Hang the Transit of Venus on your wall! Hubble-quality images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory are now available as metallic posters in the Space Weather Store. | | |
DOUBLE ASTEROID FLYBY: A pair of big, near-Earth asteroids will fly by the Earth-Moon system on Sept. 14th. 2012 QG42 is a 300 meter space rock that comes from the vicinity of Mars; it will pass 2.8 million km (7.4 LD) from Earth. 2012 QC8 is even bigger, about 1.1 km in diameter, hailing from the orbit of Jupiter; it will pass about 8.7 million km (22.7 LD) from Earth. Astronomers monitoring the incoming space rocks say they are glowing like 14th-15th magnitude stars, which makes them good targets for advanced amateur telescopes. Ephemerides: 2012 QG42, 2012 QC8.
SOLAR CONJUNCTION OF MERCURY: An astronomical conjunction is underway this week--but don't bother looking up because it is hidden in broad daylight. Mercury is passing only a degree and a half from the sun. Using an opaque disk to block the sun's glare, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) took this picture of the close encounter on Sept. 10th:
In the weeks ahead, Mercury will move away from the sun, emerging from the glare in mid-October to assume the role of Evening Star in the western sky at sunset. Until then, it takes a coronagraph to see the coming and goings of the innermost planet. Join SOHO for a ringside seat.
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SUBORBITAL CHICKEN: On Wednesday Sept. 5th a group of California high school students celebrated the 35th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1 in an unusual way: They launched a rubber chicken. The popular NASA mascot Camilla traveled to the top of our planet's atmosphere on board a suborbital helium balloon. Here is a snapshot from an altitude of approximately 120,000 feet:
Camilla is wearing headphones. Why? Because she's listening to the Golden iPod, the modern-day successor to the Golden Records bolted to the side of the Voyager probes. The students are updating the Golden Records with 21st-century content that the students would like to send into the cosmos. This was just a test flight; in 2013, they hope to launch the Golden iPod into Earth orbit onboard a CubeSat they are building.
At the apex of the Sept. 5th suborbital flight, the helium balloon popped as planned and Camilla parachuted back to Earth. The students, who call their group "Earth to Sky," recovered Camilla and the Golden iPod from a remote landing site in the Nevada wilderness on Sept. 6th. Now they are all enjoying music that has been to the doorstep of space itself.
More information about the flight and the recovery expedition may be found at Earth to Sky's Facebook page. Students who wish to participate in the Golden iPod project can submit their ideas for the iPod's playlist at goldenipod.org.
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[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011]
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 September 10, 2012 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Mag. | Size |
2012 QG42 | Sep 14 | 7.4 LD | -- | 310 m |
2012 QC8 | Sep 14 | 22.7 LD | -- | 1.1 km |
1998 UO1 | Oct 4 | 60.1 LD | -- | 2.1 km |
2005 GQ21 | Oct 12 | 77 LD | -- | 1.0 km |
1998 ST49 | Oct 18 | 28.7 LD | -- | 1.3 km |
1991 VE | Oct 26 | 34 LD | -- | 1.1 km |
2001 CV26 | Oct 30 | 68 LD | -- | 2.4 km |
2007 PA8 | Nov 5 | 16.8 LD | -- | 2.4 km |
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 |