Russia Gets Hit By Meteorite. Is This a Piece of Asteroid 2012 DA14 Coming to the Sky Near You Today?

• Moment meteorite exploded in the sky above Russian town as doctors treat 950 people injured when sonic boom shattered windows


• Large object flashed across the sky at 9.20am local time 
• Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames
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• 82 of the injured are children and two are in intensive care
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• Landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a neighbouring town 
• 6,000 square feet of a roof at a zinc factory collapsed 
• One local said it 'was like a scene from the Armageddon movie'
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• Same day as Asteroid 2012 DA14, which is due to skim Earth's orbit tonight




• The city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border, took the brunt of the super sonic impact.







Spectacular sky: The Urals region was struck by falling meteorite fragments which fell in the city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border







• Tim O'Brien, associate director of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, said the injuries were caused when the meteor created a sonic boom.   'This reasonably large chunk of rock was moving faster than the speed of sound, maybe 20,000 miles per hour. It made a sonic boom in the atmosphere, and that hit buildings and shattered windows. That is what seems to have caused the injuries,' he explained. 


• A six metre wide hole was found in the ground close to Lake Chebarkul, said Russian military sources cited by RIA Novosti news agency. 


• Earlier it was thought the main body of the meteorite had hit the lake.  'The meteorite that passed over the Chelyabinsk region fell into a body of water 1km from the city of Chebarkul,' said a statement posted on the website of Chelyabinsk governor, Mikhail Yurevich.


• According to an unconfirmed report in Russia Today, the meteorite was intercepted by Russian air defense.


• The strike came on the same day that Asteroid 2012 DA14 is due to skim the orbit of the Earth tonight.  But astronomers say that it is probably just a coincidence -  Dr Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society told MailOnline: 'As I understand it, the Russian meteorite(s) were travelling from east to west whereas 2012 DA14 will be travelling from north to south.'


• Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames and eyewitnesses spoke of several devastating explosions.


• Mobile phones are only working intermittently and there were localised power cuts.


• According to RT.com, the Urals regional centre of the Emergency Ministry claimed it sent out a mass text message warning residents about a possible meteorite shower.  But eyewitnesses said they either never received it, or got the message after the explosion had already occurred.


Fear: First reports suggested that there had been a plane crash but officials confirmed it was one or more meteorites falling to Earth


Wounded: This woman suffered cuts across her face when the sonic boom of the meteor sent broken glass flying



The emergencies ministry said that 10,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those needing help.




• All schools and kindergartens were closed in Chelyabinsk region today.

Damaged: A zinc factory in Chelyabinsk was seen with a partially collapsed roof and walls in the morning after meteor pieces rained on the town

Moment of impact: A pair, seen on CCTV, cower from the impact as the window near them explodes

• The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor weighed about 10 tons. 

• The academy said in a statement hours fall that the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered about 30-50 kilometres (18-32 miles) above ground.

• One eyewitness Gulnara Dudka, in her 20s, gave a dramatic account of the meteorite, telling how she feared 'doomsday' had arrived, reported the Siberian Times.

• Residents in one 19 storey block reported feeling the shockwaves of the explosions.

• The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down.

• The meteorite flew across the Russian sky from the direction of Kazakhstan, its trajectory going over southern Siberia, above the Tyumen, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions, said the head of the Urals regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry press service, Vadim Grebennikov.

• Officials stressed that radiation levels remained normal amid fears that one of dozens of nuclear facilities in the region could have been hit. 

Ruined: The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down

• Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader noted for vehement statements, said 'It's not meteors falling, it's the test of a new weapon by the Americans,' the RIA Novosti news agency reported. 'At the moment we are checking the territories and counting how many towns and settlements suffered from it.  'Preliminary information says the meteorite did not fall down but exploded in the air. '

Destroyed: The building of the local zinc plant badly damaged by a shockwave from a meteorite impact

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279020/Russian-meteorite-Moment-meteorite-exploded-doctors-treat-500-people-injured.html#ixzz2KzNUsU5a
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• The site of Friday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) west of Tunguska, which 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.

• Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.  "At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

• Small pieces of space debris — usually parts of comets or asteroids — that are on a collision course with the Earth are called meteoroids. They become meteors when they enter the Earth'satmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth they are called meteorites.  Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.

read more at http://www.newsday.com/news/world/russian-meteor-shower-causes-blasts-injures-hundreds-1.4652395

for the following video... Published on Feb 15, 2013 Multiple meteors touched down in Central Russia in Ural region February 15th. These meteors caused injury from shattered windows, and broken class. It is believed these meteors broke off from the larger meteor 2012-Da14, which missed the earth by less than 30,000 miles the same day. Had Da-14 stuck earth, it would have destroyed everything within a 10 mile radius much like a nuclear bomb. In this video we see a building getting damaged.
for the following video... At 7:17 AM on the morning of June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion occurred in the skies over Siberia. It was caused by the impact and breakup of a large meteorite, at an altitude roughly six kilometers in the atmosphere. Realistic pictures of the event are unavailable. However, Russian scientists collected eyewitness accounts of the event. I believe that we now know enough about large impacts to "decode" the subjective descriptions of the witnesses and create realistic views of this historic asteroid impact as seen from different distances.

Russia is no stranger to this type of event. A huge event happened in 1908 called the Tunguska Event.

Asteroid 2012 DA14. Historical Event. Passing Within Geosynchronous Ring.

Asteroid to pass close by Earth on Friday

* Nearest approach at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT on Friday

* No chance of impact, scientists say

* Encounter will cause asteroid's orbit to change

By Irene Klotz

BOSTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - A newly discovered asteroid about half the size of a football field will pass nearer to Earth than any other known object of its size on Friday, giving scientists a rare opportunity for close-up observations without launching a probe.

At its closest approach, which will occur at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT, the asteroid will pass about 17,200 miles (27,520 km) above the planet traveling at 8 miles (13 km) per second, bringing it nearer than the networks of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

Although Asteroid 2012 DA14 is the largest known object of its size to pass this close, scientists say there is no chance of an impact, this week or in the foreseeable future.

Currently, DA14 matches Earth's year-long orbit around the sun, but after Friday's encounter its flight path will change, said astronomer Donald Yeomans, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"The close approach will perturb its orbit so that actually instead of having an orbital period of one year, it'll lose a couple of months," Yeomans said. "The Earth is going to put this one in an orbit that is considerably safer," he said.

The non-profit Space Data Association, which tracks satellites for potential collisions, analyzed the asteroid's projected path and determined no spacecraft would be in its way.

"There is no reason to believe that this asteroid poses a threat to any satellites in Earth orbit," Space Data operations manager T.S. Kelso said in a statement.

read more at THIS LINK

FROM NASA
IMAGES 

Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth's north pole. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Larger view

Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 during its close approach, as seen edge-on to Earth's equatorial plane. The graphic demonstrates why the asteroid is invisible to northern hemisphere observers until just before close approach: it is approaching from "underneath" our planet. On the other hand, after close approach it will be favorably placed for observers in the northern hemisphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Larger view

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

Q: What is asteroid DA14

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is a small near-Earth object – approximately 150 feet (45 meters) in diameter. On Feb. 15, 2013, the asteroid will pass by our planet at a remarkably close distance, but the asteroid’s path is understood well enough that there is no chance of a collision with the Earth.

Q: What date and what time will the asteroid be closest to Earth?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will be closest to Earth on Feb. 15 at approximately 19:24 UTC (2:24 p.m. EST/11:24 a.m. PST). This time may change by a minute or two as the asteroid is tracked on its approach and predictions are refined.

At the time of closest approach, the asteroid will be over the eastern Indian Ocean, off Sumatra -- approx. latitude: -6 deg South. / longitude: 97.5 deg East.

