They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. | | |
EERIE EARTHSONG: A NASA spacecraft has recorded eerie-sounding radio emissions coming from our own planet. These beautiful "songs of Earth" could, ironically, be responsible for the proliferation of deadly electrons in the Van Allen Belts. [video] [audio]
INCOMING SOLAR STORM CLOUD: Magnetic fields around sunspot 1577 erupted on Sept. 28th, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) almost directly toward Earth. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the cloud as it raced away from the sun faster than 2.2 million mph:
NOAA forecasters estimate a 50% chance of strong geomagnetic storms around the poles on Sept 30th when the cloud reaches Earth. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, which might be intense enough to see in spite of the full moonlight. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
HARVEST MOON: This weekend's full Moon is the Harvest Moon, the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox. Before electric lights, farmers working after sunset relied on the light of the Harvest Moon to help them gather ripening autumn crops. Now it's just a pretty sight. Look east for the Harvest moonrise on Saturday night.
Photographer Göran Strand sends this picture of a "Harvest Moon halo" from Frösön, Sweden:
The 22-degree halo was caused by harvest moonlight shining through ice crystals in the high, thin clouds over Frösön. "It was a beautiful halo, very intense," says Strand.
More pictures of the Harvest Moon may be found in the realtime gallery:
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 September 29, 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 |