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. | | |
DELAYED IMPACT? A CME expected to hit Earth's magnetic field on Friday the 13th did not show up. Either it missed or, as NOAA forecasters suspect, the storm cloud is still en route. A glancing blow on June 14th could spark a G1-class geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: text, voice
DEPARTING SUNSPOTS: Two sunspots that have threatened Earth with flares during the past week will soon be gone. AR2080 and AR2085 are about to disappear over the sun's western limb. "These two amazing sunspot groups are saying goodbye with a splendid array of prominences, filaments and minor flare activity," reports Sergio Castillo who sends this parting shot from his backyard observatory in Corona, CA:
Although these sunspots are leaving, they still pose a threat to Earth. Both of them are well-connected to our planet by the sun's spiraling magnetic field. If one of them erupts this weekend--a distinct possibility--energetic particles could be funneled by magnetic forces back toward Earth, causing a solar proton storm.
Meanwhile, another active sunspot is not leaving: AR2087 is almost directly facing Earth and it has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any eruption from this sunspot would hit Earth head on. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of X-flares on June 14th. Solar flare alerts: text, voice
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
HALOBACTERIA SET A NEW HIGH-ALTITUDE RECORD: Astrobiologsts have long wondered if halobacteria, a terrestrial extremophile with a special talent for shielding itself from UV radiation, could survive on the planet Mars. To find the answer, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been flying halobacteria onboard balloons to the top of Earth's atmosphere. During their latest flight on June 7th, the microbes set a high-altitude record for their species. Here they are 116,524 feet above the Sierras of central California:
The previous record set by the students just last month was 112,000 feet, so this was nearly a mile higher than before.
During the June 7th flight, onboard sensors registered temperatures as low as -60 C, air pressures of 1% sea level, and cosmic radiation levels 25 times Earth-normal. Those are conditions akin to the planet Mars. Three hours after they were launched, the bacteria landed in the Death Valley National Park: snapshot. This means they experienced a 100 C swing in temperature, a 100-fold change in air pressure, and a 25-fold surge of radiation.
The students have already shown that halobacteria can survive trips like this. Now they are working to determine survival rates, growth curves, and to look at possible mutations among the halo-survivors. Results could contribute to an important body of knowledge about the prospects for life on Mars -- past, present, and future.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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Realtime Meteor 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. 14, 2014, the network reported 3 fireballs.
( 3 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 14, 2014 there were 1483 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Size |
2013 AG69 | Jul 8 | 2.7 LD | 15 m |
2011 PU1 | Jul 17 | 7.9 LD | 43 m |
2002 JN97 | Aug 2 | 61.4 LD | 2.0 km |
2001 RZ11 | Aug 17 | 34.2 LD | 2.2 km |
2013 WT67 | Aug 17 | 16.1 LD | 1.2 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 |