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. | | |
LUNAR IMPACT SITE NAMED AFTER SALLY RIDE: NASA has named the site where two spacecraft hit the Moon on Dec. 17th in honor of the late astronaut Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the GRAIL mission team. Get the full story from Science@NASA.
EMERGING SUNSPOT: Solar activity has been low for weeks. Would adding a new sunspot change the situation? The answer is emerging over the sun's NE limb, shown here in a Dec. 18th photo from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
The region is crackling with low-level C-class solar flares, which does not signal an significant uptick in solar activity. However, this sunspot group has only been visible for a few hours, so it might have potential for greater eruptions. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
GEMINID METEOR RECAP: Earth has exited the debris stream of rock comet 3200 Phaethon, which brings an end to the annual Geminid meteor shower. On peak night, Dec. 14th, worldwide observers counted more than 100 meteors per hour, many of them fireballs (meteors brighter than Venus). David Clapp photographed this one streaking over the icy waters of Kirkjufell, Iceland:
"This was one amazing moment," says Clapp.
Note: Although the meteor appears to be flying mostly-above the auroras, it is more likely below. Geminid meteors burn up approximately 80 km above Earth's surface, while auroras stretch from 100 km to 500 km high.
Pictures of Geminids are still pouring in. Browse the photo gallery to see the most popular photos submitted so far:
"Most Popular" Geminid Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora 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 December 18, 2012 there were 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 |