If I’m getting excited about tomorrow’s total solar eclipse sitting here in Dublin then the anticipation building in the Far East must be incredible! We will not see any part of the eclipse from Ireland but a large number of Irish eclipse chasers are in Shanghai and on the high seas off the coast of Iwo Jima as I write. Michael O’Connell texted me a short while ago to say it has been 40-degrees Celsius and sunny in Shanghai today. They are 8 hours ahead of UT time (7 hours ahead of our Summer Time) and will be on the road at 5am in the morning to get a bus to the observation site. Fingers and toes crossed they will get perfect weather!
There are various webcasts carrying the event and links to these can be found at the end of the following web page http://www.eclipse-chasers.com/tse2009.html — it will mean you need to start watching from 2:30am tomorrow morning (thanks Paul for correcting my UT time confusion!)
I also came across a page linked to a web cam mounted on board the Costa Classica ship which I know Aubrey and Valerie are on board. The web cam will not show the eclipsed sun but will allow you see the fall in light as totality sweeps across the ship. Go to http://www.costacruise.com/B2C/USA/WebCam/webcam.htm and click on the ship icon lower right of the map on this page for the Costa Classica ship web cam.
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It now looks like Anthony Wesley in Australia HAS scooped a major find in spotting the dark patches left by a possible comet or asteroid impact in Jupiter’s dense atmosphere. The impacts would have created a huge plume of debris rising high about Jupiter’s cloud belts. High winds in the planet’s atmosphere will cause the spots to smear out over the next few days before dissipating.
Anthony regularly posts to the Irish amateur astronomer forum at www.irishastronomy.org and discussed the discovery with other experienced observers who supplied confirmation images. Anthony goes by the nickname “Bird” on the IFAS site so it was inevitable someone would dub the asteroid impact the “Bird Strike” on Jupiter J
More details at www.spaceweather.com where you will find follow up images by professional astronomers using the infra-red telescope in Hawaii. If the sky clears here, drag out your scope and have a look at this rare event. Predictions of transit times for the impact location can be derived by adding 2 hours and 8 minutes to the transit times of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot published at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/skytel/beyondthepage/41085997.html
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Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has photographed the Apollo landing sites ( http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html ). The probe was launched in June 2009 and is currently circling the Moon in a polar orbit at an altitude of approximately 50 kilometres. It will spend one year investigating the lunar topology and also search for possible ice deposits in craters permanently in shadow at the Moon’s poles.
The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) launched in tandem with LRO. The satellite will observe the impact of the mission’s spent Centaur motor upper stage which will be deliberately targeted at a crater at the Moon’s South Pole. LCROSS will fly through the debris plume and analyse its composition for water ice, before the probe itself ends its mission by crashing to the lunar surface. The current planned date for the impact is October 9th this year but that may change if mission scientists discover a better impact site from LRO imagery.
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