Andy’s Astronomy: Home After 241 Days

Sunday was the culmination of a very long space visit for three space farers.

At 6:27 Eastern the Soyuz MS-28 landed bringing astronaut Chris Williams along with cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev back to Earth. The three men had spent 241 days on the International Space Station.

In addition to being an astronaut, Chris Williams is a medical physicist with a PhD in physics.

Also last week, SpaceX completed a test flight of its Starship.

During the suborbital test flight, the Super Heavy rocket booster made a successful splashdown in the Gulf while the Starship had a successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

For SpaceX this was an important step as a NASA test flight is scheduled which could lead to putting people back on the moon.

Some skywatchers are already reporting seeing meteors ostensibly from the Perseids Meteor Shower. The frequency of meteors will slowly increase until peak activity, forecast for the overnight hours of Aug. 12-13. During peak activity the meteor shower generally produces about 30-50 meteors per hour.

Meteors can flash across the sky anytime, day or night, and they are spotted quite often. Particularly bright meteors are often referred to as fireballs.

On July 16, a fireball was reported by 61 people across Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. The fireball was first reported at 10:20 pm Central Time by a skywatcher in Edgerton, KS. It was seen as far north as Omaha, NE, as far east as Collinsville, IL, as far south as Rogers, AR, and as far west as Inman, KS. The fireball appeared to travel from the northeast to the southwest.

Ten skywatchers reported hearing noise associated with the fireball and 24 reported seeing it fragment into pieces. The fireball was captured in one video and two photos.

A video of the fireball was captured by a camera mounted in a car.

Anyone seeing a fireball is urged to report the sighting to https://amsmeteors.org

Going outside and looking at the night sky can be fun and educational for the entire family.

There are a number of free apps available to help identify stars and constellations, and some of the apps will show satellites.

Happy skywatching!