QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is approaching a stream of debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak at 14:30 UT (6:30 a.m. PST) on Sunday, Jan. 3rd. The timing favors observers in Alaska and Hawaii, who could see dozens of meteors streaking out of the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, not far from the North Star: sky map.
EARTH AT PERIHELION: Earth's orbit around the sun isn't a perfect circle, it's an ellipse. One side is closer to the sun (147.5 million km) than the other (152.6 million km). Today, January 2nd , we're at the closest point, known to astronomers as perihelion. When Earth is at perihelion, the sun looks a little bigger than usual, as shown in this composite image from Khosro Jafarizadeh of Karaj, Alborz, Iran:
Jafarizadeh took the two pictures from opposite ends of Earth's orbit: perihelion and aphelion. Sunlight falling on Earth at perihelion is 3.5% stronger than the year-long average. Northern snow doesn't melt, however, because seasons are shaped primarily by the tilt of Earth's spin axis, not the eccentricity of its orbit.
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LUNAR PARHELIC CIRCLE: A parhelic circle is an unforgettable sight. Thin and pale, it circles the zenith in a majestic arc, always keeping the same distance above the horizon. On Dec. 27th, Göran Strand of Handöl, Sweden, saw a parhelic circle but, strangely, the sun was nowhere around. This parhelic circle was passing through the Moon:
"It has been a long time since I saw a lunar halo, and I can't remember the last time I saw one with such a prominent parhelic circle," says Strand. "It was an amazing sight."
The parhelic circle is not the ring around the Moon; that's a 22-degree halo. Instead it is the almost-horizontal arc cutting through the Moon. The rest of the parhelic circle was too big to fit in the field of view of Strand's camera.
Parhelic circles are formed by sunlight reflecting from the vertical faces of ice crystals--millions of them floating in thin cirrus clouds spread almost evenly across the sky. In this case, bright moonlight + cirrus clouds performed the same trick.
Note: Because this circle is caused by moonlight rather than sunlight, it is most correctly called a "parselenic circle."
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THE PINK AURORA PEARL: Inspired by the color of rare pink auroras, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a pink pearl to the stratosphere. It hitched a ride onboard the students' cosmic ray balloon, and reached an altitude 112,205 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $249.95. The students are selling space pearls to support their cosmic ray monitoring program. Measuring approximately 9 mm in diameter, the Aurora Pearl is mounted on a 925 sterling silver infinity twist, with a matching 17-inch long sterling silver chain. Each pearl comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.
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