On April 15th there will be a total eclipse of the Moon. Got clouds? No problem. The event will be broadcast live on the web by the Coca-Cola Science Center. | | | A NEW MOON NAMED 'PEGGY': NASA's Cassini spacecraft has photographed a small icy object forming at the edge of Saturn's rings. Informally named "Peggy," it may be a new moon caught in the act of genesis. Get the full story from Science@NASA. TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: Earlier today, April 15th, all of the sunrises and sunsets on Earth got together and painted the Moon red. In other words, there was a total lunar eclipse. "The Moon turned a coppery orange during mid-totality," says Steve Engleman who sends this picture Richardson, Texas: During the early hours of April 15th, the Moon spent more than three hours gliding through the shadow of Earth. The Moon turned red during the transit because the core of our planet's shadow is red. Why red? A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb. If you missed it, don't worry. Three more lunar eclipses are in the offing. Get the full story from Science@NASA. Realtime Eclipse Photo Gallery FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT: Scarcely 24 hours ago, sunspot AR2036 didn't exist. Now it is three times as wide as the planet Earth. Click to view a movie from the Solar Dynamics Observatory showing the sunspot's almost-explosive growth: This new sunspot has a beta-gamma magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares, Earth-directed because the sunspot is almost directly facing our planet. The region's rapid growth could destabilize the field, making an eruption even more likely. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of M-flares and a 5% chance of X-flares on April 15th. Solar flare alerts: text, voice Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Realtime Mars Photo Gallery Realtime Comet 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 Apr. 13, 2014, the network reported 6 fireballs. (6 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 April 15, 2014 there were 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 | |