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Pallas, which is third largest object in the asteroid belt and named after the Greek goddess of wisdom, can be seen in detailed images published Monday in a study in Nature Astronomy. Researchers believe that the asteroid's pockmarked surface is a result of its unique orbit. Pallas has a tilted orbit, so it is basically smashing through the asteroid belt at an angle, unlike most other similar objects. The astronomers obtained 11 series of images, observing Pallas from different angles as it rotated. After pulling the images together, the researchers generated a three-dimensional reconstruction of the shape of the asteroid,...

Two views of the asteroid Pallas, which researchers have determined to be the most heavily cratered object in the asteroid belt. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology ______________________________________________________________________ Asteroids come in all shapes and sizes, and now astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have observed an asteroid so heavily cratered that they are dubbing it the "golf ball asteroid." The asteroid is named Pallas, after the Greek goddess of wisdom, and was originally discovered in 1802. Pallas is the third largest object in the asteroid belt, and is about one-seventh the size of the moon. For centuries, astronomers have noticed that the...

COLORADO SUPERBOLIDE: Last night, Dec. 6th at 1:06 a.m. MST, a meteor of stunning brightness lit up the skies of Colorado. Astronomer Chris Peterson photographed the event using a dedicated all-sky meteor camera in the town of Guffey, near Colorado Springs: Video:http://spaceweather.com/swpod2008/06dec08/Chris-Peterson1_strip.gif?PHPSESSID=s7mlc3ga8e6isub9bapbfqjkp2 "In seven years of operation, this is the brightest fireball I've ever recorded," says Peterson. "I estimate the terminal explosion at magnitude -18, more than 100 times brighter than a full Moon." Fireballs this bright belong to a rare category of meteors called superbolides. They are caused by small asteroids measuring a few to 10 meters in...

I was watching a movie several minutes ago (in West Palm Beach, FL) and saw out my window (facing east)a large shining object quickly plunge from the sky. It freaked me out a bit. Did anyone out there see it? I saw one similar back around 1990-1992 and years later saw it on Discovery as it was captured on video.

    + NASA Home + Search NASA Web + Pagina en Español + Contact NASA     Asteroid Shower 12.03.2007     + Play Audio | + Download Audio | + Email to a friend | + Join mailing list Dec. 03, 2007: Mark your calendar: The best meteor shower of 2007 peaks on Friday, December 14th. "It's the Geminid meteor shower," says NASA astronomer Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center. "Start watching on Thursday evening, Dec. 13th, around 10 pm local time," he advises. "At first you might not see very many meteors—but be patient....

The Geminid meteor shower—considered by many to be the most active annual sky show—is going to be especially spectacular this year, astronomers predict. The show gets its name from the constellation Gemini, because the meteors appear to stream from near the constellation's bright star Castor. Unlike last year, the Geminids will be falling against a dark, moonless night. The last time the sky was this dark during the shower was in 1996, when observers saw up to 110 meteors an hour. Experts say the rate will be at least that high this year, with peak viewing on December 13 and...

The Geminid meteor shower, which peaks each year in December... are *not* caused by debris left behind from an active comet... Until recently, the favored view of Phaethon was that it's a dead comet -- the rocky core of a "dirty snowball" that lost its ices after too many close encounters with the sun. ... In June 2009 astronomers using the STEREO sun-watching probe suddenly saw the rocky body flare to life as it neared the sun, brightening by a factor of two... So, not so dead after all. But that brings us back to figuring out what exactly Phaethon...

Prospect Park Zoo's new cats purr-fect at playing hide-and-seek BY JESSICA DURANDO DAILY NEWS WRITER Monday, April 28th 2008, 4:00 AM Rosier/NewsProspect Park Zoo’s Pallas cat makes appearance. Just like typical house cats, Alexandra and Nicholas would rather sleep than entertain humans. The 10-year-old Pallas cats have been on exhibit for about a month at Prospect Park Zoo, but they rarely make eye contact with people who stop to look at them. Zookeeper Hulya Israfil, 27, said the wild felines from Central Asia are still getting used to their surroundings. "We're letting them take their time and hopefully they'll...