There's been quite a bit of northern lights in the past few days, even as far south as Germany.  This image from one of our meteor cameras is from Telemark in southern Norway.  1/25 sec exposure.

In this case the event was recorded by meteor cameras which would have recorded this regardless of the prediction, but since it was predicted, people were prepared and could immediately look at the data and quickly estimate the search area based on the camera recordings. However, if an impact is ...

And one 100g fragment recovered: https://www.vigie-ciel.org/2023/02/15/une-meteorite-normande-issue-de-2023-cx1-retrouvee/

More information about this meteor here: https://www.strewnify.com/y20230213_02z_31u/

Looks like this dropped meteorites on the ground.  The 14 km/s entry speed and 21 km terminal altitude make it very promising.

Actual entry time appears to have been 02:59:14 UT, so 49 seconds off.  I haven't seen how the predicted entry point matches video footage, but it seems to match fairly well, within a few 10's of km.

Then you could have detected the August 2011 earthquake we had here, it is the only one I have ever felt in NYC! The zoo animals were behaving very oddly 30 min before the earthquake at the National Zoo in DC, it was noted by many people there before the event occurred. Interesting how they can ...

This is ironic! We just had an earthquake this morning (only 3.8) in the opposite part of the state-- in Buffalo!
Can such a weaker distant earthquake also be detected using this method, Mid?


A 3.8 is way too weak for a camera observation like this. But this instrument itself can detect such ...

Mid, are they even sure about that period? I read that they aren't even sure if it will ever return. Maybe it has a parabolic path or even hyperbolic?

Exactly. That figure must be taken with a grain of salt. And the main reason why this comet became such a celebrity seems to be that somewhat ...

It's a faint comet (I don't really understand the hype, which seems to be centered around that it has an orbit of 50,000 years (quite roughly?), but I digress). But I was able to find it in video from a meteor camera, despite exposure times of 1/25 second. It was supposed to be magnitude 4.5, but ...

I made this video which might be instructive for understanding how we can detect distant earthquakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMCyxXfAgaM

This is a recording of my seismometer during the effects of a 7.5 afterquake in Turkey 3200 km away whilst the surface waves were rolling in.

Imagine ...

Yes, and to be able to do with with some semblance of safety we would have to create some version of the alcubierre drive and keep it active until we're in a "safe" zone where local space is free of these objects.
I have always thought that the solution to the Fermi paradox is technological ...

I think an estimate of objects in the Oort cloud and their sizes must be very approximate, but that one in ten billion chance for hitting something sounds reasonable. A real figure within a few orders of magnitude can still be rounded to zero for practical purposes.

The asteroid belt is similarly ...

Unless the Oort cloud can actually obscure some stars.....

The Oort cloud is very, very empty. The planets of the inner solar systems are more packed than objects of any size to speak of in the Oort cloud. You can zip through it with a spacecraft at any angle and the probability that you hit ...

I have a question, hypothetically speaking if a M9 Red Dwarf Star was in the oort cloud, would it be visible from Earth? What is the upper mass / spectral category a star can have in the oort cloud, without it being visible from the Earth? Just asking for a worldbuilding project.

I threw your ...

Are those little desiccant packets of any usefulness? Or do they need to be replaced every few weeks? Thanks!


They're useful, to a certain degree. They absorb moisture, but will of course get saturated to the point that they no longer absorb until they're allowed to dry. So the long term ...