New-cycle sunspot 1008 is growing rapidly. The sun is purple today because the picture was taken through a violet Calcium-K filter, which reveals bright magnetic froth around sunspots. Photo credit: David Leong of Hong Kong

There are no coronal holes on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Credit: Hinode X-ray Telescope

SPACE WEATHERNOAA Forecasts

Updated at: 2008 Nov 12 2201 UTC

FLARE

0-24 hr

24-48 hr

CLASS M

01 %

01 %

CLASS X

01 %

01 %

Geomagnetic Storms:Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm

Updated at: 2008 Nov 12 2201 UTC

Mid-latitudes

0-24 hr

24-48 hr

ACTIVE

05 %

05 %

MINOR

01 %

01 %

SEVERE

01 %

01 %

High latitudes

0-24 hr

24-48 hr

ACTIVE

05 %

05 %

MINOR

01 %

01 %

SEVERE

01 %

01 %

What's up in Space

November 12, 2008

WAKE UP! Did you sleep through the auroras of October? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

IN SEARCH OF METEOR SHOWERS: NASA astronomers have set up a monitoring station to scan the night sky for unknown or unexpected meteor showers--and they're finding more than they bargained for. In only two months of observing, the newly commissioned system has captured a flurry of meteors from an unknown comet and an object from the asteroid belt exploding like 500 lb of TNT. See the movies in today's story from Science@NASA.

SUNSPOT GROUP 1008: November is a cloudy month in South Wales, so this morning when Steve Wainwright of Swansea saw the sun shining through clear skies, he couldn't resist a smile. When he looked at the sun through his backyard solar telescope, the sun was smiling back:

The "smile" is a filament of plasma connecting the two magnetic poles of sunspot 1008. Magnetograms of the active region reveal a N-S polarity characteristic of Solar Cycle 24: this is a new-cycle sunspot. The appearance of 1008 continues a recent trend of increasing new-cycle sunspot counts, which began in Oct. 2008. Solar activity is on the rise; if you have a solar telescope, take a look!

FROSTY MOON HALO: There's a full Moon tonight and according to folklore it is the "Frosty Moon." Go outside shortly after sunset while the Frosty Moon is still hanging low in the east. Then, look straight up. You might see something like this:

It appears to be a rainbow, but it is not. This is a circumzenithal arc (CZA), caused by moonlight shining through ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. Canadian photographer Lauri Kangas took the picture one month ago when October's full Moon was rising above his hometown, Caledon, Ontario.

"It was the brightest lunar CZA I have ever seen," says Kangas, "and it hung around just long enough for me to get the camera and tripod."

Lunar CZAs form only when the Moon is low, less than 32.3° above the horizon. So don't wait. Look for the pure colors of this frosty halo during the first hours of darkness before the Moon rises too high and the arc fades away.

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.