Listen to radar echoes from satellites and meteors, live on listener-supported Space Weather Radio. | | |
FATHER'S DAY AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: Would you like to send your dad to the Edge of Space? He can't go, but his picture can. Using a suborbital helium balloon, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus will fly the image of your choice to 120,000 ft and photograph it against the curved limb of the Earth. The returned photo (example) makes a great Father's Day gift. The flight fee is $49.95, and profits support student research. Contact Dr. Tony Phillips for details.
BROKEN HALO: It is well known that ice crystals in high clouds can catch the light of the sun, bending its rays to produce beautiful circular halos in the sky. Last month, Alan Clark of Calgary, Alberta, saw such a halo, but it was strangely broken:
"I saw this unusual halo on May 17th," says Clark. "It appears that a sharp transition between clouds of significantly different ice crystal types crossed in front of the Sun, [producing jagged edges around the circle]."
To investigate this possibility, Clark simulated the display using the HaloSim program written by atmospheric optics experts Les Cowley and Michael Shroeder. The results are shown in the upper right, above. "I used different crystal types in the upper and lower parts of this halo," explains Clark. "In the simulation, one cloud consisted of 30% of horizontal hexagonal columnar crystals and 70% hexagonal flat-plate crystals with a wide dispersion of angles of their faces to the horizontal. The other cloud contained hexagonal columnar crystals with their axes distributed randomly."
The computer-generated halo was a good match to what Clark saw. "I agree entirely with Alan's interpretation," notes Les Cowley. "It is a very unusual observation indeed. The upper halo is a fragment of a circumscribed halo generated by the horizontal column crystals. The lower halo is a fragment of the familiar 22-degree halo from randomly oriented crystals."
Look for more unusual sights in the realtime photo gallery:
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
SPACE STATION FLYBYS: North Americans, if you're outside after dark and you notice a bright light slowly gliding overhead, you've likely seen the International Space Station. This week and next the behemoth spacecraft is making a series of passes over the USA and Canada--in some places several times a day. G Taylor spotted the ISS rising above Half Dome in California's Yosemite National Park on June 1st:
"This was a lucky shot," says Taylor. " I was photographing Half Dome at the time I knew the Space Station would be making an appearance... but I didn't even know if I had the camera in the right direction. The ISS appeared just after 10pm. A sliver of a moon lit up the valley."
Taylor was under dark skies when he saw the ISS, but you don't have to be. The space station is so bright, it is visible even from light-polluted cities. Check Spaceweather.com's Simple Satellite Tracker to find out when it will fly over your hometown. ISS flyby alerts: text, voice
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
GIANT SOLAR FILAMENT: An enormous filament of magnetism is stretching across the sun's equator today. In this image taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory during the early hours of June 4th, arrows trace the structure across more than 500,000 km of solar terrain:
The filament is filled with dark plasma held aloft by magnetic forces. Such filaments are often unstable. If this one collapses and hits the stellar surface below, the result could be a "Hyder flare"--a type of solar flare that occurs without the aid of a sunspot. Solar flare alerts: text, voice
Because the filament is so long, it makes an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Take a look at this panoramic snapshot taken by Sergio Castillo of Inglewood, CA, on June 3rd. "The sun is coming to life with this giant filament snaking across the solar surface," he says. "It's a beautiful view."
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora 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 Jun. 4, 2014, the network reported 8 fireballs.
( 8 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]
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 June 4, 2014 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 |