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Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp=
3.00 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3.00 quiet
explanation | more
data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.36 nT
Bz: -1.36 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 1052 UT
Coronal Holes: 13 Aug 25

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from this large southern coronal hole. Credit: NASA/SDO | more data
Polar Stratospheric Clouds
Colorful Type II polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) form when the temperature in the stratosphere drops to a staggeringly low -85C. NASA's MERRA-2 climate model predicts when the air up there is cold enough:

On Aug 12, 2025, the Arctic stratosphere is much too hot for polar stratospheric clouds. | more data.
Noctilucent Clouds
The northern season for noctilucent clouds is underway. First reports of the electric-blue clouds came from Russia on May 28, 2025. Since then, the clouds have spread to lower latitudes, reaching Paris, France, during a major outbreak on June 23, 2025.

Above: Aug. 11, 2025, Rusko, Finland
"A nice display of late summer NLCs,"says photographer Mikko Peussa.
See the complete NLC Photo Gallery
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts |
|
Updated at: 2025 Aug 13 2200 UTC
FLARE |
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
CLASS M |
50
% |
45
% |
CLASS X |
10
% |
05
% |
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant
disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor
storm, severe
storm
Updated at: 2025 Aug 13 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
|
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
ACTIVE |
35
% |
35
% |
MINOR |
10
% |
10
% |
SEVERE |
01
% |
01
% |
High latitudes
|
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
ACTIVE |
10
% |
10
% |
MINOR |
25
% |
25
% |
SEVERE |
45
% |
45
% |
|
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|
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This is an AI Free Zone: Text created by Large Language Models is spreading across the Internet. It's well-written, but frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being.
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THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER IS NOT OVER: Worldwide meteor counts from Aug. 12-13 (including data from NASA cameras) suggest that the peak of the Perseid meteor shower has not yet arrived. The peak could occur tonight, Aug 13-14. Step outside after midnight and watch for bright, fast fireballs streaking from the constellation Perseus. And don't worry if you don't know where Perseus is; the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. [Photo gallery]
SPIRALING ROCKET EXHAUST (UPDATED): Not everything in the sky last night was a Perseid meteor. Many observers in the eastern USA saw this instead:

"This caught my eye as I was looking for Perseid meteors after sunset on Aug. 12th," says photographer Patrick Nixon of Purgittsville, West Virginia. "It started in the the Big Dipper and moved downward toward western PA or eastern OH."
Later, the same spiral was widely observed in Pennsylvania, New York City, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio and Ontario.
This may be a fuel dump linked to a Vulcan Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral by the United Launch Alliance (ULA). Carrying two satellites on behalf of the U.S. military, the rocket lifted off at 8:56 p.m. EDT on Aug. 12th. When multiple satellites are deployed from a single rocket, the rocket sometimes spins as part of a staggered-release strategy. Spin sends the various payloads in different directions. This could account for the spiral shape of the exhaust.
There is another possibility. Only 19 minutes before the Vulcan launch in Florida, Europe launched an Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. A deorbit burn from the Ariane could also explain this spiral.
Did you see the spiral? Submit your picture here.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
"I LOVE YOU MORE" BLACK PEARL PENDANT: This black pearl has touched space. On May 26, 2025, the South Sea treasure hitched a ride on an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon, floating 112,021 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:

You can have it for $199.95. The black pearl's sterling silver infinity wrap is engraved with the words "I Love You More." It's the perfect birthday, anniversary or (never too early!) Christmas gift for someone who loves space.
The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
A SUNSPOT WITHIN A SUNSPOT? Sunspot 4172 looks like an ordinary sunspot group. However, data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory reveals something different--a possible sunspot within a sunspot.

This is a magnetic map of the sunspot group. The expected polarity of a sunspot in the sun's northern hemisphere is . Indeed, sunspot 4172 has that polarity. But it also has a knot of reversed polarity, , embedded within it. (Note the circled region in the animation, above.) Is this a strange mish-mash of opposite polarity sunspots? If so, it is unstable and likely to explode. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Perseid Meteor Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Comet ATLAS Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Every night, a network
of NASA
all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United
States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software
maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office
calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth
in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics.
Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.
On Aug 13, 2025, the network reported 78 fireballs.
(42 Perseids, 35 sporadics, 1 alpha Capricornid)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue).
[Larger image] [movies]
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.
On August 13, 2025 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
2025 OJ1 |
2025-Aug-08 |
13.4 LD |
14.2 |
97 |
2019 CO1 |
2025-Aug-08 |
17.8 LD |
10.5 |
65 |
2025 PQ1 |
2025-Aug-09 |
0.9 LD |
8.7 |
15 |
2025 OX7 |
2025-Aug-09 |
20 LD |
4 |
15 |
2025 OY12 |
2025-Aug-09 |
4.1 LD |
12.3 |
32 |
2022 QB1 |
2025-Aug-10 |
8.9 LD |
3.9 |
6 |
2025 OR4 |
2025-Aug-12 |
3.5 LD |
4.6 |
18 |
2025 OJ10 |
2025-Aug-13 |
9.2 LD |
6.4 |
28 |
2025 OL10 |
2025-Aug-13 |
10.4 LD |
7.2 |
11 |
2021 PJ1 |
2025-Aug-15 |
4.3 LD |
9.3 |
24 |
2025 CO3 |
2025-Aug-16 |
19.8 LD |
8.4 |
90 |
2025 PM |
2025-Aug-17 |
2.7 LD |
13.5 |
49 |
2025 PM1 |
2025-Aug-20 |
9.7 LD |
4.9 |
25 |
2025 OV4 |
2025-Aug-20 |
7.5 LD |
10.8 |
52 |
1997 QK1 |
2025-Aug-20 |
7.9 LD |
9.8 |
315 |
2025 OB3 |
2025-Aug-21 |
8.8 LD |
7 |
50 |
2022 QD3 |
2025-Aug-21 |
15 LD |
6.9 |
35 |
2023 PX |
2025-Aug-22 |
2.4 LD |
8.3 |
23 |
2025 PR |
2025-Aug-23 |
17.6 LD |
3.4 |
24 |
2019 QQ6 |
2025-Aug-24 |
9.4 LD |
17.2 |
31 |
2025 PX |
2025-Aug-29 |
16.5 LD |
7 |
50 |
2017 RK15 |
2025-Aug-29 |
15.8 LD |
13.2 |
26 |
2020 TS1 |
2025-Aug-29 |
17.8 LD |
3.3 |
5 |
1998 SH2 |
2025-Aug-30 |
8.1 LD |
17.3 |
246 |
2025 OG1 |
2025-Sep-05 |
14.5 LD |
4.2 |
35 |
2019 JG1 |
2025-Sep-09 |
18.8 LD |
7.9 |
17 |
2009 FF |
2025-Sep-11 |
6.8 LD |
12.9 |
155 |
2015 SA |
2025-Sep-13 |
10.3 LD |
9.1 |
31 |
2022 SS2 |
2025-Sep-13 |
2.4 LD |
7.2 |
13 |
2025 FA22 |
2025-Sep-18 |
2.2 LD |
10.8 |
166 |
2025 PJ1 |
2025-Sep-21 |
11.8 LD |
12 |
136 |
2022 SW12 |
2025-Sep-23 |
15 LD |
17.6 |
210 |
2021 RN16 |
2025-Sep-23 |
10.1 LD |
8.8 |
7 |
2018 QT1 |
2025-Sep-23 |
13 LD |
12.7 |
138 |
2019 SF6 |
2025-Sep-28 |
20 LD |
8.4 |
20 |
152664 |
2025-Sep-29 |
10.1 LD |
18.6 |
412 |
2020 GE1 |
2025-Oct-02 |
13.7 LD |
4.7 |
14 |
2022 TU1 |
2025-Oct-08 |
16.9 LD |
12.9 |
10 |
2020 QU5 |
2025-Oct-09 |
7.1 LD |
13.6 |
26 |
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
|
Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth's surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 10 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (Nov. 2024): Atmospheric radiation is sharply decreasing in 2024. Our latest measurements in November registered a 10-year low:

What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
Technical notes: The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Data points in the graph labeled "Stratospheric Radiation" correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Regener and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
|
The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
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Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
|
3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
|
Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
|
information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
|
current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. |
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Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
|
from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
|
fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
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from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
|
the
underlying science of space weather |
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