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“Bloody ripper of a meteor” lights up Perth skies

<p>A few lucky Western Australians have witnessed the moment a bright green meteor flashed brightly across the state's South West.</p> <p>The meteor was the size of a cricket ball and had a 200-kilometre-long tail, which was first spotted at around 8.50pm on Wednesday after entering the atmosphere over Pemberton.</p> <p>The rare spectacle, which only happens around three times a year, lasted about five seconds and travelled at a speed of 30 km/h  before the mix of iron, rock and ice dissolved over the Southern Ocean. </p> <p>“Iron meteors give off that beautiful green glow,” Perth Observatory spokesperson Matt Woods told <em>7NEWS</em>.</p> <p>Experts also said that this was triggered by the outer layer of the meteor melting because of intense friction.</p> <p>The observatory said that the meteor had set off a flood of messages, emails and calls from the people that witnessed the natural phenomenon. </p> <p>“That was a bloody ripper of a meteor tonight,” they posted on their Facebook page. </p> <p>One witness said that you had to see it with your own eyes to fully appreciate its beauty. </p> <p>“I will say it was way better in person. It looked almost rainbow-coloured. Just spectacular,” commented one person. </p> <p>“Did anyone just see a bright streak of light shooting from the sky? It was too bright to be a shooting star,” another person shared on social media. </p> <p>“It was massive and extremely bright.”</p> <p><em>Image: 7NEWS</em></p> <p> </p>

Domestic Travel

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Meteors seem to be raining down on New Zealand, but why are some bright green?

