MAGNETIC STORMS LIKELY THIS WEEK: NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of polar geomagnetic storms on Jan. 4th and 5th to 65% as a stream of solar wind approaches Earth. The hot wind is flowing from a large hole in the sun's atmosphere. This image, from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows the yawning structure almost directly facing Earth on Jan. 3rd:
Coronal holes are regions where the sun's magnetic field peels back and allows solar wind to escape. The stream of wind emerging from this coronal hole recently blew past NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft with peak speeds exceeding 700 km/s. Similar high speeds are likely when the stream reaches Earth on Jan. 4th and 5th.
Residents of the Arctic should expect G1-class geomagnetic storms and bright auroras in the nights ahead. Free: Aurora Alerts.
ANALEMMA TIMES 9: If you took a picture of the sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the figure-8 shape traced out by the sun over the course of a year is called an "analemma." Over the years, many photographers have created analemmas. In 2016, however, Steven Riegel of Colorado Springs CO took it up a notch. He photographed the sun 9 times a day, creating the rare nonalemma:
"I opened up a year-long (1 Jan - 31 Dec 2016) analemma exposure on New Year's Day," explains Riegel. " The result is a record of the position of the sun on the hour between 7:00 am and 3:00 pm every day for a full year."
"The camera is just a light-tight box with a pinhole in the side. I put an 8x10 piece of B/W photo paper inside. The pinhole was uncovered for two minutes each hour by a rotating paper mask attached to a cheap electric clock. The image is burned into the photo paper by the bright sunlight."
" I can't claim originality for the technique, but I've only seen a couple of other similar examples done previously," says Riegel. "It's a nerve-wracking time waiting for the year to see if you set things up correctly!"
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER: On Tuesday of this week, Earth will pass through a stream of dusty debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak around 14:00 UT (6 am PST) on Jan. 3rd--timing that favors western parts of North America and islands across the Pacific. As many as 100 meteors per hour could flow from a radiant near the North Star on Tuesday morning.
Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery