A radar image shows TU24, an 250 meters across asteroid

A radar image shows TU24, an 250 meters across asteroid, found 3 months ago, as it flew by Earth on January 29. It passed beyond the moon but if it would havehit us would have produced a magnitude 7 earthquake or a sizable tidal wave. These NEOs (Near Earth Object) asteroids are difficult to detect as they travel fast and they are small. Scientist now think they are potentially dangerous and are on the look out.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
1/30/2008 (if not this date use archives)
1/30/2008
(E.O.A.S.blog) 1 -Students will gain a better understanding of how scientific instruments, devices, probes, spacecraft can assist with a better understanding of our universe.

Robotic eyes on Mars and in Martian skies look for signs of water

Robotic eyes on Mars (the two Mars rovers) and in Martian skies (current spaceprobes around Mars taking high resolution photos are trying to unlocking further secrets about Mars past and whether is has or still has signs of water. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express has returned superb views of the Terby crater on Mars. This area is of great scientific interest for finding out whether water was in the pst or is now on the planet.

More at:
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMSEWEMKBF_index_0.html

technology mars (E.O.A.S.blog)1 http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
1/25/08 Students will gain a better understanding of how scientific instruments, devices, probes, spacecraft can assist with a better understanding of our universe.

Shelf Cloud Over Saskatchewan APOD

Shelf Cloud Over Saskatchewan, Canada APOD 1/22/2008*
Beautiful photo of Shelf Cloud Over Saskatchewan by Jeff Kerr shows a beautifully orange lit shelf cloud on August, 2001.
Nice explanation of the weather activity and how this formation differs from wall clouds.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

(*if not 1/22/2008 look in archives for the date)
Also thunderstorm development over Kansas time lapse on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZXW2IIziMM&NR=1
more
a nice photo of a lenticular cloud over Hawaii
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050821.html
http://sa1.star.uclan.ac.uk/~prn/lenticular/clouds.html
also nice webpage about different type of clouds
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/home.rxml

Hurrican Ivan from the Space Station

Spectacular pictures of the hurricane taken from the ISS (International Space Station). Shows the swirling vortex type clouds around the center of the hurricane called the "eye".

If not 1/13/2008, use the archives.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

(E.O.A.S.blog1) http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
1/13/2008
Students will learn more about meteorlogical phenomenon and events by observing from above the Earth (International Space Station / Space Shuttle / Spacecraft

Asteroid flying by Earth 1/10/08, another may hit Mars 1/30/08

Asteroid 2005 WJ56 will fly past Earth on January 10, only 2.6 million miles
away. This kilometer-wide space rock will be close enough for experienced amateur astronomers to photograph as it flies by. It the constellation Taurus looking like an 11th magnitude star.

The asteroid 2005 WJ56 ephermis / coordinates are here

Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase V
2008 01 05 07 27.69 +62 27.3 0.0465 1.019 140.0 38.3 12.9
2008 01 10 05 10.08 +21 52.3 0.0281 1.008 149.4 29.8 11.6
2008 01 15 03 54.39 -28 53.9 0.0418 0.995 105.3 72.4 13.6

Also

Astronomers say asteroid 2007 WD5. , 160 feet (50 meters) across, has
a chance of striking Mars on January 30. The power and energy would be similar to the
1908 Tunguska blast in Siberia, where a mysterious object now thought to be a
stony asteroid or old comet core exploded about 7 miles above the landscape and destroyed trees over the 810
square miles (2,100 square km) landscape. A chance is , 1 in 350 or better of a hit .
While it might strike near the equator, the Mars Rovers are not in danger as they are outside of the impact area.
If it punches Mars, the hole would be the size of the Meteor Crater in Arizona.

When my wife and I visited the crater a few years ago, I took a video and photographed aseries of pictures of the inside of the crater. I created a Quicktime VR panorma movie with it
Click on my website page Meteor crater and Mt. St. Helens panorama

http://members.aol.com/kcstormguy/stormsatori/panoramas.htm

Then click on the the Meteor Crater two-pane pictures and you will then see a little circle. Click and drag your mouse clockwise and you will see the whole inside of the crater.
I also did one for time when I helicoptered into the crater of Mt. St. Helens in 1988 and made a panorama. That way you can see the insides of two different craters, one volcanic and one a meteor crater and compare the two.

Astronmers have never seen an asteroid hit Mars but we did have a spectacular view of parts of a comet hit Jupiter in 1994. If a hit is immenent, this should be interesting to watch as when I watched the Comet Shoemaker- Levy
plough into Jupiter in 1994 when I was working on an astronomy project at Harvard U. Here is a a Hubble picture of one piece of the comet hitting Jupiter and the fireball seen (infra-red taken with a NASA KECK space telescope- bottom left on Jupiter photo).

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/top20.html

Tiny frogs and turtles have dropped from the sky but now igaunas were dropping.

Tiny frogs and turtles have dropped from the sky ( in recent weather events) but now igaunas were dropping. No these lizards had not had too much beer or too much to eat. Iquanas like turtles are cold blooded and like to warm themselves in the Sun to keep their temperature up. Then there was a cold snap in Miami and literally these creatures started dropping to the ground when the temperature became to lower. They seemed dead but once put in the Sun and warmed up, they were "alive" again.

http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/365463.html

1/7/2008 (E.O.A.S.blog1) http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
Students will learn about cold and warm blooded organisms, their differences and how they live.

Black Smokers, Giant Tube worms and Hydrothermal vents Oh My!

In 1977 I learned about a special community of organisms within a very strange ecosystem. Found in the waters near the Galapagos Islands, There was no light, the water had a scalding temperatures profile due to nearby hydrothermal sea vents/ volcanic vents. And there were strange creatures that have never been seen before in this once thought inhospitable environment.

http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/quests/hydroventwq.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_smoker

http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/expeditions/blacksmokers/

http://www.extremescience.com/deepcreat5.htm

Then scientists took an even closer look. These Black Smokers (seen in this picture from a Wikipedia ) are created when superheated water breaks through the Earth's crust and works its way into the water. The superheated water is full of minerals including sulfides which produce these mountainous hills. But that is not all.

There were giant creatures called Tube Worms much larger (up to 8ft long ) then ever seen. What is even stranger is that these huge worms don't have a mouth or a stomach. When small, the bacteria enters their mouth. Over time the mouth and gut disappear. The bacteria then live inside the worms. The red part of the worms are red because of hemoglobin passing through. The whitish part below is like an armor that protects the worm. It can go inside the white armor like substance when in danger.

The bacteria convert the chemicals in the hot water and the worms use it to live and grow. This process is called "chemosynthesis" and is also a symbiotic relationship which means the worms and bacteria help each other for their common good. It works like this:

(1) The insides of the worms are lined with bacteria that oxidize (break down) the H₂S (hydrogen sulfide) turning it into usable nutrients for the worms;

(2) The bacteria are helped in this relationship because the worms deliver blood containing hemoglobin ( the chemical that gives our blood the red color).

(3) This helps the bacteria to break down the sulfides which are they absorbed and used by the worms. (Another symbiotic relationship is ants and aphids . The ants care for the aphids and the aphids give off a liquid which the ants collect and eat).

Other creatures like shrimps and crabs live in this dark, deep pressure environment with hot water.

What I did not understand is if the water is scalding and so hot, how could the worms and other creatures survive?
I discovered that deep pressure allows the water to become superhot beyond boiling of water while under the ground. When the water escapes, the less pressurization and extreme cold of the water makes the environment close by more hospitable for the creatures. The farther away from the vent, the cooler the water.

But scientist also began to understand how certain creatures like these tube worms, shrimp, crabs and others actually thrived in the high pressure, the high temperatures. These extremophiles may give us clues how life began on Earth, how might life evolve and still be on Mars, under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa or other places.

This is only one facet of where extremophiles live. They are in the colored chemical pools in Yellowstone National Park (I will post pictures soon) , in the Antarctic and other places on Earth. Stay tuned.

1/7/08
(E.O.A.S.blog1) http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
Students will learn about lifeforms that thrive in inhospitable environments and have a different ecosystems compared to the ones we normally know and underststand.

