When is the best time to see auroras? Where is the best place to go? And how do you photograph them? These questions and more are answered in a new book, Northern Lights - a Guide, by Pal Brekke & Fredrik Broms. | | |
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.
GIANT FILAMENT ERUPTS, PRODUCES CME: A giant filament of solar magnetism, which amateur astronomers have been monitoring for more than a week, erupted yesterday. Click to view a movie of the event as recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Astronomers had been bracing for the possibility that the filament would collapse, causing a Hyder flare when it landed on the solar surface. Instead, it erupted and hurled part of itself into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded a CME emerging from the blast site: CME movie.
The CME billowed away from the sun at 520 km/s (1.2 million mph). Although that sounds fast, it is actually slower than the average CME. This makes sense because the explosion itself was very slow. This tiime-lapse movie is nearly 24 hours long.
Coronagraph images show that the explosion was not squarely Earth-directed. Most of the CME will sail south of the sun-Earth line. Nevertheless, there could be a glancing blow on or about June 7th, possibly sparking polar geomagnetic storms. Aurora alerts: text, voice
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
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
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. 5, 2014, the network reported 64 fireballs.
( 64 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 5, 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 |