Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift. |
|
|
2012
TRANSIT OF VENUS: It won't happen
again until December 2117: On June 5th, 2012, Venus
will transit the face of the sun. The best places
to watch are in the mid-Pacific, but travel is not
required. The event is widely visible around the
world, including at sunset from the USA. [full
story] [video]
SOLAR
ECLIPSE THIS WEEKEND: On Sunday,
May 20th, the Moon will pass in front of the Sun,
producing an annular solar eclipse visible across
the Pacific side of Earth. The path of annularity,
where the sun will appear to be a "ring of
fire," stretches from China and Japan to the
middle of North America:
Image credits (left
to right): Hans
Coeckelberghs, Fred
Espenak, Dennis
Mammana
An animated
eclipse map prepared by Larry Koehn of ShadowandSubstance.com
shows the best times to look. In the United States,
the eclipse begins at 5:30 pm PDT and lasts for
two hours. Around 6:30 pm PDT, the afternoon sun
will become a luminous ring in places such as Medford,
Oregon; Chico, California; Reno, Nevada; St. George,
Utah; Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Lubbock, Texas.
Outside the narrow center line, the eclipse will
be partial. Observers almost everywhere west of
the Mississippi will see a crescent-shaped sun as
the Moon passes by off-center.
Because this is not a total eclipse,
some portion of the sun will always be exposed.
To prevent eye damage, use eclipse glasses, a safely-filtered
telescope, or a solar
projector to observe the eclipse. You can make
a handy solar projector by criss-crossing your fingers
waffle-style. Rays of light beaming through the
gaps will have the same shape as the eclipsed sun.
Or look on
the ground beneath leafy trees for crescent-shaped
sunbeams and rings of light.
Solar eclipse resources:
INCOMING
CME? A coronal mass ejection (CME)
that flew off the sun's western limb on May 17th
might hit Earth after all. NOAA forecasters say
a shock wave from the blast could deliver a glancing
blow to Earth's magnetic field on May 18th or 19th.
The CME, pictured below, was propelled by an M5-class
solar flare from departing sunspot AR1476.
The speckles in the
movie are caused by energetic protons hitting
the observatory's detector. Those protons may have
been accelerated in part by the shock wave en route
to Earth.
According to NOAA, there is a 40%
chance of minor geomagnetic storms and a 15% chance
of strong storms when the shock arrives. High-latitude
sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
CME
alerts: text,
phone.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids ( PHAs)
are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that
can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the
known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet,
although astronomers are finding new
ones all the time.
On
May 19, 2012 there were 1293
potentially hazardous asteroids.
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on
the date of closest approach.
| |
The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
| |
The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
| |
Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
| |
3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
| |
Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
| |
from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| |
the
underlying science of space weather |
|
