Did you miss the lunar eclipse? No problem. The Coca-Cola Science Center recorded it for you. Click here to play the movie. | | | GEOMAGNETIC UNREST: Earth's magnetic field is slightly unsettled as our planet passes through the outskirts of a solar wind stream. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% chance of geomagnetic storms as night falls on Mother's Day. Aurora alerts: text, voice MOTHER'S DAY CMEs MISS EARTH: A pair of bright coronal mass ejections (CMEs) billowed away from the eastern limb of the sun on May 11th, Mother's Day in the USA. The Solar and Heliospherc Observatory recorded the blasts: 
Both CMEs were propelled from the sun by unstable filaments of magnetism, which erupted in quick succession during the early hours of May 11th. The filament associated with CME#2 was connected to growing sunspot AR2058. This sunspot is turning toward Earth and could pose a threat for geoeffective eruptions in the days ahead. The CMEs of Mother's Day, however, should completely miss our planet. Solar flare alerts: text, voice Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery WILD SWx BALLOON LAUNCH: Yesterday, May 10th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus sent another space weather balloon to the stratosphere. The launch occurred in windy weather, which made the inflated balloon unusually difficult to control. In this video, listen to the reaction of the students as the balloon barely clears the roof of a house next-door to the launch site: 
In addition to its usual sensors for temperature, altitude, and cosmic radiation, the payload carried four colonies of halobacteria. The students are exposing these bacteria to Mars-like conditions at the edge of space in a continuing series of experiments to find out if terrestrial extremophiles could live on other planets. Stay tuned for updates. So far so good: They survived the launch! Stay tuned for updates after the payload is recovered. 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 May. 11, 2014, the network reported 9 fireballs.
(7 sporadics, 2 eta Aquariids) 
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 May 11, 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 | | 
