AURORA ALERTS: Did you miss the Northern Lights? Next time get a wake-up call from Space Weather PHONE | | |
AURORA WATCH: High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. A solar wind stream is heading for Earth, and NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of geomagnetic activitty when it arrives during the next 24-48 hours.
AUTUMN SUNRISE: Today in Veszprem, Hungary, photographer Monika Landy-Gyebnar woke up early and went outside at dawn to photograph the first sunrise of autumn. "The distant valley fog was painted pink and orange by the colors of the rising sun," she says. "Later, when I was looking closely at the pictures, I also found a couple of sunspots."
Sunspots 1108 and 1109 have grown so large, they can now be seen without the amplification of a solar telescope. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of an M-flare from one of these behemoths in the next 24 hours, and that could lead to fall colors of a different kind--Northern Lights. "Autumn is my favourite season and it seems to be getting off to a good start!" says Landy-Gyebnar.
AUTUMN MOONRISE: Last night's full moon was the "Harvest Moon," the first full moon of northern autumn. It arrived on the very night of the autumnal equinox, rising at sunset to chase the summer sun away:
"The sight of this Super Harvest Moon beaming through the trees, inflated to gargantuan proportions by the Moon illusion, made me feel like howling," says photographer Vasilis Wooseas of Greece. Onlookers elsewhere felt the same way. Browse the links below for examples.
more images: from Doug Zubenel of De Soto, Kansas; from Jan Lameer at Amsterdam harbour, the Netherlands; from Dave Lengyel of Brighton township, Ohio; from Monika Landy-Gyebnar of Veszprem, Hungary; from Malcolm Park of Columbus, Ontario; from Bob Collins of Ormond Beach, FL; from Dusty Hicks of Nowata , Oklahoma; from Adrian New of San Antonio, Texas; from Robert Schalck of North Bend, Oregon
Sept. 2010 Northern Lights Gallery
[previous Septembers: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2000]
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 September 23, 2010 there were 1145 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 |
| from the National Solar Data Analysis Center |