Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway

“STRANGE LIGHTS OVER NORWAY: This morning in arctic Norway, onlookers were stunned when a gigantic luminous spiral formed in the northern sky. ‘We are used to seeing lots of auroras here in Norway, but this was different,’ says Nick Banbury of Harstad who witnessed the phenomenon’… ‘between 7:50 and 8:00 a.m. local time.’ Onlooker Jan Petter Jorgensen took this photo:

“Banbury continues: ‘It consisted initially of a green beam of light similar in color to the aurora with a mysterious rotating spiral at one end. This spiral then got bigger and bigger until it turned into a huge halo in the sky with the green beam extending down to Earth…’

“UPDATE: Circumstantial evidence is mounting that the phenomenon was caused by a malfunctioning rocket, possibly an ICBM launched from a Russian submarine. A Navtex no-fly alert was issued for the White Sea on Dec. 9th, and photographers appear to have recorded the initial boost phase of a launch below the spiral (see inset). A rocket motor spinning out of control could indeed explain the spiral pattern, so this explanation seems plausible, although it has not yet been confirmed.

“More reports and videos: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.”

Times Online - Science Central - WBLG: Is there a Life On Mars Conspiracy?

Michael Brooks, consultant for New Scientist and the author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, sends us a new perspective on the riddle of the empty planet next door

Some pesky scientists have just pointed out an appalling design error in NASA’s latest attempts to find life on Mars. This is beginning to look like a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to find life on Mars?

The best argument for why no one has even found carbon brought in on asteroids and comets is that chemicals called perchlorates, also thought to be in the Martian soil, have destroyed it all. When perchlorates get hot, they burn up carbon-based molecules. That’s why NASA uses them in rocket fuel. The problem is, as NASA's Douglas Ming (the Merciless) has pointed out in a recent paper, the experiments to search for carbon involve heating soil samples to a few hundred degrees and sniffing the vapours. If the soil contains carbon molecules and perchlorates, the carbon molecules will simply burn up. No wonder they couldn’t find any.

Huge Impact Crater Uncovered in Canadian Forest

A new radar-like survey that "strips" away vegetation found an impact crater.

Only about 175 impact craters are known worldwide, and when a space rock does slam into Earth with enough force to create a crater, the rock almost always evaporates on impact.

"Here we have a crater and we also have meteorites associated with it," Herd said. "There are only a dozen impact craters in the world that have that association."

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StarDate Online | 2007 Meteor Showers and Viewing Tips

StarDate Online | 2007 Meteor Showers and Viewing Tips

From StarDate Online:

The next meteor shower is the Leonids on November 18. The shower peaks on the night of November 17/18, with the best viewing from late evening on the 17th through the early morning hours of the 18th.

Named for the constellation Leo, the lion, which is notable for “the Sickle,” a pattern of stars that outlines his head and mane and looks like a backward question mark. The bottom of the Sickle is Regulus, the lion’s brightest star. The Moon sets by around midnight, which is about the time that Leo climbs into the sky, so there will be dark skies for the prime viewing hours.

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/139967-Peru%3A+Meteorite+falls+and+makes+a+crater+in+the+ground

http://www.reuters.com/news/video/videoStory?videoId=66641

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SPACE.com -- Catastrophe Calculator: Estimate Asteroid Impact Effects Online

SPACE.com -- Catastrophe Calculator: Estimate Asteroid Impact Effects Online

...now anyone with a passing interest in the fate of the planet can remove some of the mystery regarding the effects of the next collision. A new University of Arizona web page allows visitors to plug in a hypothetical space rock's size, the visitor's distance from the impact site, and other parameters to generate an outline of devastation.

2000-Year-Old Meteors

2000-Year-Old Meteors to Rain Down on August 31, 2007 - Yahoo! News

The meteors that are about to rain down in the early morning of September 1
date from around 4 A.D., the latest calculations show.

If you spot one of those meteors, you may be only the fourth person alive who is known to have seen this meteor shower. In recent times, the shower was spotted in 1994 by two observers and in 1986 by one observer.

If you are lucky enough to catch a picture of an Aurigid meteor using your digital camera, you will be the very first to do so.

Tips on how to observe meteors and where to report the results can be found at: http://aurigid.seti.org/