They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. | | |
SPACE ROCKS FOUND: Meteorite hunters have found fragments of the minivan-sized asteroid that exploded over California on April 22nd. Meteorites landed in the vicinity of Sutter's Mill in El Dorado County, CA, the same place gold was discovered in 1848, triggering the California Gold Rush. Astronomers plan to study the fragments to learn more about the asteroid, specificially its composition and origin. News reports: #1, #2, #3.
AURORA WATCH: Earth's magnetic field is reverberating from three days of buffeting by a high-speed solar wind stream. Since April 23rd, auroras have been photographed in more than a dozen US states including Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, and of course Alaska. Kameron Barge sends this picture from the North Fork of the Flathead River in Glacier National Park, Montana:
More auroras may be in the offing. A minor CME is en route to Earth, due to arrive on April 26th. The impact of the cloud will add to the ongoing effect of the solar wind, boosting the chances of another display. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% to 30% chance of geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours. Aurora alerts: text, phone.
more images: from Zoltan Kenwell east of Edmonton, Alberta Canada; from Stephan Hoglund of Grand Marais Minesota; from Janusz Jakub Kuc of Horn Head, Co. Donegal, Ireland; from Tyler Scholle of Point no Point, Washington; from Kari Zoellner of Wasilla, Alaska
FARSIDE BLAST: For more than a week, solar activity has been low. Today, around 0600 UT, an active region on the farside of the sun broke the calm with a powerful eruption. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a massive cloud of plasma flying over the southwestern limb:
A coronal mass ejection emerging from the blast site will certainly miss Earth, but it might hit Mercury. Stay tuned for further analysis of the cloud's trajectory.
Would you like to inspect the farside of the sun and see the active region that exploded? Download the 3D Sun app for iPhone or Android.
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 April 26, 2012 there were 1287 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 |