I saw the beautiful planet Saturn and its ring system a few nights ago

from http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/rings/#faq

I saw the beautiful planet Saturn and its ring system a few nights ago at Powell Obervatory in Louisbourg, KS (south of Kansas City) through the 30 inch telescope. Galileo discovered it with his small telescope hundreds of years ago and each time I see it is still wonderful.
While I watched, I knew Saturn isn't the only planet with rings. But these other celestial rings are more difficult to see.
Here is a picture of Jupiter's ring first discovered in 1979
There is also now new evidence that these rings are created by meteoroids crashing into the small Jupiter's nearby moons.(if not 1/6/2007 go to archives). http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
"The same year, most of the important observations of Jupiter's rings were provided by Voyager 2 after it went into the shadow of the giant planet and looked back toward the sun and saw a system of three rings. In this image from NASA, the spacecraft captured a faint outer ring, apparently made up of fine, microscopic particles. This was named the gossamer ring.

Do you know which other planets have rings? More later

1/6/2008
(E.O.A.S.blog 1) http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
Students will discover information about other planets and compare/ contrast the conditions/ characteristics to that of Earth

Top 10 Strangest Natural disasters- have you heard of these?

Amy
Thanks very much for sending me the information so that I could view Top 10 strangest natural disasters in human history.
I thought I would share it with others on this blog
http://www.hurricaneinsurance.com/blog/2008/top-10-strangest-natural-disasters-in-human-history/

I remember the incident with #1 in the newspaper.

I have known about the #2 Tunguska for years.
It seems that most likely yes a low density asteroid or comet. An artist drew what he thought happened via the accounts.
Find it at
http://www.psi.edu/projects/siberia/siberia.html

I had heard about #3. The Volcano has much press and there were even nice shows about what they think happened (History channel?). Did not hear about #5 but know about #6.
About #7 I have heard about the eruption in 1902 and was there in 1998 before we saw the total eclipse in that Caribbean that year.
The volcano was omnipresent up from the bay and we could go through some of the ruins still near the harbor.

As a stormchaser, I have known about that great Tri-state tornado. Never heard of #9 but I think I had heard about #10.
thanks Happy new Year to all!!

***
Hi Eric,

We just posted an article " Top 10 Strangest Natural Disasters in Human History " ( http://www.hurricaneinsurance.com/blog/2008/top-10-strangest-natural-disasters-in-human-history/). I thought I'd bring it to your attention just in case you think your readers would find it interesting.

Either way, thanks for your time! Happy New Year!

Amy S Quin

Best space discoveries of 2007 and more EOAS news

Here is a listing of best discoveries of 2007 from space.com. Check out this space links and others

best Space discoveries of 2007
http://www.space.com/bestimg/index.php?cat=astronomy2007

First stars were much darker
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071203-dark-stars.html

Mars clouds have less water
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071206-mars-air.html

nice list of meteor showers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_shower

more about the Aurigid meteor shower of Sept. 1
http://www.mahalo.com/Aurigid_Meteor_Shower

I watched the Quadrantid meteor shower on the ground in Olathe, KS (1/4/08) while astronomers saw it from the air.

I watched the Quadrantid meteor shower on the ground in Olathe, KS (1/4/08) while astronomers saw the meteor shower in the air. I saw several nice Quadrantid fireballs and a possible stationary one during the morning hours 5:30-6:30 as there were clouds before.

Meanwhile 2008 Quadrantid meteor shower peaked around 0200 UTC on Friday, Jan. 4th. That is the initial report from astronomers who flew a research airplane north of the Arctic Circle for an uninterrupted view of the shower. The team, led by Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute, witnessed many bright Quadrantids among an "amazing display" of aurora borealis; this is a typical view through the starboard window:

http://quadrantid.seti.org/
http://www.spaceweather.com/meteors/quadrantids/quadrantids.html
comet was seen in 1490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrantids

very nice list ing of meteor showers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_showers

Deep Impact probe 3 flybys

The Deep Impact probe made the first of three flybys designed to use the planet's gravity to hurtle the spacecraft toward comet Hartley 2 for a 2010 meeting.

NASA initially wanted Deep Impact's second act to be an exploration of comet 85P/Boethin in 2008. But to scientists' surprise, a bevy of ground and space telescopes were unable to spot it this fall. Astronomers believe the comet may have shattered into specks too small to be seen from Earth.

more

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iXcT-G5FBXVaLqjIqwz4kQQrPDfQD8TSQDTO0

1/1/2008
(E.O.A.S.blog1) http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
(1) Students will learn how spacecraft use gravity assist to fly to other celestial objects and the reason for doing that
(2) Students will learn about the Deep Impact program and the recent hit with comet Tempel