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. |
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INCOMING
CME (UPDATED): On May 11th at 23:54
UT, a coronal mass ejection raced away from the
sun faster than 1000 km/s. The fast-moving cloud
will deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic
field on May 14th around 14:30 UT, according to
a revised
forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard
Space Weather Lab. Mars is also in the line of fire.
Magnetic storm alerts:
text,
phone.
SUNSET
OVER PARIS: Huge sunspot AR1476
poses a threat for strong solar flares, but for
the past two days the so-called "active region"
has been mostly quiet. What the sunspot lacks in
drama, however, it more than makes up for in beauty.
Consider this photo of last night's sunset over
Paris:
"Shooting from the Bridge of
Concorde, I captured the sunspot setting behind
the Eiffel Tower," says photographer VegaStar
Carpentier. The light of the low-hanging sun was
perfectly dimmed for a 1/1000s exposure @ ISO 400.
"I used a Canon EOS 1000D."
The quiet is probably temporary. NOAA
forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class
flares and a 20% chance of X-flares
during the next 24 hours.
more images: from
the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project of
Atlanta, GA; from
Luis Argerich of Buenos Aires, Argentina; from
Eduard Garcia Ribera of Ager, Lleida, Catalonia;
from
Andy Devey of Sorbas, Spain; from
Vasilis Wooseas of Greece, Amvrakikos Wetlands
National Park; from
Giuseppe Petricca of Pisa, Tuscany, Italy; from
Catalin Fus of Krakow, Poland
SPACESHIP
IN THE SUN: The sunspot number
briefly jumped yesterday when a winged silhouette
crossed the solar disk over Hampshire, UK. James
West was watching the sun with a solar-filtered
telescope when the transit occured:
"The International Space Station
passed right by giant sunspot AR1476," says
West. "The sky was partly cloudy but I caught
the transit anyway."
The sunspot-spaceship encounter was
no surprise to West. It had been predicted beforehand
by CalSky.org. Readers who wish to take this kind
of photo should check CalSky for transit
predictions and read West's observing
tips. A safe solar observing system might also
come in handy: Space
Weather Store.
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
May 12, 2012 there were 1287
potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss
Distance |
Mag. |
Size |
| 2012 JU |
May 13 |
0.5 LD |
-- |
13 m |
| 2010 KK37 |
May 19 |
2.3 LD |
-- |
31 m |
| 4183 Cuno |
May 20 |
47.4 LD |
-- |
5.7 km |
| 2002 VX94 |
May 26 |
72.8 LD |
-- |
1.1 km |
| 2002 AC |
Jun 16 |
62.2 LD |
-- |
1.2 km |
| 1999 BJ8 |
Jun 16 |
68.8 LD |
-- |
1.1 km |
| 2005 GO21 |
Jun 21 |
17.1 LD |
-- |
2.2 km |
| 2003 KU2 |
Jul 15 |
40.3 LD |
-- |
1.3 km |
| 2004 EW9 |
Jul 16 |
46.8 LD |
-- |
2.1 km |
| 2002 AM31 |
Jul 22 |
13.7 LD |
-- |
1.0 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.
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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 |
