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EXTREME COMPRESSION OF EARTH'S MAGNETOSPHERE: During last May's solar superstorm, Earth's magnetic field was extremely compressed. According to new study in the research journal Space Weather, the dayside magnetopause was so squashed that geosynchronous satellites were outside the magnetosphere's protective cocoon for 6 hours. Remarkably, no satellites were lost, although data transmission from some weather satellites was degraded. Read the original research here.
SOLAR MAX -- IS A SECOND PEAK COMING? Last October, NOAA and NASA announced that Solar Max has arrived. Only half the sun got the memo. The majority of solar activity has been happening in just one of the sun's hemispheres--the south. The solar superstorm of May 10, 2024, for instance, was caused by a monster southern sunspot.
It makes you wonder, is the other half of Solar Max still coming? This plot of hemispheric sunspot numbers from SILSO provides some context:
Here we see all seven solar cycles of the Space Age, punctuated by current Solar Cycle 25 on the far right. The most recent cycles are double peaked, with northern sunspots (green) and southern sunspots (red) reaching their own Solar Max ~two years apart. This isn't big news. Researchers have long known that the two hemispheres of the sun are slightly out of sync. The north vs. south delay is called the "Gnevyshev gap."
This composite image of last year's sunspots shows how dominant the southern hemisphere has been:
For forecasters of the solar cycle, this raises an interesting possibility: Maybe the northern peak is still coming. Indeed, there are signs in February 2025 that the pendulum is swinging. This month's sunspots have been more evenly distributed between the two hemispheres, a sign that activity may be shifting north.
On the other hand, the northern peak might have already occured. Take another look at the first plot. There is a puny northern peak near the beginning of Solar Cycle 25. Perhaps that was it.
This discussion focuses attention on the north-south balance of sunspots. A northern shift in the months ahead could herald a second peak and another year or two of excellent auroras before Solar Cycle 25 finally peters out. Stay tuned!
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THE MILKY WAY IN A CRYSTAL BALL: Are you looking for a big gift? How about the entire Milky Way? The students of Earth to Sky Calculus have launched our own galaxy to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Here it is 113,517 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $119.95. The galaxy is laser etched inside a 60 mm crystal sphere. You can turn it in your hands, inspecting the spiral star system from any angle. The gift-boxed sphere comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
FALCON 9 RE-ENTRY OVER EUROPE: The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket plunged into Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 19th (0345 UTC) producing a spectacular light show over Europe. A meteor camera operated by André Knoeffel in Brandenburg, Germany, recorded the disintegrating debris:
Early risers in the Netherlands, UK, Germany and Denmark saw the fragmenting rocket body glide slowly across the sky as more than 3,900 kilograms (8,598 pounds) of metal and plastic disintegrated.
The rocket should have reentered almost 3 weeks ago, just after Feb. 1st when it propelled 22 internet satellites (Starlink group 11-4) into Earth orbit. It failed to deorbit, however, instead coming down yesterday in an uncontrolled blaze.
This event adds to the already unprecedented number of Starlink satellites and SpaceX debris reentering Earth's atmosphere in early 2025. We'll be posting an update about that early next week. Stay tuned!
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Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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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 Feb 19, 2025, the network reported 12 fireballs.
