The Crowded Sky

Well, truth is, I just forgot.  So, here’s some stuff to occupy your time.

The Orionid meteor shower peaked this morning (Thur. October 22).  You missed it.  But you may be able to catch some action Friday morning just before dawn (about 6AM).  Just go outside and look into the sky to the south.  Find the constellation Orion and watch.  If you don’t know what Orion looks like, Google it.  The meteor shower is caused by Earth cruising through the particles left as Comet Halley last passed this way (1986).  Good luck.

Then, on October 31, 2015, Earth will be passed by a massive (1,542 feet in diameter) asteroid with its closest approach being 310,000 miles (the Moon is 240,000 miles away).  This baby is whippin’ through the solar system at a mere 78,000 miles per hour.  So, do you think all of that is scary?  Well hang on to your “depends”, the asteroid was discovered only 11days ago!  Once again, Orion will be the backdrop for the action.  The closest approach will occur at 10:05 AM San Diego time (17:05 UTC) but the rock is not large enough or close enough to see in daylight.  The best chance is the previous night, Oct. 30 (my source article says 11:50 PM CT, so 9:50 PM San Diego time?).  If you want more information, just Google “Halloween Asteroid”.

And if that’s not enough, the world’s astronomers are all agog about a star (KIC 8462852… sexy name, huh?) they found out there somewhere that is behaving rather oddly.  While none of the eggheads will allow themselves to say it, the phenomenon could indicate the presence of an alien population capable of building a structure somewhat like the Halo from the computer game… or it could just be an asteroid field.  But they’re not sure because they’ve never seen anything like it.  So, anyway, they’re searching for radio signals that may indicate the presence of any intelligent population.  They should be done with the data collection this week and once the numbers have been crunched, they will start the peer review process meanwhile keeping mum about what they think it all means.  We will probably hear from them some time next year.  Plenty of time to draw up your last will and testament... of build a laser blaster.

That’s it for this week, sleep tight!