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Meteoroid over Yellowknife in the Canadian Arctic

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A couple of days ago ago we talked about three asteroids that had passed by very close to Earth in the short span of a day. Today there were some reports that a small meteoroid had also burned up as a fireball over Yellowknife, Northwest Territories – in the Canadian Arctic. The fireball was photographed by a contingent of Japanese tourists out to view the Aurora Borealis, and  was shared on Twitter.

Meteoroid photographed over NWT
Meteoroid photographed by Yuichi Takasaka over NWT

The meteoroid would have been too small to cause any damage but it apparently turned the night sky blue over that part of the NWT. Another fireball was also seen around New Mexico and it is believed that many more occurred, with some being photographed or recorded by NASA.

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Pictures

M-Class Solar Flare and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)

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M-Class CME
Medium coronal mass ejection (M-Class CME) from August 18, 2013

Coronal mass ejection (CME) is the violent release of gas, radiation and magnetic fields, above the Sun’s corona and then often into space. This picture from August 18, 2013 is of a medium solar flare (M-class flare) and the associated coronal mass ejection. The solar flare is the strong bright region while the CME is the plasma streaking out. This picture was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

SDO is a mission launched in 2010 to study the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. A CME directed towards Earth could affect affect us greatly. It could cause our planet’s magnetic field to shift suddenly; inducing electricity in large, powerful conductors. This would overload the affected electrical systems and cause massive damage to the critical electricity transformers and other grid infrastructure – with potentially drastic results for mankind.

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Jupiter photographed by NASA’s deep space probe

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Jupiter, Ganymede and Europa
Jupiter, Ganymede and Europa photographed by the New Horizons probe

NASA’s New Horizons probe looked back to take a picture of Jupiter while on the way to accomplish its Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission. This picture was taken by the space probe’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) when it was about 1.5 billion miles from Jupiter. The giant planet can be seen as a half/partial phase and two of its moons, Ganymede and Europa, are barely visible in this nine millisecond  exposure.

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