Did you miss the lunar eclipse? No problem. The Coca-Cola Science Center recorded it for you. Click here to play the movie. |
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MOSTLY QUIET: Solar activity is low. There are only a few sunspots facing Earth, and none of them is strongly flaring. NOAA forecasters put the odds of an X-flare today at no more than 1%. Aurora alerts: text, voice
FEAR AND DREAD: The moons of Mars are so small, some astronomers believe they are captured asteroids. Named Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Dread), the dimunutive satellites average 17 km in diameter and are rarely seen in pictures of Mars. On April 20th, astrophotographer Peter Rosén attempted to capture both. Rate of success: 50%. Click to view his animation of Deimos in orbit:
"I knew from many unsuccessful attempts in the past that photographing Phobos and Deimos is not an easy task due to the glare from Mars," says Rosén. "I rotated my 10-inch Newtonian telescope so the moons would not be positioned in the cross of light from the spider vanes. Phobos could not be identified as it was inside the overexposed area, but Deimos was clearly shown on 2 of the exposures. This two-frame animation shows Deimos in orbit. Fortunately Deimos is staying on track :-) I also captured an image of Mars at the beginning of the session and inserted it as a reference of size and orientation."
Realtime
Mars Photo Gallery
PEEP-O-NAUTS TAKE RISKY TRIP TO THE EDGE OF SPACE: On April 20th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a pair of suborbital helium balloons to the stratosphere. One payload carried a radiation sensor to measure the effects of the Easter geomagnetic storm on Earth's upper atmosphere. The other payload carried a colony of halobacteria in an experiment to find out if the extremophiles could live at the edge of space. In honor of the holiday, the students launched some peeps as halobacteria companions. As this movie shows, it's risky being a peep-o-naut:
The near-miss only 2000 ft. above the launch site almost brought an explosive end to the mission. Fortunately, the two balloons carried on to the stratosphere, gathering data on the solar storm in progress during the flight. Here is what peeps look like at the edge of space. Later, the peeps and halobacteria parachuted to Earth, landing in a tree in the Inyo Mountains of central California. Student adventurers recovered the payload and they are studying the data now.
Realtime
Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime
Comet Photo Gallery
Every night, a network
of NASA
all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United
States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software
maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office
calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth
in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics.
Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.
On Apr. 23, 2014, the network reported 20 fireballs.
(11 April Lyrids, 9 sporadics)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]
On Apr. 22, 2014, the network reported 25 fireballs.
(19 sporadics, 6 April Lyrids)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]
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 24, 2014 there were 1466
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 |
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