The surprise is that an asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere on January 1st and appears to have broken up over the mid Atlantic, not too far from Brazil. However, it was just 6 to 9 feet across, which is smaller than last year's Russian meteor – see http://phys.org/print308222006.html
At http://phys.org/print308021026.html … we have news of a space plane that is being developed, presumably to succeed the Space Shuttle. Apparently, it orbited the planet for seven months in 2010 – unmanned.
The bang is in the nature of a big sunspot currently defacing the surface of the Sun. News outlets are reporting that it has ejected an Earth facing CME (January 7th) which will catch up with us on the 9th or 10th. How will it effect the Jet Stream? Indeed, how will it effect the much hyped Polar Vortex (otherwise known as a polar front in previous years, or an Arctic blast). Its amusing how these new terms pop up as if they have never occurred before and as if global warming was spawing an entirely new kind of weather. (see www.spaceweather.com and www.space.com (January 7th)