Listen to radar echoes from satellites and meteors, live on listener-supported Space Weather Radio. | | | METEOR SHOWER PEAKING: The International Meteor Organization is reporting Geminid rates between 100 and 200 per hour (ZHR) on Dec. 14th. This means the shower is peaking. Check the realtime photo gallery for Geminid photos from around the world. And if it's dark where you are, be alert for meteors! [sky map] [meteor radar] Last night, NASA's network of all-sky meteor cameras detected 67 Geminid fireballs over the United States. One of them flew over the New Mexico observatory of amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft. Click to see--and hear--the fireball: The soundtrack of Ashcraft's fireball movie is the echo of a distant TV transmission bouncing off the ionized trail of the disintegrating meteoroid. "By radio I could tell there was a strong display of meteors all through the night," says Ashcraft. "We were lucky that some Geminid fireballs appeared through holes in our cloudy skies." Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery INCOMING CMES, CHANCE OF STORMS: Yesterday, December 12th, a pair of magnetic filaments on the sun erupted in quick succession between 0300 UT and 0630 UT. The explosions hurled a pair of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into space. SOHO recorded the clouds racing away from the sun at approximately 1.1 million mph (500 km/s): Although neither explosion was squarely Earth-directed, the two clouds could deliver glancing blows to Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 14th or (more likely) the 15th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the clouds arrive. Aurora alerts: text, voice Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery EDGE OF SPACE CHRISTMAS CARDS: What do you give to the sky watcher who has everything? How about a Christmas card from the Edge of Space? For only $49.95, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus will fly your holiday greeting or favorite picture to the top of Earth's atmosphere, photograph it, and return the snapshot in time for the holidays. It's a unique gift! The group has previously flown cupcakes, shoes, US presidents, ad banners and telescopes. This holiday magic is performed using suborbital helium balloons. Contact Dr. Tony Phillips for more information. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Comet ISON 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 Dec. 14, 2013, the network reported 110 fireballs. (67 Geminids, 38 sporadics, 1 December Monocerotid, 3 sigma Hydrids ) 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 December 14, 2013 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 | |