They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. |
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SUNSET
PLANETS: When the sun goes down
tonight, step outside and look west. Venus and the
crescent Moon are shining together through the twilight
glow of sunset. It's a nice way to end the day.
Images: #1,
#2,
#3,
#4,
#5,
#6,
#7.
SUBSIDING
STORM: A geomagnetic storm caused
by Monday's M9-class solar flare and Tuesday's CME
impact is over. The aurora watch is cancelled for
all but higher latitudes around the Arctic Circle.
[aurora
gallery]
STORM
RECAP: As expected, a CME hit Earth's
magnetic field on Jan. 24th at approximately 1500
UT (10 am EST). The impact produced a G1-class
geomagnetic storm and bright
auroras around the Arctic Circle. As the storm
crested, Göran Strand of Östersund, Sweden, took
a panoramic photo and wrapped it 360-degrees to
create this composition, which he calls Planet
Aurora:
Even veteran aurora watchers were
impressed. "This was one of the best Northern
Lights displays that I've ever seen, and I mean
ever in over 5000 hours on the ice,"
says Andy Keen of Inari, Finland. "It was,
in short, truly
spectacular and something that will live with
me for a lifetime." In the Abisko National
Park of Sweden, aurora tour guide Chad Blakely contributed
a similar report: "Eight tourists and I were
treated to one of the most
wonderful displays I have ever seen. The auroras
began as we were eating dinner and continued into
the very early hours of the morning. Words can not
describe the excitement we shared."
The storm subsided
as it crossed the Atlantic and petered out almost
completely by the time it reached North America.
Only observers in Scandinavia, Iceland and Greenland
witnessed the full display:
"We went out with snowmobiles
to wait for the incoming storm," says photographer
Antti Pietikäinen of Muonio in the Finnish Lapland.
"The show started slowly, but after 15mins
the landscape was green! This was the first time
for Thomas (pictured above) to see the Northern
Lights. He was very happy." Aurora
alerts: text,
voice.
UPDATED:
January
2012 Aurora Gallery
[previous Januaries: 2010,
2009,
2008,
2007, 2005,
2004]
Comet
Lovejoy Gallery
[previous comets: McNaught,
Holmes,
Lulin,
Tuttle,
Ikeya-Zhang]
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
January 25, 2012 there were 1272
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 |
