You are viewing the page for Dec. 11, 2012
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 298.2 km/sec
density: 3.6 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B3
1925 UT Dec11
24-hr: B5
1020 UT Dec11
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 11 Dec 12
None of the sunspots on the Earthside of the sun is actively flaring. Solar activity is low. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 49
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 11 Dec 2012

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 821 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days

Update 11 Dec 2012


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 104 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 11 Dec 2012

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.8 nT
Bz: 2.4 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2229 UT
Coronal Holes: 11 Dec 12
There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2012 Dec 11 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
CLASS X
01 %
01 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2012 Dec 11 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
10 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
20 %
MINOR
10 %
20 %
SEVERE
05 %
10 %
 
Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012
What's up in space
 

Listen to radar echoes from satellites and meteors, live on listener-supported Space Weather Radio.

 
Spaceweather Radio is on the air

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER--THIS WEEK! The annual Geminid Meteor Shower is set to peak on Dec. 13 and 14, 2012. The display, which is caused by an unusual 'rock comet,' could produce more than 100 meteors per hour during the dark hours before dawn this Thursday and Friday. [video] [meteor radar]

ASTEROID FLYBY: Newly-discovered asteroid 2012 XE54 is flying through the Earth-Moon system today approximately 230 thousand km (0.6 LD) from Earth. The space rock is about 36 meters wide, a little smaller than the Tunguska impactor that leveled 800 square miles of Siberian forest in 1908. Using a remote-controlled telescope in New Mexico, astronomers Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes photographed 2012 XE54 streaking among the stars on Dec. 11th:


Guido and Howes dedicate this image to the memory of their longtime friend and colleague Giovanni Sostero.

This asteroid will not hit Earth, but it is close enough, and thus bright enough, for amateur astronomers to track using backyard telescopes. When Guido and Howes photographed it this morning, it was shining at magnitude +13.

Astronomers monitoring the asteroid might have noticed an unusual eclipse during the early hours of Dec. 11th. According to calculations made by P. Tricarico, 2012 XE54 "will likely cross the Earth's shadow, causing a partial eclipse of the asteroid a few hours before reaching its minimum distance with the Earth. Asteroids eclipsing during an Earth flyby are relatively rare, with the first known case of asteroid 2008 TC3 which was totally eclipsed just one hour before entering Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in 2008, and asteroid 2012 KT42 experiencing both an eclipse and a transit during the same Earth flyby in 2012."

Stay tuned for updates.

ARCTIC LIGHTS: There was no geomagnetic storm last night, but around the Arctic Circle a geomagnetic storm is not required to produce auroras. Last night, photographer Mike Theiss was traveling along the Dempster Highway just north of Eagle Plains, Canada, when the sky erupted in color. The sign in the foreground marks the latitude of the Arctic Circle:

"It was insane," he says. "Lights danced all over the sky for 3 hours! I've never seen anything like it."

Theiss was located beneath Earth's auroral oval, a doughnut of light circling the North Pole where auroras sputter on and off even when geomagnetic storms are at low ebb. Displays like this could occur on any night of northern winter. Such auroras are all we can expect for the next few days as NOAA forecasters estimate a mere 5% chance of geomagnetic storms. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

COLORFUL STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS OVER EUROPE: When the sun set over the UK on Dec. 9th, sky watchers were stunned by an unexpected apparition of super-colorful stratospheric clouds. "They were amazing to see and a dream come true to photograph," reports Lesley Jennings of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. "There were all sorts of colors. I've never see the like before!" added Rachael Taylor also from Aberdeenshire. Nigel Feilden photographed this specimen from Inverurie, Scotland:

"These are nacreous clouds," explains atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Of all Earth's clouds they are most spectacular, and a very rare treat for skywatchers."

"For up to an hour after sunset or before dawn they glow like eerie electric discharges or gas jets in the darkening sky, their filmy shapes slowly curling and uncurling with intense shifting colors. They are composed of tiny ice crystals more than twice as high as ordinary clouds, 9-16 miles up, in the stratosphere and form at temperatures of minus 85 Celsius and below. The crystals are all of similar size and they diffract the high altitude sunlight to make the colours."

"Search for nacreous clouds at high latitudes (e.g., Scotland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Northern US) in winter and preferably downwind of mountains," Cowley advises. "They like stormy weather that perhaps creates gravity waves to loft the necessary moisture to make them upwards across the tropopause into the stratosphere. Once seen they are never forgotten!"

Realtime Nacreous Cloud Photo Gallery


Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011]

  Near Earth Asteroids
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 11, 2012 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2012 XE54
Dec 11
0.6 LD
36 m
2012 XL55
Dec 11
4.2 LD
17 m
2009 BS5
Dec 11
8.4 LD
15 m
4179 Toutatis
Dec 12
18 LD
2.7 km
2012 XM16
Dec 16
3.1 LD
31 m
2003 SD220
Dec 23
59.8 LD
1.8 km
1998 WT24
Dec 23
69.2 LD
1.1 km
2012 XM55
Dec 23
3.1 LD
12 m
2012 XP55
Dec 27
9.1 LD
67 m
1999 HA2
Feb 5
58 LD
1.3 km
3752 Camillo
Feb 12
57.5 LD
3.4 km
1999 YK5
Feb 15
49.1 LD
2.1 km
2012 DA14
Feb 15
0.09 LD
57 m
2009 AV
Feb 25
59.7 LD
1.0 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.
  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
©2010 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.