Hang the Transit of Venus on your wall! Hubble-quality images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory are now available as metallic posters in the Space Weather Store. | | |
4TH OF JULY FIREWORKS: Chances of an X-flare today are increasing as sunspot AR1515 develops a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for the most powerful explosions. The sunspot's magnetic canopy is crackling with almost-X class flares, the strongest so far being an M5-flare at 09:54 UT. Each "crackle" releases more energy than a billion atomic bombs, so these are 4th of July fireworks indeed.
The sunspot itself is huge, stretching more than 100,000 km (8 Earth-diameters) from end to end. This movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the behemoth growing and turning toward Earth over the past five days:
Another picture that dramatically illustrates the size of AR1515 is this 4th of July sunrise shot from Stefano De Rosa of Turin, Italy.
If any major eruptions do occur today, they will certainly be Earth-directed. The sunspot is directly facing our planet, so it is in position to cause radio blackouts, sudden ionospheric disturbances, and geomagnetic storms. X-flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
LUNAR BALANCE: The Moon contains more than 7 x 1022 kg of rock and dust. Balancing such a sphere on your head might sound tricky, but this man crossing a bridge in Stockholm, Sweden, on the evening of July 3rd didn't seem to notice the weight:
"Last night I caught this person crossing Västerbron, one of Stockholm's many bridges," says photographer Peter Rosen. "Like most people nowadays he is connected to his iPhone, and seems completely unaware that he is balancing the full Moon on his head."
"The light here up in Sweden gets quite magical during the periods around the full Moons of July and August partly due to its low position in the sky and also because the sky never gets entirely dark."
Browse the realtime image gallery for more moonshots.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[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 July 4, 2012 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Mag. | Size |
2012 MY2 | Jun 29 | 1.3 LD | -- | 24 m |
2003 KU2 | Jul 15 | 40.2 LD | -- | 1.3 km |
2004 EW9 | Jul 16 | 46.8 LD | -- | 2.1 km |
2002 AM31 | Jul 22 | 13.7 LD | -- | 1.0 km |
37655 Illapa | Aug 12 | 37 LD | -- | 1.2 km |
2000 ET70 | Aug 21 | 58.5 LD | -- | 1.1 km |
1998 TU3 | Aug 25 | 49.2 LD | -- | 4.9 km |
2009 AV | Aug 26 | 62.8 LD | -- | 1.1 km |
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 |