<h1 class="legacy">Meteors seem to be raining down on New Zealand, but why are some bright green?</h1> <figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476788/original/file-20220731-19335-76trxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=5%2C304%2C3828%2C1851&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greg Price</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jack-baggaley-1366298">Jack Baggaley</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-canterbury-1004">University of Canterbury</a></em></p> <p>New Zealand may seem to be under meteor bombardment at the moment. After a <a href="https://theconversation.com/equivalent-to-1-800-tonnes-of-tnt-what-we-now-know-about-the-meteor-that-lit-up-the-daytime-sky-above-new-zealand-186636">huge meteor exploded</a> above the sea near Wellington on July 7, creating a sonic boom that could be heard across the bottom of the South Island, a smaller fireball was captured two weeks later above Canterbury.</p> <p><a href="https://fireballs.nz/">Fireballs Aotearoa</a>, a collaboration between astronomers and citizen scientists which aims to recover freshly fallen meteorites, has received a lot of questions about these events. One of the most frequent is about the bright green colour, and whether it is the same green produced by auroras.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476789/original/file-20220731-20-zrewrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="An image of an aurora australis" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aurora australis observed from the international space station.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure> <p>Green fireballs have been reported and filmed in New Zealand regularly. Bright meteors often signal the arrival of a chunk of asteroid, which can be anywhere between a few centimetres to a metre in diameter when it comes crashing through the atmosphere.</p> <p>Some of these asteroids contain nickel and iron and they hit the atmosphere at speeds of up to 60km per second. This releases an enormous amount of heat very quickly, and the vapourised iron and nickel radiate green light.</p> <p>But is this the same as the bright green of an aurora? For the most recent meteor, the answer is mainly no, but it’s actually not that simple.</p> <h2>The colours of a meteor trail</h2> <p>The green glow of the aurora is caused by oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, created by collisions between atmospheric oxygen molecules and particles ejected by the sun.</p> <p>These oxygen ions recombine with electrons to produce oxygen atoms, but the electrons can persist in an excited state for several seconds. In an energy transition known as “forbidden” because it does not obey the usual quantum rules, they then radiate the auroral green light at 557nm wavelength.</p> <p>A meteor can also shine by this route, but only if it’s extremely fast. Very fast meteors heat up in the thin atmosphere above 100km where auroras form.</p> <p>If you want to see a green auroral wake from a meteor, watch out for the Perseid meteor shower, which has now started and will peak on August 13 in the southern hemisphere.</p> <p>Also arriving at about 60km per second, the Perseids are extremely fast bits of the <a href="https://www.space.com/33677-comet-swift-tuttle-perseid-meteor-shower-source.html">comet Swift-Tuttle</a>. Some Perseids trail a beautiful, glowing and distinctly green wake behind them, particularly at the start of their path.</p> <p>Once the Canterbury meteor hit on July 22, the capricious winds of the upper atmosphere twisted the gently glowing trail, resulting in a pale yellow glow towards the end (as seen in the GIF below, also recorded by Greg Price for an earlier meteor). This is caused by sodium atoms being continually excited in a catalytic reaction involving ozone.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2231/The_22_July_meteor_-_persistent_train_-_credit_Greg_Price.gif?1659310010" width="100%" /></p> <h2>Are we being bombarded by meteors?</h2> <p>Yes and no. The arrival of big, booming green meteors and the dropping of meteorites isn’t rare in New Zealand, but it is rare to recover the rock. Fireballs Aotearoa is working to improve the recovery rate.</p> <p>In an average year, perhaps four meteorites hit New Zealand. We’re encouraging citizen scientists to build their own meteor camera systems so they can catch these events.</p> <p>By comparing the meteor against the starry background and triangulating images caught by multiple cameras, we can pin down the meteor’s position in the atmosphere to within tens of metres.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476790/original/file-20220731-43929-h2dp31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="The July 22 meteor as seen by a specialised meteor camera near Ashburton." /><figcaption><span class="caption">The July 22 meteor as seen by a specialised meteor camera near Ashburton.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Campbell Duncan/NASA/CAMS NZ</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure> <p>Not only does that help us find the rock, but it tells us what the pre-impact orbit of the meteoroid was, which in turn tells us which part of the solar system it came from. This is a rather efficient way of sampling the solar system without ever having to launch a space mission.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=553&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=553&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476791/original/file-20220731-31484-7i4x0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=553&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="Map of witness reports and cameras." /><figcaption><span class="caption">Witness reports and high-resolution meteor cameras help to calculate a meteor’s trajectory. This map shows the approximate trajectory of the July 22 meteor at the top of the red shape in the centre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fireballs Aotearoa and International Meteor Association</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure> <p>Fireballs Aotearoa is rapidly populating Otago with meteor cameras and there are half a dozen more in other parts of the South Island. The North Island isn’t well covered yet, and we’re keen for more people (in either island) to build or buy a meteor camera and keep it pointed at the sky.</p> <p>Then next time a bright meteor explodes with a boom above New Zealand, we may be able to pick up the meteorite and do some good science with it.</p> <hr /> <p><em>Many thanks for the input from Jim Rowe of the UK Fireball Alliance, and Greg Price who photographed the July 22 meteor and the persistent train.</em><!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187836/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jack-baggaley-1366298">Jack Baggaley</a>, Professor Emeritus Physics and Astronomy, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-canterbury-1004">University of Canterbury</a></em></p> <p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/meteors-seem-to-be-raining-down-on-new-zealand-but-why-are-some-bright-green-187836">original article</a>.</p>

Domestic Travel

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Why dangerous asteroids heading to Earth are so hard to detect

<p>Earth is often in the firing line of fragments of asteroids and comets, most of which<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-meteors-light-up-the-night-sky-35754">burn up</a>tens of kilometres above our heads. But occasionally, something larger gets through.</p> <p>That’s what happened off Russia’s east coast on December 18 last year. A<span> </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47607696">giant explosion occurred above the Bering Sea</a><span> </span>when an asteroid some ten metres across detonated with an explosive energy ten times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.</p> <p>So why didn’t we see this asteroid coming? And why are we only hearing about its explosive arrival now?</p> <p><strong>Nobody saw it</strong></p> <p>Had the December explosion occurred near a city – as<span> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/hundreds-injured-meteorite-russian-city-chelyabinsk">happened at Chelyabinsk in February 2013</a><span> </span>– we would have heard all about it at the time.</p> <p>But because it happened in a remote part of the world, it went unremarked for more than three months, until details were unveiled at the<span> </span><a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/">50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference</a><span> </span>this week, based on<span> </span><a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/">NASA’s collection of fireball data</a>.</p> <p>So where did this asteroid come from?</p> <p><strong>At risk from space debris</strong></p> <p>The Solar system is littered with material left over from the formation of the planets. Most of it is locked up in stable reservoirs – the Asteroid belt, the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud – far from Earth.</p> <p>Those reservoirs continually leak objects into interplanetary space, injecting fresh debris into orbits that cross those of the planets. The inner Solar system is awash with debris, ranging from tiny flecks of dust to comets and asteroids many kilometres in diameter.</p> <p>The vast majority of the debris that collides with Earth is utterly harmless, but our planet still<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/target-earth-how-asteroids-made-an-impact-on-australia-92836">bears the scars of collisions</a><span> </span>with much larger bodies.</p> <p>The largest, most devastating impacts (like that which<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dinosaurs-went-extinct-asteroid-collision-triggered-potentially-deadly-volcanic-eruptions-112134">helped to kill the dinosaurs</a><span> </span>65 million years ago) are the rarest. But smaller, more frequent collisions also pose a marked risk.</p> <p>In 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia, a<span> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160706-in-siberia-in-1908-a-huge-explosion-came-out-of-nowhere">vast explosion</a><span> </span>levelled more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest. Due to the remote location, no deaths were recorded. Had the impact happened just two hours later, the city of St Petersburg could have been destroyed.</p> <p>In 2013, it was a 10,000-tonne asteroid that<span> </span><a href="https://earthsky.org/space/meteor-asteroid-chelyabinsk-russia-feb-15-2013">detonated above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk</a>. More than 1,500 people were injured and around 7,000 buildings were damaged, but amazingly nobody was killed.</p> <p>We’re still trying to work out how often events like this happen. Our information on the frequency of the larger impacts is pretty limited, so estimates can vary dramatically.</p> <p>Typically, people argue that Tunguska-sized impacts happen<span> </span><a href="https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/50/1/1.18/201316">every few hundred years</a>, but that’s just based on a sample of one event. The truth is, we don’t really know.</p> <p><strong>What can we do about it?</strong></p> <p>Over the past couple of decades, a concerted effort has been made to search for potentially hazardous objects that pose a threat before they hit Earth. The result is the<span> </span><a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/totals.html">identification of thousands of near-Earth asteroids</a><span> </span>upwards of a few metres across.</p> <p>Once found, the orbits of those objects can be determined, and their paths<span> </span><a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/">predicted into the future</a>, to see whether an impact is possible or even likely. The longer we can observe a given object, the better that prediction becomes.</p> <p>But as we saw with Chelyabinsk in 2013, and again in December, we’re not there yet. While the catalogue of potentially hazardous objects continues to grow, many still remain undetected, waiting to catch us by surprise.</p> <p>If we discover a collision is pending in the coming days, we can work out where and when the collision will happen. That happened for the first time in 2008 when astronomers discovered the tiny<span> </span><a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2008tc3.html">asteroid 2008 TC3</a>, 19 hours before it hit Earth’s atmosphere over northern Sudan.</p> <p>For impacts predicted with a longer lead time, it will be possible to work out whether the object is truly dangerous, or would merely produce a spectacular but harmless fireball (like 2008 TC3).</p> <p>For any objects that truly pose a threat, the race will be on to deflect them – to turn a hit into a miss.</p> <p><strong>Searching the skies</strong></p> <p>Before we can quantify the threat an object poses, we first need to know that the object is there. But finding asteroids is hard.</p> <p>Surveys scour the skies,<span> </span><a href="https://spaceguardcentre.com/what-are-neos/finding-and-observing-asteroids/">looking for faint star-like points moving against the background stars</a>. A bigger asteroid will reflect more sunlight, and therefore appear brighter in the sky - at a given distance from Earth.</p> <p>As a result, the smaller the object, the closer it must be to Earth before we can spot it.</p> <p>Objects the size of the Chelyabinsk and Bering Sea events (about 20 and 10 metres diameter, respectively) are tiny. They can only be spotted when passing very close to our planet. The vast majority of the time they are simply undetectable.</p> <p>As a result, having impacts like these come out of the blue is really the norm, rather than the exception!</p> <p>The Chelyabinsk impact is a great example. Moving on its orbit around the Sun, it approached us in the daylight sky - totally hidden in the Sun’s glare.</p> <p>For larger objects, which impact much less frequently but would do far more damage, it is fair to expect we would receive some warning.</p> <p><strong>Why not move the asteroid?</strong></p> <p>While we need to keep searching for threatening objects, there is another way we could protect ourselves.</p> <p>Missions such as<span> </span><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/hayabusa/in-depth/">Hayabusa</a>,<span> </span><a href="http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/">Hayabusa 2</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://www.asteroidmission.org/">OSIRIS-REx</a><span> </span>have demonstrated the ability to travel to near-Earth asteroids, land on their surfaces, and move things around.</p> <p>From there, it is just a short hop to being able to deflect them – to change a potential collision into a near-miss.</p> <p>Interestingly, ideas of asteroid deflection dovetail nicely with the<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/mining-asteroids-could-unlock-untold-wealth-heres-how-to-get-started-95675">possibility of asteroid mining</a>.</p> <p>The technology needed to extract material from an asteroid and send it back to Earth could equally be used to alter the orbit of that asteroid, moving it away from a potential collision with our planet.</p> <p>We’re not quite there yet, but for the first time in our history, we have the potential to truly control our own destiny.</p> <p><em>Written by Jonti Horner. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-dangerous-asteroids-heading-to-earth-are-so-hard-to-detect-113845">The Conversation.</a></em></p>

Technology

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Chance photo captures meteor's spectacular display

<p>Jono Matla had just pressed the shutter button when the night sky lit up.</p> <p>Starting as a ball of orange, a meteor was cutting its way through the sky over Waikanae, north of Wellington, turning a neon green as it went.</p> <p>"I had literally just pressed the button to take [the photo] and I looked up and saw it," he said.</p> <p>It was also pure chance he was out at all.</p> <p>Earlier in the evening, Matla got a call from a friend who was taking photos in Paraparaumu. It prompted Matla to do some stargazing of his own and he headed to the beach near his house to see what he could photograph in the sky.</p> <p>"It was a really clear night, so I thought I'd head out."</p> <p>Matla - who's been a photographer since about 2012 - took six shots with a 50mm lens to make the vertical panorama. It was on the last shot, just after he pressed the shutter, when the meteor shot past.</p> <p>It burned out after about four seconds, but Matla had it on his camera - a striking green streak across the sky.</p> <p><img width="500" height="669" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/20632/meteor-photo-in-text_500x669.jpg" alt="Meteor Photo In Text"/></p> <p>Ironically, the friend who prompted Matla to go out missed the spectacle completely, but was impressed to hear what the outcome was.</p> <p>"He just said it was so crazy. He's never seen anything like it."</p> <p>It was also a first for Matla.</p> <p>"I've never seen anything, anything as big and bright as that one.</p> <p>"I'm pretty stoked with it."</p> <p>While Matla had it on camera, he wasn't alone in seeing it. Reports had come in from across the North Island and as far south as Nelson.</p> <p>"I saw it, but only out of the corner of my eye," Clare Yates said in an email. "Very freaky and I literally jumped out of my seat.</p> <p>In West Harbour, Auckland, Eviie King described it as "a strike of silver then a flash of blue/green light", while in Mirimar, Wellington, Anita Winkels' husband thought a plane was crashing.</p> <p>Another tipster said they had "no explanation for what this is".</p> <p>"Hopefully someone can put it to rest, but it looks like a damn UFO to me."</p> <p>The colour of the meteor - from orange to its striking green - would be down to the material it was made of, said Nigel Forst, Superintendent of Mt John Observatory in Tekapo, South Canterbury.</p> <p>He said Mt John had no reports of sightings so far south, but said the curve of Earth would have an effect on that.</p> <p>"Further south it would be less visible. As we go round the curve of the Earth we will be less likely to see it."</p> <p><em>Image credit: Jono Malta</em></p> <p><em>Written by Jeff Tollan. First appeared on <a href="http://Stuff.co.nz" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz</span></strong></a>.</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/04/landing-plane-on-bhutan-paro-airport-runway/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The world’s most difficult runway to land</span></em></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/04/10-happiest-countries-in-the-world/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">10 happiest countries in the world</span></em></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/04/rescue-monkeys-burst-bubbles-for-the-first-time/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Rescue monkeys burst bubbles for the first time</strong></em></span></a></p>

Domestic Travel

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Aussie geologists win a race against time to recover rare 4-billion-year-old meteorite

<p>Aussie geologists have found a meteorite estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.</p> <p>The team, from Perth’s Curtin University, found the 1.7 kilogram space rock in a remote part of Lake Eyre in South Australia, hours before heavy rains would have washed it away.</p> <p>The meteorite was spotted falling to Earth in late November and geologists have been trying to find it ever sense, at times feeling like looking for a needle in a haystack.</p> <p>The team eventually tracked the meteorite down where the team’s leader, geologist Phil Bland frantically dug it out by hand as a storm approached the site. </p> <p>“It was an amazing effort,” Professor Bland said in a press release from the university. “We got there by the skin of our teeth. This recovery will be the first of many and every one of those meteorites will give us a unique window into the formation of the solar system.”</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/01/clever-dog-performs-a-handstand/"><strong>Watch gorgeous toy poodle perform a perfect handstand</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/01/alarm-clock-rug/"><strong>You won’t believe this new rug that’s an alarm clock</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/01/make-your-smartphone-battery-last-longer/"><strong>How to make your smartphone battery last longer</strong></a></em></span></p>

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Annual Perseid meteor shower expected to be extra-special this year

<p>The Perseid meteor shower is anticipated to hit in the early hours of Thursday morning and this year it’s expected to be extra-special.</p> <p>Estimates expect the annual shower to show as many as 100 meteors per hour in dark, light-pollution-free parts of the globe. This year’s display is anticipated to be particularly special, as it takes place during a new moon, leaving the sky especially dark for prime viewing.</p> <p>"Try to view the Perseids as far away from artificial lights as possible,” said NASA meteor expert, Bill Cooke in a recent blog post.</p> <p>"The darker the sky, the better viewing experience you can have. Lie on the ground and look straight up."</p> <p>For meteor shower viewers, one period in particular will be especially vivid,</p> <p>“The French astronomer Jeremie Vaubaillon has also predicted that the Perseids may this year produce an outburst of activity around 7:40pm BST [2:40 p.m. ET] on 12 August," Mark Bailey, Director of Armagh Observatory, said in a recent statement.</p> <p>For those who can’t view the annual shower in person,<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc" target="_blank"> NASA will be streaming it live via webcast</a></strong></span> starting at 10pm ET, August 12. </p> <p><em>Photo source: ANDRES KUDACKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/news/news/2015/08/animals-ice-photos/">Adorable animals use ice to cool off</a></span></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/news/news/2015/08/sea-slug-photos/">Photographer captures photos of cutest underwater creature ever</a></span></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/news/news/2015/08/stop-batter-splatter/">The easy trick to stop making a mess when making a cake</a></span></em></strong></p> <p> </p>

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Man accidentally photographs meteor burning in the atmosphere at Loch Ness

<p>In what is being called a case of “sheer dumb luck”, a tour guide in the Scottish Highlands has captured a meteor burning in the atmosphere in a stunning image.</p><p>His long-exposure shot of Loch Ness shows the shooting star streaking across the sky. Quite amazingly, the event is so bright that it casts its light across the water.</p><p>The photographer was John Alasdair Macdonald, a tour guide in the Scottish Highlands from Drumnadrochit on the west shore of Loch Ness, who runs the website called The Hebridean Explorer.&nbsp;Mr Macdonald captured the 30-second long image using a Sony RX100 compact camera at about 9pm on Sunday.&nbsp;</p><p>The father-of-three, who lives in Drumnadrochit, near Inverness, said: “I’ve never seen a shooting star before, I couldn’t believe it. I quickly checked to see if my camera had picked it up, and it had. My wife called it sheer dumb luck.&nbsp;</p><p>“I wasn’t out looking for it, it was completely unexpected. It was a total fluke.”</p><p><strong>Related links:</strong></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/news/news/2015/02/cyclone-brought-town-together/" target="_blank">How Cyclone Lam brought this small town together</a></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/news/news/2015/02/frozen-niagara-falls/" target="_blank">This photo of a frozen Niagara Falls is breathtaking</a></strong></em></span><em><strong>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</strong></em></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/news/news/2015/02/meteor-exploded-over-new-zealand/" target="_blank">A meteor exploded over New Zealand</a></strong></em></span></p>

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