Q: How far away will asteroid 2012 DA14 be at time of closest approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will be only about 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) above Earth's surface at the time of closest approach on Feb 15, 2013. This distance is well outside Earth's atmosphere, but it is inside the belt of satellites in geostationary orbit, which is located 22,200 miles (35,800 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The close-approach distance is only about one-tenth the distance between Earth and moon. Another way to express the distance between asteroid and Earth at time of closest approach is 4.4 Earth radii from Earth’s surface – or about twice the diameter of the Earth.

Q: Could asteroid DA14 impact Earth?

 A: No. The orbit of asteroid 2012 DA14 is well understood – it will not come any closer than 17,150 miles (27,650 kilometers) above Earth's surface during its flyby on Feb 15, 2013.

The asteroid’s orbit around the sun is roughly similar to that of Earth, and it makes relatively close approaches to our planet’s orbit twice per orbit. But, the 2013 flyby is by far the closest the asteroid will approach our planet for many decades. The next notable close approach to Earth will be on February 15, 2046, when the asteroid will pass no closer than 620,000 miles (1,000,000 kilometers) from the center-point of Earth.

While this is the closest possible distance based on observations and calculations as of February 4, 2013, future observations will refine the calculation and may increase the minimum distance of the flyby. As of Feb 9, 2013, the minimum distance is now 1.6 million km or 995,000 miles from the center of Earth. For the most current calculations for this asteroid, visit: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012%20DA14;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=1;rad=0#cad

Q: What makes 2012 DA14 special?

 A: The flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 is the closest ever predicted Earth approach for an object this large.

Q: How long will asteroid 2012 DA14 be within the Earth/moon system?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14's will be within the Earth/moon system for about 33 hours. Its orbit will bring it within the Earth/moon system (approach within one lunar distance, 237,000 miles of the Earth) on Feb. 15 at about 0300 UTC (7 p.m. PST on Thursday, Feb. 14). The asteroid will exit the Earth/moon system on Feb. 16 at about 1200 UTC (4 a.m. PST).

Q: Is there a chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 could be eclipsed by Earth?

 A: Because of its trajectory, there is no chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass through Earth’s shadow.

Q: How big is asteroid 2012 DA14?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is currently estimated to be about 150 feet (45 meters) across and has an estimated mass of about 130,000 metric tons. If radar observations of this asteroid are successful, we might have a more accurate estimate of the asteroid’s size after its close approach.

Q: How fast will the asteroid be traveling at closest approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA 14 is traveling at about 17,450 miles per hour (28,100 kilometers per hour), or 4.8 miles per second (7.82 kilometers per second) relative to Earth.

Q: Who discovered asteroid DA14?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered by the La Sagra Sky Survey operated by the Astronomical Observatory of Mallorca in Spain on Feb. 23, 2012. The asteroid was about 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) distant when it was detected. Their observations were reported to the NASA funded Minor Planet Center, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the International Astronomical Union, where all observations from observatories worldwide are combined to maintain the database on all known asteroids and comets in our solar system.

Q: How many asteroids are out there similar in size to asteroid DA14?

 A: Scientists believe there are approximately 500,000 near-Earth asteroids the size of 2012 DA14. Of those, less than one percent have been discovered.

Q: How many times do asteroids the size of DA14 fly this close?

 A: Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office in Pasadena, Calif. estimate that an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 flies this close every 40 years on average and that one will impact Earth, on average, about once in every 1,200 years.

Q: Is there a chance that asteroid DA14 will collide with one or more satellites?

 A: There is very little chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 will impact a satellite or spacecraft. Because the asteroid is approaching from below Earth, it will pass between the outer constellation of satellites located in geosynchronous orbit (22,245 miles/35,800 kilometers) and the large concentration of satellites orbiting much closer to Earth. (The International Space Station, for example, orbits at the close-in altitude of 240 miles/386 kilometers.). There are almost no satellites orbiting at the distance at which the asteroid will pass.

