Space Weather News for Oct. 1, 2010
http://spaceweather.com
APPROACHING COMET: Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th. At that time, the comet will be only 11 million miles (0.12 AU) from our planet and should be dimly visible to the naked eye from dark sky sites. It already looks great through backyard telescopes, as shown by images featured on today's edition of http://spaceweather.com. NASA's Deep Impact/EPOXI spacecraft is en route to this comet for close-up studies and a daring flyby on Nov. 4th.
UPSIDE-DOWN LIGHTNING OVER THE KENNEDY SPACE CENTER: An amateur photographer has photographed rare lightning-like discharges called "gigantic jets" shooting up from storm clouds near NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Visit http://spaceweather.com for a movie and more information about the phenomenon.
Terri, Events Coordinator
Email: Events@PASAz.org
Phoenix Astronomical Society
