ISON WEIRD, Rotating Asteroid/Comet with 6 Tails, Military Classified Space Rocks, Oort Cloud, Tyche, WARNINGS FROM THE MEDIA

[link to www.space.com]

For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere – but no longer.

A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.

Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.

"It's baffling to us why this would suddenly change," said one scientist familiar with the work. "It's unfortunate because there was this great synergy…a very good cooperative arrangement. Systems were put into dual-use mode where a lot of science was getting done that couldn't be done any other way. It's a regrettable change in policy."

Scientists say not only will research into the threat from space be hampered, but public understanding of sometimes dramatic sky explosions will be diminished, perhaps leading to hype and fear of the unknown.

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[link to www.boston.com]

Scientists studying the terrifying meteor that exploded without warning over a Russian city last winter say the threat of space rocks smashing into Earth is bigger than they thought.

Meteors about the size of the one that streaked through the sky at 42,000 mph and burst over Chelyabinsk in February — and ones even larger and more dangerous — are probably four, five or even seven times more likely to hit the planet than scientists believed before the fireball, according to three studies published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.

That means about 20 million space rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk one may be zipping around the solar system, instead of 3 million, NASA scientist Paul Chodas said at a news conference.

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[link to www.nytimes.com]

In research being published Wednesday by the journal Nature, they estimate that such strikes could occur as often as every decade or two.

The prospect “really makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” said Peter G. Brown, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Western Ontario.

A United Nations committee has been studying the issue for some time, and next month the General Assembly is expected to adopt two of its recommendations: establishing an International Asteroid Warning Network for countries to share information; and calling on the world’s space agencies to set up an advisory group to explore technologies for deflecting an asteroid.

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[link to www.nbcnews.com]

With just one month to go before its dramatic solar rendezvous, skirting to within a hairbreadth of the surface of the sun, Comet ISON continues to befuddle observers with its performance en route to the sun.

It seems that over the past month or so ISON's gas production rate has increased as expected while its dust production rate has not," Hergenrother said. "I don't really know what this means but something has to give, either the dust production picks up or the gas production slows down."

The highly regarded comet observer John Bortle is just as perplexed by the comet's recent appearance, commenting that the recent images along with his own visual impression, is "downright weird." He adds that, "There is a bright, miniature, long-tailed comet situated within a much larger, but very much fainter and diffuse halo of a coma."

"Those visual people using larger telescope also often remark about the odd way the comet looks, while those using relatively small scopes and big binoculars report seeing a larger, more-or-less faint but uniform cometary mass," he added. "This comet is currently at a distance from the sun where it should no longer exhibit such a dichotomy of appearance.”

Bortle has observed several hundred comets and yet, he writes, "At this stage of the game, with the comet about to cross the orbit of Earth, I cannot recall any previous comet in my 50-plus years of comet observing looking quite like this. So, what does ISON's current look foretell, or mean? I honestly don't know. All I can say is I don't like the odd look of it at this time."

[link to ca.news.yahoo.com]

However, this comet has been behaving very strangely recently, and a recent analysis of comet images have shown a structure unlike anything scientists have seen from previous comets.

Around Oct. 19, ISON seemed to suddenly brighten at a more rapid pace. On Oct. 21, Arizona observer Bruce Gary wrote, "The comet (coma plus tail) continues a dramatic brightening trend that started Oct 19. But just four days later, with the comet showing signs of fading a bit rather than brightening, Gary, sounding almost a bit exasperated commented, "I don't know what's going on with this comet!"

[link to blogs.discovermagazine.com]

"ISON represents the first time researchers have watched a ‘dynamically new’ comet — a pristine, first-time visitor from deep space that will not return — on course to pass very close to the Sun."

Soon after the discovery in Russia, other researchers traced Comet ISON’s orbit backward to identify its point of origin. They found a path to the sun that looked nothing like the circle or oval traversed by most comets. Instead, Comet ISON’s trajectory was more like a straight line. Its journey started in the Oort Cloud, a vast swarm of inert comets that stretches from the edge of our solar system nearly halfway to the next star.

Most of the comets that astronomers study have made previous journeys into the torrid inner reaches of the solar system, often multiple times, as they orbit the sun. As a result, they have been cooked, evaporated and eroded in ways that erase much of their original nature. Comet ISON, on the other hand, appears to be making its first trip in from the Oort Cloud. Extending Lisse’s metaphor, Comet ISON is not just a bunch of dinosaur bones. It is more like the dinosaur itself.

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[link to www.space.com]

Our sun may have a companion that disturbs comets from the edge of the solar system — a giant planet with up to four times the mass of Jupiter, researchers suggest.

A NASA space telescope launched last year may soon detect such a stealth companion to our sun, if it actually exists, in the distant icy realm of the comet-birthing Oort cloud, which surrounds our solar system with billions of icy objects.

[link to www.jpl.nasa.gov]

[link to wise.ssl.berkeley.edu]

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[link to www.npr.org]

The United Nations General Assembly may approve a plan soon for the world's space agencies to defend the Earth against asteroids.

The plan, introduced last week, is expected to be adopted by the General Assembly in December.

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[link to www.popsci.com]

Weird things are afoot in the asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. A newly identified asteroid called P/2013 P5 is posing as a comet, with not one but six dust tails trailing behind it.

Astronomers who spotted the strange, fuzzy-looking rock hurtling through space, first with the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii and later with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, are calling it a "weird and freakish object"—and that's only the language they're willing to put in their press release.

"We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it," said UCLA's David Jewitt, the lead scientist on the research paper published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It's hard to believe we’re looking at an asteroid." Comets have tails because as they approach the sun, the dirty ice they're made of begins to heat up and form a dusty cloud around the nucleus, which solar radiation pushes off into a tail. But this asteroid is made up of rock, and it's pretty unlikely that it could contain any ice to boil off in a comet-like tail.

[link to www.nasa.gov]

Astronomers viewing our solar system's asteroid belt with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel.

Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid's unusual appearance.

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[link to www.nytimes.com]

A European satellite that mapped Earth’s gravitational field in exquisite detail will be pulled down by gravity to its fiery destruction sometime in the next few days.

Where and when it will crash no one knows. It could be almost anywhere on the globe. About 25 to 45 fragments of the one-ton spacecraft are expected to survive all the way to the surface, with the largest perhaps weighing 200 pounds.

It is the latest in a parade of spacecraft falling from the sky in what are worryingly called “uncontrolled entries.”

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[link to www.nytimes.com]

This is why thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid.

They will practice for a crisis unlike anything the real grid has ever seen, and more than 150 companies and organizations have signed up to participate.

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Nov. 13-14, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) will conduct a large-scale drill aimed at determining how well the nation’s electricity grid is able to cope with a significant level of disruption.