This represents the view from mid-northern latitudes at about 9:00 p.m. local time around December 13.

“Observers with clear skies could see as many as 40 Geminids per hour,” predicts Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office.  “Our all-sky network of meteor cameras has captured several early Geminid fireballs.  They were so bright, we could see them despite the moonlight.”

The best time to look is between 10 pm local time on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14th. Geminids, which spray out of the constellation Gemini, can appear anywhere in the sky. “Dress warmly and look up,” says Cooke.  “It’s that simple.”

The source of the Geminids is near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Most meteor showers come from comets, so having an asteroid as a parent makes the Geminids a bit of an oddball.

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

Jupiter Swirls Date: 5 Mar 1979 This close-up of swirling clouds around Jupiter's Great Red Spot was taken by Voyager 1. It was assembled from three black and white negatives. Credit: NASA/JPL

These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across.

North Polar: Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

South Pole: Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Jupiter Globe: Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This true-color simulated view of Jupiter is composed of four images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. These images were combined and the cylindrical map projected onto a globe in order to illustrate what Jupiter would look like if the cameras used to image this planet had a field-of-view large enough to capture the entire planet. The resolution is about 144 kilometers (89 miles) per pixel. Jupiter’s moon Europa is casting the shadow on the planet.

Magnetic field lines on the Sun, on August 20, 2010. Credit: NASA SDO/Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company

Source: Universe Today: “The Solar Dynamic Observatory shows this new image of the Sun’s magnetic field lines. This map is from data taken on August 20, 2010 by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager instrument (HMI). White lines show fields that are closed, not releasing solar wind, and gold lines show open fields, letting solar wind escape. Understanding these magnetic fields is important because it is thought that solar storms and flares, which can affect us here on Earth, result from changes in the structure and connections of these fields.

Coronal holes are large regions in the corona that are darker, less dense and cooler than surrounding areas. The open structure of their magnetic field allows a constant flow of high-density plasma to stream out of the holes. There is an increase in the intensity of the solar wind effects on Earth when a coronal hole faces.

During a solar minimum, such as the one from which the Sun is just emerging, coronal holes are mainly found at the Sun’s polar regions, but they can be located anywhere on the sun during solar maximum. The fast-moving component of the solar wind is known to travel along open magnetic field lines that pass through coronal holes.

Scientists are finding out that much of the structure of the Sun’s corona is shaped by the magnetic field. Although it varies over time and from place to place on the Sun, the Sun’s magnetic field can be very strong. Inside sunspots, the magnetic field can be several thousand times the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.”

This photo of a total solar eclipse was taken from the International Space Station on March 29, 2006. The photo was taken by a crew member of the Expedition 12 mission. The island of Cyprus and the coast of Turkey can be seen from the image.

Eclipsed Earth

 STS-29 Onboard photo – External Tank Separation

 This photo of the external tank after separation with the space shuttle Discovery was captured from the International Space Station during the STS-29 mission in 1989. The external tank or ET is an important component of a space shuttle flight since it supplies the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three space shuttle main engines.

STS-29 Onboard photo - External Tank Separation

This breathtaking photo moon and the earth’s atmosphere was taken from the International Space Station by an Expedition 10 crew member in October 2004. Expedition 10 crew members, Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov relieved the two Expedition 9 crew members, Mike Fincke and Gennady Padalka.

Moon Aglow

How similar in size are the Earth and the Moon? A dramatic visual answer to this question is found by combining photographs taken by the Mariner 10 spacecraft that headed out toward Venus and Mercury in 1973. The Moon can be seen to have a diameter over one quarter that of Earth, relatively large compared to its planetary companion. In our Solar System, only Pluto and Charon are closer together in size. Striking features of the Earth visible to the passing spacecraft include blue oceans and white clouds, showing the Earth to be truly a water world.

Earth & Moon

This amazing photo of the sunlit earth particularly portions of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean was captured by Apollo 17 in October 20, 1968. Apollo 17 is the eleventh manned space mission of the Apollo program.

Venus is a lot like the Earth with almost the same diameter (12,100 km versus Earth’s 12,740), it possesses about the same mass (5 versus 6 x 1024 kilos), it orbits the Sun a bit closer in than we do (109 million km versus 147). The total carbon content of the planet is similar to ours, too. It’s also a lot different. While our CO2 is locked up in the oceans and rocks, Venus has all of its CO2 in its atmosphere, which has caused a runaway greenhouse effect. The pressure at the surface is 90 times ours, and the surface temperature is 460° C (almost 900° F). It’s an alien planet.

Until recently it was believed that Venus was also Geologically dead, with little surface changes evident. But according to the team of scientists who took this data, this indicates that Venus was geologically active no more than 2.5 million years ago, and these features may have formed as little as 250,000 years ago and the fact that the hot spots are still around is a strong indicator that activity is still present on Venus.

“Based on a wide range of estimates for rates of volcanism on the surface, we find an upper bound of 250 years to 2.5 million years,” said lead author Suzanne Smrekar from JPL.

Hot spots on Venus

Smrekar also said the temperature variations aren’t huge. “Only a degree or two above the background temperature,” she said. “‘Hot spot’ refers to the geologic environment. On Earth, places like Hawaii where there is hot material coming up from deep inside the Earth to produce volcanism, are referred to as ‘hot spots’.”

One of the reasons Venus is so interesting is that while we study the Earth it often helps to have something else to compare and contrast with. Venus also holds lots of questions for us to try and answer. Why did Venus suffer such a catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect? Why is its surface apparently pretty much all one age (except for this new result)? Why are there hot spots, and are they like ours here on Earth?

“This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 48 degrees below the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 28, 2009 at a distance of approximately 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 59 kilometers (37 miles) per pixel.”

Shadow and Ringshine March 16, 2010: Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 10 degrees below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 2, 2010. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 102 degrees. Image scale is 131 kilometers (81 miles) per pixel.

Cassini art. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute