Borneo, to landfall one last time for Indonesia over the island of North Maluku before sweeping across the central Pacific. This eclipse is unusual in that it makes landfall over a very few countries: the island nation of Indonesia, and just a few scattered atolls in Palau and Micronesia.

Partial phases of the eclipse are also visible from India at sunrise, across northeast Asia along the northernmost track, to central Australia in the south, and finally, to southern Alaskan coast at sunset. Honolulu Hawaii sees a 65% partial solar eclipse in the late afternoon on March 8th.

Expect great views, both from Earth and from space. We typically get images from solar observing spacecraft, to include the joint NASA/JAXA Hinode mission, and the European Space Agency’s PROBA-2 spacecraft. Both are in low-Earth orbit, and see a given eclipse as a swift, fleeting event. Other solar observatories—such as the Solar Heliospheric Observatory and the Solar Dynamics Observatory—occupy a different vantage point in space, and miss the eclipse.

Image credit: Starry Night Education Software
The orientation of the Sun and planets at totality (click to enlarge). Image credit: Starry Night Education Software

As of this writing, we know of several folks that have made the journey to stand in the path of totality, to include Sharin Ahmad (@Shagazer), Michael Zeiler (@GreatAmericanEclipse) and Justin Ng.

Good luck and clear skies to all observers out there, awaiting darkness in the path of totality.

Live in the wrong hemisphere? There are several live webcasts planned from the eclipse zone:

NASA and the National Science Foundation are working with a team from San Francisco’s Exploratorium to bring a live webcast of the eclipse from the remote atoll island of Woleai, Micronesia. The feed starts at 7:00 EST/0:00 Universal Time (UT) and runs for just over three hours. You can follow the exploits of the team leading up to show time here.

The venerable Slooh will also feature a webcast of the eclipse with astronomer Paul Cox from Indonesia running for three hours starting at 6:00 PM EST/23:00 UT.

A view of the partial phases of the eclipse from the Hong Kong science center also starts at 5:30 PM EST/22:30 UT:

Don’t forget: though the eclipse occurs on the morning of March 9th local time in southeast Asia, the path crosses the International Dateline, and the webcasts kick off on the evening of Tuesday March 8th for North America.

And hey, Alaska Airlines flight 870 from Anchorage to Honolulu will divert from its flight plan slightly… just to briefly intercept the Moon’s shadow (its already a fully booked flight!)

From there, 2016 features only two faint penumbral lunar eclipses on March 23rd and September 16th, and an annular solar eclipse crossing central Africa on September 1st.

We’ll be doing a post-eclipse round up, with tales from totality and the pics to prove it… stay tuned!

Got eclipse pictures to share? Send ’em to Universe Today… we just might feature them in our round up!

Don’t miss our eclipse-fueled science fiction tales: Exeligmos and Shadowfall.

Posted on by David Dickinson

By Jove: Our 2016 Guide to Jupiter at Opposition

Getting closer... Jupiter, imaged on February 24th. Image credit and copyright: Efrain Morales

Ready to explore the largest planet in our solar system? The month of March heralds the return of Jupiter to evening skies. Early March 2016 sees the planet Jupiter starting off the month less than one degree from the star Sigma Leonis. Continue reading “By Jove: Our 2016 Guide to Jupiter at Opposition”

Posted on by David Dickinson

The Future of Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Pulsar Webs, Space Interferometers and Everything

A merging of two massive objects, sending ripples through the fabric of space and time. Image credit: R. Hurt/Caltech JPL

It’s the hot new field in modern astronomy. The recent announcement of the direct detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) ushers in a new era of observational astronomy that is completely off the electromagnetic spectrum. This detection occurred on September 14th, 2015 and later earned itself the name GW150914. This occurred shortly after Advanced LIGO turned on in early September, a great sign concerning the veracity of the equipment. Continue reading “The Future of Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Pulsar Webs, Space Interferometers and Everything”

Posted on by David Dickinson

Double Shadow Transit Season for the Jovian Moons Begins

New Horizons nabs a double shadow transit en route to Pluto. Image credit: NASA/JPL/New Horizons

Watching the inky-black shadow of a Jovian moon slide across the cloud-tops of Jupiter is an unforgettable sight. Two is always better than one, and as the largest planet in our solar system heads towards opposition on March 8th, so begins the first of two seasons of double shadow transits for 2016. Continue reading “Double Shadow Transit Season for the Jovian Moons Begins”

Posted on by David Dickinson

Stunning Images of the February Dawn Planetary Line-up from Around the World

5 Planets Alignment The Moon 01-30-2016, 06:13am EST outside of Warrenton, Virginia. Image credit and copyright: John Chumack Canon 6D DSLR, 8mm fisheye Lens, Slightly Cropped ISO 800, 8 second exposure,

Have you seen them? There’s been a quintet of good reasons to awaken early this past week, as the February dawn sky hosts all five classical planets, very nearly in order: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. For a few days, the waning crescent Moon even joined the show on the weeks leading up to New on February 8th. Fleeting Mercury breaks the streak later this week, exiting the dawn sky as it heads towards superior conjunction on the far side of the Sun on March 23rd. Continue reading “Stunning Images of the February Dawn Planetary Line-up from Around the World”

Posted on by David Dickinson

Watch the Moon Beat a Path Across the Hyades Tonight

Do you see it? The Moon closes in on Aldebaran last October. Image credit and copyright: Frank Tyrlik

“Once more, unto the breech…” Ready to brave the February cold and the ongoing arctic polar express? Tonight, North American skywatchers will witness an encore event, as the waxing gibbous Moon crosses the Hyades star cluster and – for a lucky few — occults the bright star Aldebaran. Continue reading “Watch the Moon Beat a Path Across the Hyades Tonight”

Posted on by Bob King

NASA Says Indian Event Was Not Meteorite

Pentax K-1000, 50mm lens, Kodak Ektar 100 Exposure ~ 8 seconds at Dusk, Capturing a Bright Fireball, breaking up with debri, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Photo credit: John Chumack

Last Saturday, Feb. 6th, a meteorite reportedly struck a bus driver on the campus of the Bharathidasan Engineering College in southern India. Three students were also injured and several windows were shattered in some kind of explosion. Online videos and stills show a small crater left by the impact. If true, this would be the first time in recorded history a person was struck and killed by a meteorite.


Meteorite or …?

Call me skeptical. Since the purported meteorite weighed about 50 grams — just under two ounces — it would be far too small to cause an explosion or significant impact crater five feet deep and two feet wide as depicted in both video and still photos. There were also no reports of rumbles, sonic booms or sightings of a fireball streaking across the sky, sights and sounds associated with material substantial enough to penetrate the atmosphere and plunge to the ground. Shattered windows would indicate an explosion similar to the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013. The blast wave spawned when the Russian meteorite fractured into thousands of pieces miles overhead pulverized thousands of windows with flying glass caused numerous injuries.

According to a story that ran in The News Minute, a team led by the Indian Space Research Organization (IRSO) recovered an object 2 cm (3/4 inch) in width that weighed 50 grams and looked like a meteorite with “air bubbles on its rigid surface”. There’s also been chatter about meteor showers dropping meteorites to Earth, with various stories reporting that there no active meteor showers at the time of the driver’s death. For the record, not a single meteorite ever found has been linked to a shower. Dust and tiny bits of comets produce most shower meteors, which vaporize to fine soot in the atmosphere.

Now even NASA says that based on images posted online, the explosion is “land based” rather than a rock from space.

There have been close calls in the past most notably in Sylacauga, Alabama  On November 30, 1954 at 2:46 p.m. an 8.5 lb rock crashed through the roof of a home not far from that town, hit a radio console, bounced off the floor and struck the hand and hip of 31-year-old Ann Hodges who was asleep on the couch at the time. She awoke in surprise and pain thinking that a space heater had blown up. But when she noticed the hole in the roof and a rock on the floor, Hodges figured the neighborhood kids had been up to no good.

Dr. Moody James shows where Ann Hodges was struck in the hip by an 8.5 lb meteorite that crashed through her roof (right). The photos appeared in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of Life magazine. Photo by Jay Leviton, Time & Life Pictures, Getty Images
Dr. Moody James shows where Ann Hodges was struck in the hip by an 8.5 lb meteorite that crashed through her roof (right). The photos appeared in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of Life magazine. Photo by Jay Leviton, Time & Life Pictures, Getty Images

Fortunately her injuries weren’t serious. Ann became a sudden celebrity; her photo even appeared on the cover of Life magazine with a story titled “A Big Bruiser From The Sky”. In 1956 she donated the meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa, where you can still see it to this day. A second meteorite from the fall weighing 3.7 lbs. was picked up the following day by Julius K. McKinney in the middle of a dirt road. McKinney sold his fragment to the Smithsonian and used the money to purchase a small farm and used car.

Claims of people getting hit by meteorites have been on the increase in the past few years with the growth of the social media. Some stories have been deliberately made up and none have been verified. This would appear to be another tall tale if only based upon the improbabilities. In the meantime I’ve dug around and discovered another story that’s more probable and may indeed be the truth, though I have no way as of yet to independently verify it.

Police at the college say that two of the school’s gardeners were burning materials from the garden when the fire inadvertently set off sticks of dynamite that had been abandoned “amid the rocks” when the college was first built. The driver, by the name of Kamaraj and another driver, Sultan, were drinking water nearby when they were hit by the shrapnel and flying glass. Kamaraj began bleeding and was rushed to a hospital but died on the way. More HERE.

In the meantime, we only hope officials get to the bottom of the tragic death.

