When is the best time to see auroras? Where is the best place to go? And how do you photograph them? These questions and more are answered in a new book, Northern Lights - a Guide, by Pal Brekke & Fredrik Broms. | | | HELIOPHYSICS SUMMER SCHOOL: Are you an undergraduate physics or astronomy instructor? There might be a seat waiting for you at the 2014 Heliophysics Summer School. The program's sponsor, UCAR, is looking for a number of qualified instructors to attend with most expenses paid. Apply here. The deadline has been extended to March 22nd. GROWING CHANCE OF FLARES: The face of the sun is peppered with spots. One of them in particular merits attention. AR1991 is rapidly growing, almost doubling its number of dark cores since yesterday. Click to observe the circled region's development: AR1991 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. The rapid evolution of the sunspot could destabilize the field, making an eruption more likely. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of M-class flares and a 30% chance of X-flares on March 2nd. Solar flare alerts: text, voice The region has grown so large -- it spans more than 150,000 km of solar terrain -- that observers are starting to notice it without the aid of a solar telescope. "This morning in Singapore, clouds acted as a natural filter, allowing me to photograph the sunspot with an ordinary digital camera," reports Vincent Lao. He used a Canon Powershot SX40HS @ ISO100 to take this 1/1500 exposure: Caution: Even when the sun is dimmed by clouds or haze, it is still dangerously bright. One glimpse of the sun through magnifying optics can permanently damage your eyes. If you attempt to photograph the sun using an unfiltered camera, use the camera's LCD screen for safe viewfinding. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery SPRING SDO ECLIPSE SEASON BEGINS: Twice every year, around the time of the equinoxes, Earth can pass directly between the Sun and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), producing a series of beautiful eclipses. SDO's vernal eclipse season began on Feb. 27th, producing a near-total blackout of the sun: For the next three weeks these eclipses will repeat once a day around 07:30 UT. At the beginning of the season, the eclipses are short, only a few minutes long. Their duration increases to 72 minutes, mid-season, before tapering off to minutes again as the season winds down. Because most eclipses are relatively short, there is still plenty of uninterrupted time for SDO to monitor activity on the sun. Researchers estimate a scant 2% data loss averaged over the weeks ahead. The ongoing eclipse season will end in late March. Between now and then, stay tuned for some rare blackouts. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Realtime Comet Photo Gallery Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com. On Mar. 1, 2014, the network reported 6 fireballs. (6 sporadics) On Mar. 1, 2014, the network reported 6 fireballs. (6 sporadics)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies] 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 March 2, 2014 there were 1460 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 | |