Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift. | | |
CME IMPACT: A CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Nov. 26th at approximately 0500 UT (Nov. 25th @ 9 PM PST). The weak impact did not cause a geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
MORNING CONJUNCTION: As dawn begins on Tuesday morning, look southeast to find Venus and Saturn less than 1° apart in the constellation Virgo. Venus is very bright, Saturn much less so. A small telescope will reveal the rings of Saturn and the gibbous phase of Venus. [sky map]
Dennis Fitts and John Stetson photographed the two planets converging over South Portland, Maine on Nov. 26th:
"The lighthouse in the foreground is Bug Light," explains Stetson. "Seeing the conjunction was a nice way to start the day on Dennis's birthday. This morning, the 26th, Saturn and Venus were separated by 0.8 degrees; tomorrow, the 27th, these planets will be separated by 0.7 degrees."
Realtime Conjunction Photo Gallery
PRESTO! A HUGE SUNSPOT: Yesterday, sunspot AR1620 was barely visible. Today it is a behemoth wider than a half-dozen planet Earths. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the sunspot's rapid growth in a period of less than 20 hours on Nov. 25-26:
AR1620 has a beta-gamma magnetic field that harbors energy for strong flares. Because of the sunspot's proximty to the center of the solar disk, Earth would be in the line of fire of any eruptons. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class solar flares in the next 24 hours. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Realtime Eclipse Photo Gallery
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[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 November 26, 2012 there were 1353 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 |