... even though it's controversial whether one can talk about an actual 2nd outburst: The light curve of Holmes' nucleus shows a spike after Jan. 25, and A. Peirera reported on the same day about "a small non-stellar central condensation" seen with several instruments. To him "for many weeks the coma has looked very uniform, with a flat brightness profile in the 5x22 monocular, so tonight it was quite a dramatic change". Exactly 4 months after the (main) outburst began, Holmes could still be seen with the naked eye under really good conditions; otherwise the comet has even become a tough object for good binoculars.
In other news even at 11 arc seconds experienced observers can still get a lot out of Mars while others recorded a radio storm from Jupiter. How the Peruvian impact crater formed last September is still mysterious - and the military part of the U.S. Navy vs. USA 193 operation is now "largely" over: Special teams that would have dealt with debris on the ground have been stood down, and the ships involved in the operation off Hawaii have returned to their normal business.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment