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. |
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CMEs
MISS EARTH: The Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) has observed at least three CMEs
billowing
away from the sun during the last 24 hours.
However, none of the clouds are heading for Earth.
The source of the explosions appears to be on the
far side of the sun. Aurora
alerts: text,
voice.
AUTUMN
LIGHTS: Northern autumn is only
two days away--and that means it's aurora
season. For reasons researchers don't fully
understand, the days around equinoxes are the best
times to see Northern Lights. Indeed, the Arctic
Circle is glowing. Last night, Ole C. Salomonsen
photographed the ongoing display from Tromsø, Norway:
"The sky was full of awesome
auroras in magnifcent shapes and colors," says
Salomonsen. "I also saw a magnificent blue
fireball streaking through the lights above my favorite
mountain Otertinden. It was the biggest fireball
I have ever caught on camera. What a great photographic
moment for me!"
More scenes like this are in the offing.
NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% to 30% chance of
strong polar geomagnetic storms for the next three
nights as a series of solar wind streams gently
buffet Earth's magnetic field.
Aurora alerts: text,
voice.
Realtime
Aurora Photo Gallery
DISAPPEARING
ASTEROID: More than a week after
amateur astronomers witnessed an explosion in the
cloudtops of Jupiter more powerful than an atomic
bomb, no debris has appeared at the blast site.
"I took a picture of Jupiter on Sept. 15th
using the same telescope that I used to observe
the brilliant fireball flash above Jupiter's clouds
on the morning of Sept. 10th," reports Dan
Petersen of Racine, Wisconsin, the man who saw the
explosion first. "This photo shows that five
days after the explosion there was still no signature
debris cloud near 'ground zero.'"
The absense of debris suggests that
the source of the explosion, probably an asteroid,
was small. Studies
show that Jupiter is a frequent target for 10-meter
class space rock, and this is almost certainly another
example of Jupiter getting hit. The giant planet
absorbed the explosion and swallowed the remains
of the asteroid whole.
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 20, 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.
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The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
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Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
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3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
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Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
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from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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the
underlying science of space weather |
