Listen to radar echoes from satellites and meteors, live on listener-supported Space Weather Radio. | | |
POISED TO EXPLODE? Big sunspot AR1520 has been relatively quiet for the past 24 hours, but this could be the calm before the storm. The sunspot has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
MORNING PLANETS: Set your alarm for dawn. Jupiter and Venus have lined up in the eastern sky for a beautiful pre-dawn conjunction. Paul Martini photographed the gathering on July 10th from California's Joshua Tree National Park:
"I caught Jupiter, Venus, and the Pleiades rising above the adobe ruins of the Ryan Ranch, which was built in the 19th century," says Martini.
As beautiful as it is now, the show is about to get even better. On July 15th a slender crescent Moon, alight with the Da Vinci glow, will join Jupiter and Venus to form a bright celestial triangle in the morning sky. Don't miss it!
Realtime Planets Photo Gallery
[NASA video: A Good Reason to Wake Up at Dawn]
SOLAR ARCHIPELAGO: Sunspots are magnetic islands on the sun. Sunspot AR1520 is a complete archipelago. Scroll down to scan more than 200,000 miles of island chain:
Amateur astronomer Alan Friedman took the picture on July 10th from his backyard observatory in Buffalo, New York. "AR1520 is a tremendous archipelago and a wonderful target for backyard solar telescopes," he says.
The tangled magnetic canopy of the sunspot group, shown here in an extreme UV image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, harbors energy for strong solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate an 80% chance of M-class flares and a 15% chance of X-class flares during the next 24 hours. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Sunspot Photo Gallery
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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 11, 2012 there were 1319 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Mag. | Size |
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 |
1998 UO1 | Oct 4 | 60.1 LD | -- | 2.1 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 |