Scientists are anticipating a large meteor outburst this month. On October 8, 2011 Earth will pass through the dust trail of the Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner which is the cause of the outburst. Meteor Watchers in the Middle East, parts of Europe and northern Africa will be best positioned for this potentially big show!
If our sun had a large binary companion, what would it’s remains look like? Quite possibly the Necklace Nebula. This planetary nebula, which contains the remnants of a sun-like star, was recently discovered in 2005 during the Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric H-alpha Survey (IPHAS).
The planets located in our own solar system are by far the most well-known planets for the majority of people. Yet, as you might guess, there are many planets located outside of our own solar system. These planets are known as extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. While you might think there are thousands of known exoplanets, scientists have only identified around 650 of them to date. Here are 5 of the more notable planets located outside our own solar system.
The National Weather Service – Space Weather Prediction Center reported today that an R3 solar flare was in progress as of 6:37 PM EST. This solar flare comes after a similar flare was spawned from the same region of the sun less than 24 hours earlier. The SWPC is still collecting data from this latest outburst and does not yet know if this event will add to the G1 (minor) storm that is already headed for Earth with an anticipated impact on September 9-10, 2011.
Not only is this a trick question, it’s a tricky question to answer. When you think about the colors of the 9 planets in the Solar System, you are actually thinking about the old definition of the Solar System. There are now only 8 planets – 5 years ago (on August 24, 2006) Pluto was demoted to the classification of a dwarf planet. It’s a tricky question because each planet has more than one color so it’s not easy to describe each planet with only one color.