Information: What's up in space

Turn your cell phone into a field-tested satellite tracker. Works for Android and iPhone.

QUIET HOLIDAY: Two small sunspots are emerging to interrupt a 7-day string of spotless suns. Nevertheless, solar activity remains low. Solar flares and geomagnetic storms are unlikely this weekend.
JUST WHAT THEY WANTED: Someone must have asked Santa for Northern Lights. Despite a week-long spate of magnetic quiet leading up to the holidays, the skies over Sweden turned green for Christmas:

Photo details: Nikon D700, Tokina 11-16 2.8, ISO 1600 and 8-10 second exposures

"When I saw the red glow in the snow and the green lights in the sky I could not help but grab the camera and snap a few shots of the Christmas colors," says photographer Chad Blakley of the Aurora Sky Station in Abisko National Park. "It was another great night in Abisko!!"
More auroras are in the offing, and this time Santa's assistance will not be required. A solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole is due to hit Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 2nd. The impact could produce the first geomagnetic storm of the New Year. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

SUN IN A BEER CAN: Last July, Jan Koeman of Middelburg, the Netherlands, poked a tiny hole in an empty beer can, inserted a piece of photographic paper, and pointed the pinhole toward the sun. Six months later (Dec. 23, 2010) he extracted the paper and this was the result:

"This is called solargraphy," explains Koeman. "Every day the sun makes a track across the photographic paper--high in the summer and low in the winter. Daily tracks are interrupted by clouds and, occasionally, absent altogether because of rainy days." It's a low-tech but beautiful way to record the seasons; browse the links below for more examples.

more solargraphy: from Rijk-Jan Koppejan of Middelburg, The Netherlands; from Becky Ramotowski of Tijeras, New Mexico;

Lunar Eclipse Photo Gallery
[NASA: "Solstice Lunar Eclipse"] [astronomy alerts]

November 2010 Aurora Gallery
[previous Novembers: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000]

Near Earth Asteroids

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 27, 2010 there were 1167 potentially hazardous asteroids.

Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid	Date(UT)	Miss Distance	Mag.	Size
2010 TQ19	Oct 8	9.6 LD	18	37 m
2010 TS19	Oct 10	3.7 LD	18	31 m
2010 TD54	Oct 12	0.1 LD	14	7 m
2010 TB54	Oct 13	6.1 LD	20	19 m
1999 VO6	Oct 14	34.3 LD	16	1.8 km
2010 TK	Oct 16	4.5 LD	18	37 m
1998 TU3	Oct 17	69.1 LD	13	5.2 km
2010 TG19	Oct 22	1.1 LD	15	70 m
1998 MQ	Oct 23	77.7 LD	15	1.9 km
2007 RU17	Oct 29	39.2 LD	15	1.1 km
2003 UV11	Oct 30	5 LD	12	595 m
3838 Epona	Nov 7	76.8 LD	14	3.4 km
2005 QY151	Nov 16	77.7 LD	17	1.3 km
2008 KT	Nov 23	5.6 LD	21	10 m
2002 EZ16	Nov 30	73.9 LD	16	1.0 km
2000 JH5	Dec 7	47 LD	-	1.5 km
2010 JL33	Dec 9	16.6 LD	13	1.3 km
2008 EA32	Jan 7	76.5 LD	-	2.1 km

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.

Essential web links