Earth & Space Weather

Earthquake Report for 12/29/2013

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Submitted by Silver on

By: USGS

www.earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/

36 earthquakes

 

    4.2 5km SW of Velez-Malaga, Spain 2013-12-29 16:46:20 UTC-05:00 68.4 km

    4.9 291km W of Puerto Chacabuco, Chile 2013-12-29 15:08:04 UTC-05:00 26.7 km

    4.2 51km WSW of Adak, Alaska 2013-12-29 14:28:50 UTC-05:00 62.6 km

    5.1 108km ENE of San Isidro, Philippines 2013-12-29 12:49:53 UTC-05:00 22.5 km

    4.7 136km NNE of Calama, Chile 2013-12-29 12:39:29 UTC-05:00 131.1 km

    5.2 5km NNE of San Gregorio, Italy 2013-12-29 12:08:44 UTC-05:00 10.0 km

    4.7 164km NW of Saumlaki, Indonesia 2013-12-29 11:59:19 UTC-05:00 100.3 km

    2.7 20km SSE of King City, California 2013-12-29 11:32:00 UTC-05:00 10.2 km

    3.4 20km E of Boca de Yuma, Dominican Republic 2013-12-29 10:52:23 UTC-05:00 146.0 km

    5.7 123km E of Bitung, Indonesia 2013-12-29 10:37:36 UTC-05:00 33.3 km

    3.3 96km NNE of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic 2013-12-29 10:22:57 UTC-05:00 44.0 km

    4.8 68km SE of Puente Alto, Chile 2013-12-29 10:08:32 UTC-05:00 99.4 km

~Space Weather Update~ MINOR RADIATION STORM IN PROGRESS

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Submitted by Lia on

MINOR RADIATION STORM IN PROGRESS: Energetic protons are swarming around Earth on Dec. 29th following a magnetic eruption near the western limb of the sun: movie. The ongoing radiation storm ranks S1 on NOAA storm scales, which means it is a relatively minor storm with little effect on spacecraft and high-altitude aviation. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

VENUS FLYBY: Now is a great time to look at the second planet from the sun. Like the Moon, Venus has phases, and at the moment it is a 6% crescent. Moreover, it is bright enough to see in broad daylight. Yesterday, Mark Wloch pointed his Celestron C8 telescope at the blue sky over Southgate, Michigan, and this is what he saw:

"I captured Venus during daylight with a jet passing by," says Wloch. "What a beautiful conjunction."

Earthquake Report for 12/28/2013

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Submitted by Silver on

By: USGS

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map

28 earthquakes

 

    5.5 182km E of Farallon de Pajaros, Northern Mariana Islands 2013-12-28 14:31:29 UTC-05:00 51.1 km

    5.9 67km NW of Neiafu, Tonga 2013-12-28 14:06:17 UTC-05:00 100.5 km

    5.8 North of Ascension Island 2013-12-28 13:59:05 UTC-05:00 9.2 km

    4.8 154km ENE of Ndoi Island, Fiji 2013-12-28 13:24:57 UTC-05:00 541.5 km

    2.9 30km SSE of Borrego Springs, California 2013-12-28 13:14:38 UTC-05:00 4.0 km

    4.6 179km E of Farallon de Pajaros, Northern Mariana Islands 2013-12-28 12:45:52 UTC-05:00 92.8 km

    3.2 108km NE of Road Town, British Virgin Islands 2013-12-28 11:00:17 UTC-05:00 99.0 km

    5.8 80km SSW of Avsallar, Turkey 2013-12-28 10:21:05 UTC-05:00 51.1 km

    4.9 268km S of `Ohonua, Tonga 2013-12-28 10:20:12 UTC-05:00 10.0 km

    4.1 90km ESE of Old Iliamna, Alaska 2013-12-28 09:42:58 UTC-05:00 117.1 km

    3.1 16km SSW of Perry, Oklahoma 2013-12-28 09:26:52 UTC-05:00 5.0 km

    2.6 61km W of Talkeetna, Alaska 2013-12-28 09:10:03 UTC-05:00 100.0 km

Earthquake Report for 12/27/2013

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Submitted by Silver on

By: USGS

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map

20 earthquakes

 

    4.6 270km NE of Tamrida, Yemen 2013-12-27 14:10:44 UTC-05:00 9.2 km

    4.8 78km WNW of La Ligua, Chile 2013-12-27 13:52:10 UTC-05:00 1.6 km

    2.8 51km S of Lone Pine, California 2013-12-27 12:55:36 UTC-05:00 0.0 km

    2.9 54km N of Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands 2013-12-27 12:54:25 UTC-05:00 52.0 km

    5.4 31km NW of Frontera, Spain 2013-12-27 12:46:06 UTC-05:00 22.8 km

    3.5 48km N of Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands 2013-12-27 12:44:47 UTC-05:00 59.0 km

    2.5 4km SW of Mammoth Lakes, California 2013-12-27 12:22:24 UTC-05:00 7.6 km

    5.0 54km E of Hachinohe, Japan 2013-12-27 05:31:21 UTC-05:00 53.4 km

    3.0 77km N of Tierras Nuevas Poniente, Puerto Rico 2013-12-27 04:22:09 UTC-05:00 25.0 km

    2.8 70km N of Tierras Nuevas Poniente, Puerto Rico 2013-12-27 03:26:52 UTC-05:00 30.0 km

    4.5 222km NNW of Raoul Island, New Zealand 2013-12-27 02:59:22 UTC-05:00 400.8 km

    3.2 197km NNE of Mayo, Canada 2013-12-27 02:58:56 UTC-05:00 49.4 km

Pileups block turnpike, interstate in eastern PA

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By: AP, 12/27/2013

Vehicles are piled up at mile marker 286 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a mile outside Reading, Pa., on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013. Portions of both the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 78 were shut down in snowy eastern Pennsylvania Thursday after chain-reaction pileups involved dozens of vehicles on slippery roads. (AP Photo/David C. Ronk)

READING, Pa. (AP) — Highways in eastern Pennsylvania have been reopened after being shut down for hours because of chain-reaction pileups that ensnared dozens of vehicles on snow-covered roads. No deaths have been reported. Pennsylvania Turnpike officials say 35 vehicles piled up Thursday, blocking westbound lanes and causing a 4-mile backup about 50 miles west of Philadelphia, between the Morgantown and Reading (REH'-ding) exits. Turnpike spokeswoman Renee Colborn says the highway reopened after 5 p.m. and about 10 people were taken to hospitals.

 

For more on this story visit www.news.yahoo.com

Space Weather Update~ (ALMOST NO) CHANCE OF FLARES~

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(ALMOST NO) CHANCE OF FLARES: Two sunspots facing Earth (AR1934 and AR1936) have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong flares. Both sunspots have been quiet for days, however, and they show no signs of an imminent eruption. This has prompted NOAA forecasters to place low odds on flares today: a 25% chance of M-flares and a 1% chance X-flares. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

SOLAR WIND STREAM MISSES EARTH: A stream of solar wind expected to hit Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 26-27 has apparently missed, sailing mostly north of our planet. As a result, Earth's magnetic field is quiet and the polar auroral oval is dim. Another solar wind stream is coming, though, and it will likely reach Earth on Jan. 2-3, producing the first auroras of New Year. Arctic sky watchers could see something like this:

~Space Weather Update~ SLIGHT CHANCE OF FLARES

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SLIGHT CHANCE OF FLARES: Sunspot AR1934 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Because the region is directly facing Earth, any flares today would surely be geoeffective. The sunspot has been relatively quiet for days, however, so NOAA forecasters are estimating only a 25% chance of M-flares. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

CHRISTMAS CONJUNCTION CONTINUES: Christmas is over, but the amazing "Christmas conjunction" is still underway. As seen from NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft, the three planets Venus, Earth and Jupiter are clustered in a circle barely 2 degrees wide. The spacecraft's Heliospheric Imager took this picture on Dec. 26th:

Because of the holidays, this conjunction in space raises comparisons to a famous Christmas conjunction on Earth. According to some scholars, the Star of Bethlehem might have been a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky, merged, would have made a spectacle so amazing that we still talk about it ~2000 years later.

Earthquake Report for 12/26/2013

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Submitted by Silver on

By: USGS

www.earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/

25 earthquakes

 

    3.1 58km NW of Larsen Bay, Alaska 2013-12-26 14:47:56 UTC-05:00 100.0 km

    4.4 47km NW of Amukta Island, Alaska 2013-12-26 13:29:11 UTC-05:00 104.0 km

    2.5 29km NE of Greenfield, California 2013-12-26 13:27:09 UTC-05:00 6.0 km

    3.0 65km NW of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico 2013-12-26 12:26:40 UTC-05:00 13.0 km

First Exomoon Possibly Glimpsed

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Scientific American, 12/26/13, Clara Moskowitz

Photo of the moon by Galileo probe

Exoplanets are almost old hat to astronomers, who by now have found more than 1,000 such worlds beyond the solar system. The next frontier is exomoons—moons orbiting alien planets—which are much smaller, fainter and harder to find. Now astronomers say they may have found an oddball system of a planet and a moon floating free in the galaxy rather than orbiting a star.

The system showed up in a study using micro lensing, which looks for the bending of starlight due to the gravitational pull of an unseen object between a star and Earth. In this case the massive object might well be a planet and a moon. But the signal is not very clear, the researchers acknowledge, and could instead represent a dim star and a lightweight planet. “An alternate star-plus-planet model fits the data almost as well” as the planet-plus-moon explanation, the scientists reported in a paper that was posted this week on the preprint site arXiv. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed.

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