Posted on by Bob King

Peculiar ‘Cauliflower Rocks’ May Hold Clues To Ancient Mars Life

"Cauliflower" shaped silica-rich rocks photographed by the Spirit Rover near the Home Plate rock formation in Gusev Crater in 2008. Could microbes have built their nodular shapes? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
"Cauliflower" shaped silica-rich rocks photographed by the Spirit Rover near the Home Plate rock formation in Gusev Crater in 2008. Could microbes have built their nodular shapes? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Cauliflower” shaped silica-rich rocks photographed by the Spirit Rover near the Home Plate rock formation in Gusev Crater in 2008. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Evidence of water and a warmer, wetter climate abound on Mars, but did life ever put its stamp on the Red Planet? Rocks may hold the secret. Knobby protuberances of rock discovered by the Spirit Rover in 2008 near the rock outcrop Home Plate in Gusev Crater caught the attention of scientists back on Earth. They look like cauliflower or coral, but were these strange Martian rocks sculpted by microbes, wind or some other process?

Close-up of the lobed silica rocks on Mars photographed by the Spirit Rover on Sol 1157. Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech
Close-up of the lobed silica rocks on Mars photographed by the Spirit Rover’s microscopic imager on Sol 1157. It’s not known where wind (or other non-biological process) or micro-life had a hand in creating these shapes. Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech

When analyzed by Spirit’s mini-TES (Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer), they proved to be made of nearly pure silica (SiO2), a mineral that forms in hot, volcanic environments. Rainwater and snow seep into cracks in the ground and come in contact with rocks heated by magma from below. Heated to hundreds of degrees, the water becomes buoyant and rises back toward the surface, dissolving silica and other minerals along the way before depositing them around a vent or fumarole. Here on Earth, silica precipitated from water leaves a pale border around many Yellowstone National Park’s hot springs.

The Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park. Could it be an analog to similar springs, hydrothermal vents and geysers that may once have existed in Gusev Crater on Mars? Credit: Jim Peaco, National Park Service
The Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park. Could it be an analog to similar springs, hydrothermal vents and geysers that may once have existed in Gusev Crater on Mars? Credit: Jim Peaco, National Park Service

Both at Yellowstone, the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand and in Iceland, heat-loving bacteria are intimately involved in creating curious bulbous and branching shapes in silica formations that strongly resemble the Martian cauliflower rocks. New research presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting last month by planetary geologist Steven Ruff and geology professor Jack Farmer, both of Arizona State University, explores the possibility that microbes might have been involved in fashioning the Martian rocks, too.


A sizzling visit to El Tatio’s geysers

The researchers ventured to the remote geyser fields of El Tatio in the Chilean Atacama Desert to study an environment that may have mimicked Gusev Crater billions of years ago when it bubbled with hydrothermal activity. One of the driest places on Earth, the Atacama’s average elevation is 13,000 feet (4 km), exposing it to considerably more UV light from the sun and extreme temperatures ranging from -13°F to 113°F (-10° to 45°C). Outside of parts of Antarctica, it’s about as close to Mars as you’ll find on Earth.

Ruff and Farmer studied silica deposits around hot springs and geysers in El Tatio and discovered forms they call “micro-digitate silica structures” similar in appearance and composition to those on Mars (Here’s a photo). The infrared spectra of the two were also a good match. They’re still analyzing the samples to determine if heat-loving microbes may have played a role in their formation, but hypothesize that the features are “micro-stromatolites” much like those found at Yellowstone and Taupo.

A stromatolite from Wyoming made of many layers of bacteria-cemented mineral grains. Credit: Bob King
A stromatolite from Wyoming made of many layers of bacteria-cemented mineral grains. Credit: Bob King

Stromatolites form when a sticky film of bacteria traps and cements mineral grains to create a thin layer. Other layers form atop that one until a laminar mound or column results. The most ancient stromatolites on Earth may be about 3.5 billion years old. If Ruff finds evidence of biology in the El Tatio formations in the punishing Atacama Desert environment, it puts us one step closer to considering the possibility that ancient bacteria may have been at work on Mars.

Scientists have found evidence that Home Plate at Gusev crater on Mars is composed of debris deposited from a hydrovolcanic explosion. The finding suggests that water may have been involved in driving an eruption that formed the deposits found on Home Plate. Spirit found the silica-rich rocks at lower right near
Scientists have found evidence that Home Plate at Gusev crater on Mars is composed of debris deposited from a hydrovolcanic explosion. The finding suggests that water may have been involved in driving an eruption that formed the deposits found on Home Plate. Spirit found the silica-rich rocks at lower right near Tyrone in 2008. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Silica forms may originate with biology or from non-biological processes like wind, water and other environmental factors. Short of going there and collecting samples, there’s no way to be certain if the cauliflower rocks are imprinted with the signature of past Martian life. But at least we know of a promising place to look during a future sample return mission to the Red Planet. Indeed, according to Ruff, the Columbia Hills inside Gusev Crater he short list of potential sites for the 2020 Mars rover.

More resources: