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JUPITER AT OPPOSITION: Tonight, Dec. 2-3, Jupiter is at opposition--that is, directly opposite the sun. It rises at sunset and soars overhead at midnight. There is no better time to look at the giant planet, because this is the closest opposition of Jupiter until the year 2021. [more]
THE SCALE OF AMAZING: A slow but dense solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 1st, igniting bright auroras around parts of the Arctic Circle. "Wow! On the scale of amazing, the sky went from 0 to 100 in only five minutes," " says Fredrik Broms, who photographed the lights over Kvaløya, Norway:
"The sky has been clear for several days without a trace of any auroras here in the north, but tonight all this changed in an instant," he adds. "I witnessed one of the most powerful coronas in a long while with an exceptionally distinct band of purple-pink from excited nitrogen molecules at the lower edge. A wonderful start of December!"
More auroras could be in the offing as Earth transits this stream of solar wind, which is flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% chance of high-latitude geomagnetic activity on Dec. 2nd. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
RECTANGULAR SUNSPOT GROUP: Sunspot complex 1623-1625 has four dark cores that form a rectangle more than half-a-dozen Earths wide. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the shape on Dec. 1st:
The quartet has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any eruptions this weekend would likely be geoeffective as the sunspot group is turning to face Earth. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
Realtime Space Weather 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 December 2, 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 |