Q: What will asteroid DA14’s close pass do to Earth’s rotation/tides/fault lines/etc.

 A: The gravitational influence upon Earth and its inhabitants by the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 will be infinitesimally small.

Q: What would happen if DA14 were to impact Earth?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not impact Earth, but if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation.

A comparison to the impact potential of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 could be made to the impact of a near-Earth object that occurred in 1908 in Tuguska, Siberia. Known in the asteroid community as the "Tunguska Event," this impact of an asteroid just slightly smaller than 2012 DA14 (approximately 100 – 130 feet/30-40 meters across) is believed to have flattened about 825 square miles (2200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

Q: Can I see the asteroid during its close approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is small, so even though it will make a close flyby of Earth, the asteroid's apparent magnitude is expected to peak at about only 7.4 – too dim to be viewed by the naked eye. To view the asteroid, you will need a good pair of binoculars, or even better, a moderately powered telescope.

During the closest approach, and dependant on local weather, the asteroid will be visible from parts of Europe, Africa and Asia. The asteroid will appear to be moving relatively quickly as it crosses the sky from the south to the north.

Q: What is NASA doing about asteroid 2012 DA14?

 A: As there is no chance of impact, there is nothing that needs to be done about the asteroid. However, the flyby of 2012 DA14 is a great opportunity for science. NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar, located in California's Mojave Desert, will observe the asteroid on Feb. 16, 18, 19 and 20. Due to the asteroid's small size, the radar images generated are expected to be no more than a few pixels across. It will also be observed by numerous optical observatories worldwide to attempt to determine its spin rate and composition.

Solar Activity Increasing Extensively.

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This intense period of solar activity isn't unexpected; it's all part of the natural solar cycle that ebbs and flows over an approximate 11-year cycle. The peak of this cycle, called "solar maximum," is expected in 2013, but in the run-up to the crescendo, the sun has been increasingly active.

Solar max represents a period when the sun's magnetic field is at its most stressed, so magnetic features like coronal loops and prominences are often observed in the sun's atmosphere (the corona). Explosive events like CMEs and flares also become commonplace. The solar wind -- a stream of charged particles that constantly flow into interplanetary space -- also becomes amplified.

All of these factors can impact our planet's magnetic field, increasing the chances of radiation and geomagnetic storms -- magical light shows in the form of aurorae are often a result of this geomagnetic battle. Solar storms can also impact our increasingly high-tech society, a fact not lost on the world's space weather prediction efforts.

source: http://news.discovery.com/space/will-the-sun-unleash-a-thanksgiving-flare-121121.html

Fire in the Sky

Scientists warn of a solar flare large enough to paralyze our electrified world

By Joan Trossman Bien 11/21/2012

If you have never heard of an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, then you have not spent any time worrying about an EMP causing the end of civilization as we know it.

  

But scientists and some policymakers worry about such a thing happening, and for very good reason.

 

If an EMP were to occur over the United States, caused either by a particularly violent solar storm or by a small nuclear device detonated many miles above the ground, chances are high that the country’s entire electrical grid would fail, as a massive surge of electricity would fry the huge transformers that keep the grid humming. Satellites we rely on for navigation and communication would be damaged beyond repair, and society would crumble into a dysfunctional scramble for survival. The very necessities of life, such as clean water, food, medications, transportation, even government, would all either disappear or be in very short supply. 

 

There are sharp differences of opinion among experts regarding the likelihood of an EMP occurring anytime soon. But, nuclear attack aside, given the fact that extreme solar events happen once or twice a decade, “It is just a question of not if, but when the Earth happens to be in the path of these kinds of [solar] storms,” according to Dan Baker, director of Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado.

Big changes

What exactly is a solar flare and why should anyone care? 