(12 sporadics)
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 February 20, 2025 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2025 DE | 2025-Feb-15 | 7.9 LD | 11.4 | 61 |
| 2025 DC | 2025-Feb-15 | 0.7 LD | 13.5 | 11 |
| 2025 DX | 2025-Feb-15 | 6.4 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
| 2025 DD | 2025-Feb-15 | 15.5 LD | 14.4 | 57 |
| 2025 CR | 2025-Feb-15 | 13 LD | 10.1 | 30 |
| 2004 XG | 2025-Feb-16 | 15.6 LD | 9.1 | 52 |
| 2025 CO1 | 2025-Feb-16 | 18.1 LD | 7.4 | 25 |
| 2025 BX1 | 2025-Feb-16 | 7.2 LD | 10.3 | 47 |
| 2025 DS | 2025-Feb-16 | 16.5 LD | 11.7 | 44 |
| 2024 UD26 | 2025-Feb-16 | 16.8 LD | 9.3 | 272 |
| 2025 DK | 2025-Feb-16 | 2 LD | 19 | 9 |
| 2025 DJ | 2025-Feb-16 | 2.4 LD | 12.5 | 13 |
| 2025 DM | 2025-Feb-16 | 12.6 LD | 8.7 | 21 |
| 2025 DN | 2025-Feb-17 | 3.5 LD | 8.5 | 10 |
| 2025 DO | 2025-Feb-17 | 5.3 LD | 5.4 | 28 |
| 2025 CA2 | 2025-Feb-18 | 13.3 LD | 7.4 | 21 |
| 2025 DW | 2025-Feb-18 | 0.3 LD | 7.9 | 2 |
| 2025 DF | 2025-Feb-19 | 0.7 LD | 4 | 8 |
| 2014 CE13 | 2025-Feb-19 | 9 LD | 16.8 | 54 |
| 2022 DG2 | 2025-Feb-19 | 11.5 LD | 10.4 | 7 |
| 2016 AX165 | 2025-Feb-20 | 14.9 LD | 9.2 | 84 |
| 2025 DR | 2025-Feb-20 | 12.3 LD | 31.2 | 36 |
| 2025 DV | 2025-Feb-21 | 10.9 LD | 10.5 | 21 |
| 2025 DQ | 2025-Feb-21 | 0.8 LD | 6.7 | 4 |
| 2012 DZ | 2025-Feb-21 | 2.8 LD | 16.7 | 21 |
| 2025 CY3 | 2025-Feb-22 | 12.3 LD | 7.9 | 39 |
| 2025 DU | 2025-Feb-22 | 3.4 LD | 8.7 | 9 |
| 2015 BK509 | 2025-Feb-25 | 9.4 LD | 14.6 | 118 |
| 2023 RW3 | 2025-Feb-25 | 7.4 LD | 5.1 | 18 |
| 2025 DP | 2025-Feb-25 | 14.6 LD | 6.5 | 17 |
| 2025 DT | 2025-Feb-25 | 2.6 LD | 24.6 | 35 |
| 2025 DY | 2025-Feb-26 | 9.5 LD | 12.8 | 22 |
| 2025 CV1 | 2025-Mar-02 | 16.5 LD | 10.3 | 49 |
| 535844 | 2025-Mar-05 | 9.6 LD | 7.9 | 148 |
| 2018 RC2 | 2025-Mar-08 | 2 LD | 12.5 | 85 |
| 2021 EU3 | 2025-Mar-10 | 10.7 LD | 4.4 | 13 |
| 2025 CT1 | 2025-Mar-13 | 19.4 LD | 2.9 | 29 |
| 2020 FO | 2025-Mar-15 | 13.4 LD | 20.6 | 23 |
| 2025 CX1 | 2025-Mar-15 | 19.8 LD | 8.4 | 41 |
| 2021 FH1 | 2025-Mar-21 | 3.9 LD | 13.8 | 31 |
| 2014 TN17 | 2025-Mar-26 | 13.3 LD | 21.5 | 174 |
| 2020 VA4 | 2025-Mar-30 | 11.6 LD | 5.6 | 12 |
| 2022 FR3 | 2025-Apr-01 | 6.6 LD | 7.4 | 105 |
| 2020 XT2 | 2025-Apr-04 | 13.6 LD | 6.2 | 41 |
| 2023 GC2 | 2025-Apr-04 | 17.3 LD | 6.3 | 12 |
| 2020 FH4 | 2025-Apr-04 | 12.8 LD | 3 | 7 |
| 2025 BC10 | 2025-Apr-05 | 9.7 LD | 22.9 | 479 |
| 2007 SQ6 | 2025-Apr-05 | 10.9 LD | 6.6 | 129 |
| 2003 GQ22 | 2025-Apr-07 | 19.6 LD | 8.9 | 180 |
| 2023 HG | 2025-Apr-11 | 3.7 LD | 8.6 | 14 |
| 2023 KU | 2025-Apr-11 | 2.8 LD | 18 | 119 |
| 2023 RX1 | 2025-Apr-13 | 18.1 LD | 1.4 | 3 |
| 2023 UH | 2025-Apr-15 | 8.8 LD | 11 | 21 |
| 2022 UO | 2025-Apr-15 | 19.8 LD | 16.2 | 18 |
| 2017 RN16 | 2025-Apr-17 | 10.9 LD | 8.7 | 6 |
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 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 |
| | The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
| | 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. |
| | 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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