Did you sleep through the auroras of Dec. 14th? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.
NASA WANTS YOU: NASA astronomers have spent the last year watching meteoroids hit the Moon and explode. Now they're about to release software that would allow amateur astronomers do the same thing. The goal is to create a worldwide network of "lunar meteor" observers. Get the full story from Science@NASA.
FIRST AURORAS: A solar wind stream hit Earth on Jan. 2nd, causing the first auroras of the New Year to light up the Arctic. "I was taking photos of a waterfall in the moonlight, when suddenly the sky turned green," says Gunnlaugur Juliusson of Thingvellir, Iceland:
Photo details: Canon 20D, 13s exposure, ISO 800
More auroras are possible tonight. Earth remains inside the solar wind stream, and it is causing mild geomagnetic storms from Scandinavia to Alaska.
HOT COMET: Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) is plunging toward the Sun. It won't hit, but at closest approach on Jan. 13th it will be only 0.17 AU away--much closer than Mercury (0.38 AU). When the hot comet emerges later this month it could be brighter than a 1st-magnitude star. Or not. No one knows what will happen.
At sunrise this morning in Vallentuna, Sweden, P-M Heden was able to photograph the comet through a break in the clouds:
Details: Canon Digital Rebel XT, f/5.6, iso 100, 2s exp
"I had a beautiful view," he says. "I saw the comet with my naked eyes just before the sun made the sky too bright."
"The tail was a beautiful sight in binoculars," adds Haakon Dahle of Fjellhamar, Norway, who took this picture, a 1 second exposure at 800 ASA. "I also saw the comet with the naked eye," he confirms.
Soon, the comet will be too close to the Sun to see--unless you're SOHO. From Jan. 11th to 15th, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory will monitor the comet-Sun encounter using its onboard coronagraph. A date of note is Jan. 14th when Comet McNaught passes less than a degree from the planet Mercury. Join SOHO for a ringside seat.
More information: finder chart, ephemeris, 3D orbit.