 

Marco Velli, a senior researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory whose expertise is in solar research, has been named principal investigator for NASA’s Solar Probe Plus, scheduled to launch in 2018. The project will place a satellite into orbit around the sun — inside its corona, far closer than ever before — as part of a mission to study solar weather.

 

“A solar flare is essentially an explosion,” Velli explained, adding that it sends out a huge amount of plasma or high-energy gas from the sun called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). “The energy is equivalent to several thousand atomic bombs … accelerating high energy particles to very high speeds, like cosmic rays.”

 

The potential damage, Velli added, depends on where the blast actually hits.

 

“When one of these big CMEs takes off and is directed toward Earth, it can cause big changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. This can induce currents in the Earth’s ionosphere and also in things on the ground, like big power stations, and it can disrupt the grid. It is the kind of thing that can fry the transformers so they cannot be used again. That’s bad,” he said.

 

Dr. Edwin Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park, put this fairly common event of solar flares into perspective. 

 

“For thousands of years, the only impact was the display of the aurora borealis. It didn’t have much of an influence on life on Earth until the era of high technology,” Krupp said.

 

Baker described how our lives have changed so quickly. 

 

“I like to say that modern humans have embedded us within a cyber-electric cocoon that surrounds the entire Earth. In many ways, every one of our modern technologies can be affected by solar storms,” he said.

 

Experts agree that the most damaging aspects of a solar storm are large CMEs, which, Baker said, “are very large blobs of material that are expelled from the sun and can be huge in dimension. It is often noted that the largest of these can be moving at many millions of miles an hour.”

 

Explaining how CMEs damage electronics, Baker said, “When one of these big CMEs takes off, when it is directed towards the Earth, it can cause big changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. It can charge up the Earth’s magnetosphere with strong, high-energy particles as well. This can induce currents in the Earth’s ionosphere and also in things on the ground, like big power stations, and it can disrupt the grid.”

Solar superstorm

The Big Daddy of modern solar storms, called the Carrington Event for well-known British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington, occurred on Sept. 1, 1859.

 

At the time, Carrington was just setting up his London solar observatory to chart an active solar storm. The telescope aimed at the sun projected an image that Carrington could trace on paper.  As he was drawing the sunspots, according to modern-day accounts from a number of Web sites covering the subject, “two patches of intensely bright and white light” appeared on his screen. They were located in one large group of sunspots. Carrington left the room to notify another scientist, but by the time he returned about five minutes later, the event had ended. Another amateur astronomer, Roger Hodgson, also observed the phenomenon. Over at Kew Observatory in London, a magnetometer needle dangled from a thread. It began to flail and bounce. They had just observed the beginnings of a solar super storm. 

 

Before dawn the next morning, the skies went psychedelic with auroras as far south as Hawaii and Panama. Bright swirls of reds, greens and purples lit up the still-dark early morning skies. Baker reported at a geophysics meeting in 2010 that the light was so bright, “people in the northeastern US could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora.”

 

The Charleston Mercury ran a first-person account from a woman on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. “The eastern sky appeared of a blood red color,” she wrote. “It seemed brightest exactly in the east, as though the full moon, or rather the sun, was about to rise. It extended almost to the zenith. The whole island was illuminated. The sea reflected the phenomenon, and no one could look at it without thinking of the passage in the Bible, which says, ‘the sea was turned to blood.’ The shells on the beach, reflecting light, resembled coals of fire.”

 

The New York Times reported that people stood on rooftops and gathered on sidewalks to watch “the heavens … arrayed in a drapery more gorgeous than they had been for years.”

 

The most sophisticated mode of communication at the time was the telegraph, and when the supercharged CME hit the Earth’s magnetic field, telegraph wires surged with the electrical currents. It blew out the machines at some places. At others, the sparks caused fires. When operators turned off their batteries, the telegraph machines continued to work. 

The Carrington Event was extraordinarily huge. Ice core samples have revealed it was double the size of any other solar storm in the preceding 500 years. And scientists say it will happen again, possibly soon.

Dodging bullets

Solar flares are not unusual.  On March 13, 1989, a CME blew out power in Quebec, leaving 6 million people in the dark. In 1921, a solar storm hit, but didn’t cause much damage. Today, such an occurrence would have darkened half of North America. 

 

Last summer, Baker said there was a very close call. “Just on July 22, there was a very ugly, mean-looking active region on the sun that had moved across the face of the sun. A satellite was watching it. A huge flare, and then a CME, came at the spacecraft and it was moving at the highest recorded speed that has been seen in the modern Space Age. It reached the satellite in 17 hours. That’s an hour faster than the Carrington Event, and it led to extremely intense magnetic fields in the interplanetary medium. For all intents and purposes, that was a Carrington Event that just missed us. We dodged the proverbial bullet there. Now we know there have been others like this.”

 

Can it happen again? “Some people say that the Carrington Event is a moldy old event and these things happen only once in 1,000 years,” Baker said. “I think recent work has suggested quite the contrary. The probability of any of these occurring during one 11-year cycle of solar storms is like 10 percent, a pretty significant probability. It’s not a rare thing.”

 

Ultimately, whether triggered by a rogue nation’s high-altitude detonation of a small nuclear weapon or set off by a rare but possible extremely strong solar flare, the result will be the same if we continue to do nothing. 

A perfect solar storm

Not all experts agree with Baker about the chances of a Carrington Event-type of CME causing the lights to go out. In fact, there has been some recent commentary about the analysis of solar flares that have occurred over the past 50 years. 

 

Solar storms occur in cycles of about 11 years. We are now entering what has been described as a very active part of the 11 year cycle. It is called the solar maximum, and the scientific community believes that it could be quite potent.

Baker described a worst-case scenario:

 

“When these huge clouds of material move out at such high speeds, a powerful shockwave can form in front of them. The CMEs can also have embedded within them much stronger magnetic fields, and this entire cloud can, in turn, lead to the acceleration of charged particles. It is sort of the perfect solar storm that’s headed directly at Earth. Those currents get coupled into very long power lines on a continental scale, the power grid. That is the one thing that we worry about most from solar storms — the effect these CMEs can have on the power grid.”

 

read much more at http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/fire_in_the_sky/11673/ 

M-CLASS SOLAR FLARES: The magnetic canopy of big sunspot AR1618 is crackling with M-class solar flares. This image taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the extreme ultraviolet flash from one of them, an M1.6-class flare on Nov. 20th at 1928 UT:

This eruption, and another one like it about 7 hours earlier, might have propelled faint coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. If so, the impacts would likely commence on Nov. 23rd, with a chance of high-latitude geomagnetic storms following their arrival. Stay tuned for updates. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT (Updated Nov. 21): Only a few days ago, sunspot AR1618 was almost invisible. Now it is a behemoth more than 10 times wider than Earth. A movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sunspot's development on Nov. 20-21:

As the sunspot evolves, so does its intense magnetic field--and this means strong flares are in the offing. Fast-changing magnetic fields on the sun have a tendency toreconnect and erupt. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of M-class flares and a 15% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. Because of the sunspot's nearly central location on the solar disk, any eruptions will likely be Earth-directed.Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

SPACE WEATHERNOAA Forecasts

Updated at: 2012 Nov 21 2200 UTC

FLARE	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
CLASS M	70 %	70 %
CLASS X	30 %	30 %

source: http://spaceweather.com/ source: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ Double Prominence Eruptions The Sun erupted with two prominence eruptions, one after the other over a four-hour period (Nov. 16, 2012). The action was captured in the 304 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. It seems possible that the disruption to the Sun's magnetic field might have triggered the second event since they were in relatively close proximity to each other. The expanding particle clouds heading into space do not appear to be Earth-directed. source: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/potw.php?v=item&id=121

Taurid Meteor Shower.

