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. | | |
(NO) CHANCE OF STORMS: Earth's magnetic field is quiet with no sign of the CME that was expected to arrive on Nov. 30th. The cloud might have missed or it might be moving more slowly than expected. A slow-moving CME is unlikely to spark strong storms if and when it arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
RECTANGULAR SUNSPOT GROUP: Sunspot complex 1623-1625 has four dark cores that form a rectangle more than half-a-dozen Earths wide. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the shape during the early hours of Dec. 1st:
The quartet has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any eruptions this weekend would likely be geoeffective as the sunspot group is turning to face Earth. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
ASPHALT RAINBOW: Usually rainbows are seen near storm clouds. A few days ago, Geoff Chester was riding his bike in Arlington, Virginia, when he looked down and found one in the asphalt. "Here's a picture from my cellphone camera," says Chester. "You can see the rainbow arc to the right."
According to atmospheric optics expert, this is not a rainbow, but rather a glass bead bow. He explains: "Crews marking paint lines on roads often scatter small glass beads onto the paint. The glass beads retro-reflect light and this enhances the visibility of the markings at night. The glass beads - if sufficiently spherical - also produce rainbows. The difference is that the refractive index of glass is greater than that of water and the bow is only about 21° in radius compared to the rainbow's 42°. The glow around the shadow of Geoff's head is an antisolar point phenomenon - a heigenschein - produced by refraction through the glass spheres."
"Looks like the mystery is solved," adds Chester. "Although technically the trail is closed dusk to dawn, I know of many folks who use it as a bike commuter route after dark, especially this time of year. The beads enhance visibility. I got plenty of strange looks from passersby as I was taking the pictures!"
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[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011]
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 December 1, 2012 there were 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 |