Opportunity to see a rare "midnight sun" eclipse

The NASA page: "A Rare Eclipse of the Midnight Sun" announces that on the first of June, it will be possible to see a very rare "midnight sun" partial eclipse. This will happen only in the most northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The eclipse will also be visible in the extreme northern places of Canada, Iceland and Alaska, but it will be in the afternoon, rather than at "night". On the other hand, in northern China, this eclipse will be seen at sunrise.

Fortunately for those of us interested in these events who live at more "southern" latitudes, the astronomer from the Norwegian Centre for Science Education in Oslo, Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard will show live pictures of this event in a web page for Cameras in Tromsø and Bodø, Norway. According to the data published, the eclipse will start at 20:27 Universal Time and will end at 22:14. (The conversion table shows that this will be between 4 and 6 pm, EDT).

Sweden - Midnight sun eclipse, July 31, 2000 - photo by Oddleiv Skilbrei

The picture above is a good example of the previous midnight sun eclipse seen in northern Sweden on July 31, 2000. Given that the next time when something similar will happen will be until 2084, I'm really hoping that the weather cooperates and people can take and share good photos of this rare event.

A virtual visit to a planetarium

Curiosity about a link tweeted by @outsideinmovie (Outside In The Movie) took me to the Vimeo page containing a beautiful video produced by Grant Wakefield, based on timelapse footage by Colin Legg of the night sky in Western Australia .

This video reminded me of the good old times when Toronto had a planetarium (which I miss so much). It is a very good virtual substitute if you like to see the stars and the Milky Way, which is virtually impossible to do nowadays in the city. Enjoy!



WALU NGALINDI from GRANT WAKEFIELD on Vimeo.

It will take 12 more years before Jupiter gets this close to Earth on Sep. 20

NASA website recently published the page "Closest Encounter with Jupiter until 2022", which tells us that on the night of September 20 - 21 Jupiter will shine much brighter than usual as it will be 75 million kilometers closer than in past encounters.

So, if you are lucky enough to have a clear sky on the night of September 20, it would be a great opportunity to observe Jupiter, if possible with a telescope so that you can directly observe features like the two red spots "kissing" or notice the stripe that disappeared in May (details in the post: "Jupiter Loses a Stripe and NASA is Mystified") which is still "missing".

Portion of Alan Friedman's complete photo of Jupiter & Io,
taken on Aug. 30, 2010

I would also like to recommend the website that Mr. Friedman has, called avertedimagination.com. He has taken beautiful pictures of the planets and the solar system, using a 10" telescope from his home in Buffalo, N.Y. Some of these photos have been published in NASA pages, which is how I found about him and his site.


Given that tonight has been clear, I hope tomorrow our luck continues so that we can have a chance to see Jupiter even through all the city lights. Clear skies for everyone on this close encounter with Jupiter!

Another Flash Detected on Jupiter - Aug. 20, 2010

In an earlier note on this blog (see "Huge Flash of Light on Jupiter") I mentioned an event in Jupiter that occurred on June 3, where an Australian amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley, detected a flash on the planet, which lasted roughly two and a half seconds (this was corroborated by other observations).

And now, only a month and a half later, a similar event has been reported. This one occurred on August 20, when there was another brief flash of light seen in Jupiter. This time it was a Japanese amateur astronomer, Masayuki Tachikawa, who detected the flash, which lasted only 1.5 seconds. The photo taken by another Japanese amateur astronomer, Aoki Kazuo, from this incident, confirming the initial observation, follows:

Image recorded by Aoki Kazuo of Tokyo, Japan on Aug. 20, 2010

A very short video of the event (lasting only a second and a half, where you can easily see the flash) can be accessed here (this is the same video that appears on the NASA site mentioned below).

You can access a full report about these impacts on Jupiter on the page: "Fireballs Light Up Jupiter", published by NASA. At the end of that page you will find links to other articles related to the same subject, one of which is the report about an earlier and more spectacular impact that occurred on July 19, 2009.

The collision that was detected last year was caused by an object much larger than the two objects that crashed into Jupiter this summer, because unlike them, in 2009 the impact did leave a mark on the planet which was detected at least several days later by other telescopes. NASA has the page: "What Hit Jupiter?" where you can access very detailed information about it. (It is important to note that on that occasion the Australian Anthony Wesley was again the first person who observed the effects of impact, but not the event itself, which went unnoticed in the world).

The best image of the aftermath left by the impact of 2009 was taken by the Hubble telescope. Although the Hubble was working on something else, it was decided that the event was too important not to be observed in depth by it. As expected, the reliable Hubble did not disappoint with its results, as can be seen below.

Hubble Space Telescope image of impact aftermath in Jupiter - July 23, 2009

An interesting point to me is that these three past observations have all been done thanks to the dedication and perseverance of amateur astronomers who follow Jupiter from their own backyards. Had it not been for them, the scientific community would have in all probability missed the opportunity to see them and study them. The good news is that the scientific community is now paying more attention to what is happening in the vicinity of our Earth (so to speak) rather than focusing on the most distant stars and galaxies, as has been the case in recent years. Of course, it's a phenomenal that scientists can study galaxies so far away from our own Milky Way that my mind can not really even begin to imagine those distances, but I think we must not forget our “next door” neighbour, Jupiter, which ultimately is likely to have more relevance to what is happening or may happen here on Earth.

The significance of knowing about the events in Jupiter is that the gathered data can help determine the number of meteoroids that are in our solar system. It is important to know this data so that there is a better idea of the frequency and size of collisions that occur not only in Jupiter but here. For example, before these events were observed, it was estimated that asteroids (of approximately 10 meters long) would crash here on average once every 10 years. Now astronomers need to recalculate these estimates, since it is known that Jupiter has collisions with objects of around the same size a few times each month (the objects that hit Jupiter these last two months were both about 10 meters).

Finally, it is interesting to kow that these impacts confirm the important and protective role that Jupiter has on Earth, as astronomers have previously reported. These collisions are a very clear and visual example of Jupiter's protective role for Earth, since some of the asteroids that might end in a direct course towards us, end up crashing there. To me, it is a fascinating coincidence that classical Greek mythology considered Zeus, i.e., Jupiter, as the king of the gods, because in the long run, we now know Jupiter does protect our world at a cosmic level.

Huge Flash of Light in Jupiter

Another interesting and mysterious event has happened in Jupiter! (On June 3 to be precise). There was a flash of light so bright that it was detected even though it occurred during the Jovian day and even though it was initially seen through an amateur’s telescope, i.e., not from space, or from an observatory.

It has really surprised me that another significant event has occurred in that planet less than a month from the disappearance of one of its stripes. (See my previous post “Jupiter Loses a Stripe and NASA is Mystified”). Another interesting fact is that this event was observed first by Anthony Wesley, an amateur from Broken Hill, Australia (although I’m not so sure that should be the qualifier for someone so dedicated to Jupiter and with so many discoveries as he has). Thanks to him, the scientific community has seen and verified his observation. For me, the most surprising fact is that the scientists cannot explain completely what is behind these events. This should be such an inspiration to current or aspiring astronomers, as there is still so much to discover and learn about our own solar system!

Going back to the fireball or flash, the most likely cause for this phenomenon is supposed to be an impact by a comet or asteroid. The strange thing about it, however, is that it did not leave behind any traces of the debris that would be expected from such an impact. For example, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 0 crashed against Jupiter in July, 1994, it left very visible marks afterwards for all to see. As Dr. Glenn Orton from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said: "We've seen things hit Jupiter before, and the flash of impact has always been followed by some kind of debris.". So the question is: where is the debris from the impact, if indeed it was an impact? For the complete description of this event, just go to the NASA page titled: “Jupiter Impact: Mystery of the Missing Debris”. Since a picture is worth many words, the following images show the actual event:

Composite images prepared by Anthony Wesley

June 3, 2010 - Broken Hill, Australia

Last, but not least, another lesson for Earth is that the predictions previously made re: the rarity of these impacts have to be seriously revised. It was thought that the chance of seeing an impact on Jupiter would be once every century (this was thought as recently as 1994). However, the verified observations made by just one person, Anthony Wesley, in the last 12 months show that this has happened twice already. As the head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program of JPL, Dr. Don Yeomans, said: “It's time to revise our impact models [particularly for small impactors]”.

(The “Impact on Jupiter, June 3 2010” web page is the source to Mr. Wesley’s images, as well as two videos of the event – one of 9 seconds and the other one lasting 24 secs.).

Jupiter Loses a Stripe and NASA is Mystified

The headline from an article published today by NASA is surprising enough: "Big Mystery: Jupiter Loses a Stripe". So after going to the source to verify it, I can say that it appears legitimate. The news item in question talks about the unexplained disappearance of one of Jupiter's two main cloud belts. My first surprise after reading about this event is that this pheomenon is not yet fully understood by NASA. After all these years that Jupiter has been studied and observed by astronomers, I thought they could explain this type of events more easily. As Shakespeare said through Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

But, instead of trying to describe this event in words, it will be much better to show the evidence:

Photos taken by Australian astrophotographer Anthony Wesley

One of the first things that came to my mind when I read this article and saw the photo above was one of the last scenes of the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact" (in particular the one where Jupiter starts to change and the astronauts are desperately trying to escape its orbit before it is too late). Since I saw that movie (and "2001: A Space Odyseey"), any news about Jupiter sounds interesting to me. Especially if there are any visible changes through our great distance apart!

This event also reminded me of another news item I follwed way back in July 1994, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had a collision with Jupiter, which was recorded in a series of spectacular photos taken by the Hubble telescope. That was the first time that an extraterrestrial collision of objects in our solar system was observed and recorded directly. The next picture shows the mark left by that impact on the mighty planet (the mark seen near the top, a bit left of the centre of the image)

Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Imaging Team

And the following image shows the series of impact sites on Jupiter when they occured as seen through an infrared image taken by the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain on July 25, 1994. (NASA has a very good compilation of Images from Comet (SL-9) Collision with Jupiter, the one below is only one of those).

In total, there have been two major "significant" events, observable from Earth, in Jupiter, in the last 16 years. Who knows what else, and how much more is happening in our solar system that we do not know?