Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift. |
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CHRISTMAS NIGHT:
The Moon and Jupiter are converging
for a heavenly sky show on Dec. 25, 2012. Got a
telescope? Something is happening on Jupiter that
makes it an extra-interesting target for backyard
optics: video.
SOLSTICE SUNSET:
On Dec. 21st, the northern winter solstice, Lauri
Kangas of Ontario, Canada, watched the sun disappear
into the longest night of the year. "I'm glad
the
world didn't end yesterday as it was a beautiful
view!" he says.
"The lighting was interesting as the snow
appeared bluish in colour and the sky was a warm
yellow-gray," he adds. "The clouds filtered
the sun enough to clearly show its circular disk
without it being too bright."
Contrary to mistaken reports of a Maya doom-prophecy,
the sun came back up again today, Dec. 22nd, the
first day of the 14th
Bak'tun on the Maya Long Count Calendar and
the first day of northern winter 2012.
Realtime
Space Weather Photo Gallery
SOLAR
SPACE TELESCOPE SEES EARTH: NASA's
STEREO-B
spacecraft can now see our home planet in its HI1
telescope. HI stands for "Heliospheric Imager."
The telescope is designed to track gusts of solar
wind and solar storms all the way from the sun to
Earth. This image, captured on Dec. 17th, shows
Earth and the edge of the sun's corona in a single
snapshot:
Earth is moving into the Heliospheric
Imager's field of view because the twin STEREO probes
are moving around the farside of the sun, which
gives them a better view of the sun-Earth system:
diagram.
Soon Earth will be visible in STEREO-A's HI1 telescope
and eventually in the coronagraphs as well.
The STEREO probes have two wider-field heliospheric
imagers, too: HI2-A and HI2-B. Earth has been visible
in the HI2 telescopes since launch in 2007, but
this is the first time our planet has been visible
in either of the HI1 telescopes, which can see regions
of space closer to the sun. This development will
give researchers a better view of solar
storms engulfing Earth and could lead to improvements
in space weather forecasting.
FARSIDE
SOLAR ACTIVITY: The Earthside of
the sun remains quiet, but the farside is growing
restless. During the late hours of Dec. 20th and
continuing through Dec. 21st, the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) has recorded a series of CMEs
flying over the solar limb:
The source of the clouds appears to
be multiple blast sites on the farside of the sun.
This means Earth is not in the line of fire. The
increasing pace of farside activity, however, suggests
that the Earthside might not be far behind. Stay
tuned for changes. Solar
flare alerts: text,
voice.
Realtime
Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime
Aurora Photo Gallery
Realtime
Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[previous years: 2003,
2004,
2005,
2006,
2007,
2008,
2009,
2011]
