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TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN: Today, the Moon will pass directly in front of the sun, producing a total eclipse visible from the northeast corner of Australia. Totality commences at 12:38 pm PDT (06:38 am Queensland time). Monitor the realtime gallery for photos:
Realtime Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
CME IMPACT: An interplanetary shock wave (probably the leading edge of a CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on Nov. 12th at approximately 2300 UT, filling skies over northern Scandinavia with bright auroras. Oskar Pettersson sends this picture from LuleƄ, Sweden:
"Half of the sky was green and I stayed out for 5 hours observing the dancing light befor heading home," says Pettersson.
More auroras are in the offing as Earth passes through the magnetized wake of the CME. Our planet's polar magnetic field is currently unsettled, and this could be a sign that storms are brewing at high-latitudes. Stay tuned for updates. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
EASTERN ACTIVITY: A phalanx of sunspots is rotating over the sun's eastern limb, and this could bring an uptick in solar activity. "Today the sun looks alive again with lots of sunspots and magnetic filaments rising over the sun's eastern edge," reports amateur astronomer Sergio Castillo, who sends this picture from Inglewood, California:
Castillo took the picture using a solar telescope capped with a Ca K filter tuned to the light of singly-ionized calcium. Ca K ("calcium K") filters are particularly good at revealing the magnetic froth around active sunspots; pictured above is sunspot complex 1614-1615.
"These active regions look great," says Castillo, "but nothing is going to be more amazing than today's total solar eclipse that is going to be visible in Australia. I expect to see amazing images from astronomers in that location."
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 November 13, 2012 there were 1350 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 |