TAURID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is passing through a stream of gravelly debris from Comet Encke, source of the annual Taurid meteor shower. Because the debris stream is not very congested, Taurid meteor rates are usually low, around 5 per hour. The special thing about Taurids is that they tend to be fireballs. Amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft photographed this Taurid exploding over eastern New Mexico on Nov. 9th:

"It was brighter than the full moon and its brightness penetrated the eyelids of sleepers!" says Ashcraft. The disintegrating meteoroid ionized a column of air that acted as a mirror for radio waves. "The soundtrack of the video is the echo of some distant transmitters I recorded at 61.250 MHz and 67.250 MHz," he explains.

Last night, Nov. 9-10, NASA's network of all-sky fireball cameras recorded 10 Taurids streaking across the southern United States. The orbits of those meteoroids are color-coded yellow in this diagram of the inner solar system:

In the diagram, the location of Earth is denoted by a red splat. Taurids weren't the only meteoroids hitting our planet last night. Red, orange and green orbits correspond to random debris not associated with Comet Encke's debris stream.

Forecasters expect the Taurid fireball shower to peak on the nights around Nov. 12th. Monitor the realtime meteor gallery for the latest sightings.

http://spaceweather.com/

Observing

The Taurids have been identified as a very old meteor stream. There are two branches of the Taurids active during its long duration in the Autumn months (or Spring months in the Southern Hemisphere). The Northern Taurids are active from October 12 to December 2. Maximum is also of long duration and extends over November 4-7 (λ=221-224 deg) from an average radiant of RA=54 deg, DEC=+21 deg. The radiant's daily motion is +0.78 deg in RA and +0.19 deg in DEC. The Southern Taurids are active during September 17 to November 27. They reach maximum during October 30 to November 7 (λ=216-224 deg) from an average radiant of RA=53 deg, DEC=+12 deg. This radiant's daily motion is +0.99 deg in RA and +0.28 deg in DEC. Both showers possess maximum hourly rates near 7.

http://meteorshowersonline.com/showers/taurids.html

Not an Impressive Taurid Meteor Shower

November 12, 2011; 8:08 AM

You may have to wait for a while if you really wanted to see a shooting star thanks to a meteor shower. The moon is positioned close to where the North Taurid meteor shower radiates from, so the shower is very difficult to see.

If you are patient and really want to see this meteor shower, the best time to look would be just after midnight. On average, there will be only 10 meteors per hour and with luck maybe you can "catch" one.

The space map below shows where to look to see the North Taurid meteor shower and is courtesy of a favorite astronomy site of mine, EarthSky.org. This site is downright terrific and was the inspiration for this blog, and the site has graciously allowed me to use many skymaps in previous blogs. This site is an absolutely fantastic source for all sorts of information about the field of science in general.

Some facts about the Taurid meteor shower:

Due to the gravitational effect of planets, especially Jupiter, the Taurids have spread out over time, allowing separate segments labeled the Northern Taurids and Southern Taurids to become observable.

The Taurid stream has a cycle of activity that peaks roughly every 2,500 to 3,000 years, when its core passes nearer to Earth and produces more intense showers. In fact, because of the separate "branches" (nighttime in one part of the year and daytime in another and Northern/Southern in each case) there are two (possibly overlapping) peaks separated by a few centuries, every 3,000 years. Some astronomers note that dates for megalith structures such as Stonehenge are associated with these peaks. The next peak is expected around 3000 AD.

The Taurids are the remains of comet Encke.

Encke and the Taurids are believed to be remnants of a much larger comet, which has disintegrated over the past 20,000 to 30,000 years, breaking into several pieces and releasing material by normal cometary activity.

The Taurids are made up of weightier material, pebbles instead of dust grains.

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source: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/astronomy/not-an-impressive-taurid-meteor-shower/57679