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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

SpaceWeather.com
Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 580.3 km/s
density: 1.1 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2251 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B2 1920 UT Jan01
24-hr: X1 0030 UT Jan01
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 01 Jan '05

Sunspot 715 has a beta-gamma-delta magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares, Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 60
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 31 Jan 2004

Interplanetary Mag. Field
B_total: 14.5 nT
B_z: 2.1 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2256 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could strike Earth's magnetic field on January 1st or 2nd. Image credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope.

SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts
Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2005 Jan 01 2200 UTC

FLARE	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
CLASS M	50 %	50 %
CLASS X	10 %	10 %

Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at 2005 Jan 01 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	35 %	35 %
MINOR	20 %	25 %
SEVERE	05 %	05 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	40 %	40 %
MINOR	20 %	20 %
SEVERE	10 %	10 %

What's Up in Space -- 1 Jan 2005
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X-FLARE: The New Year began with a bang. A powerful X2-class solar flare erupted near sunspot 715 at 40 minutes past midnight GMT on January 1st. If the explosion hurled a CME toward Earth (we don't yet know that it did), the cloud would arrive on January 2nd and possibly spark auroras. Stay tuned for updates.

Right: Sunspot 715 on Dec. 30th. This strange active region is shaped like a figure-8! Photo credit: Howard Eskildsen of Ocala, Florida.

METEOR SHOWER: The annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Monday morning, January 3rd, at 4:20 am PST (12:20 GMT). Observers in western parts of North America are favored. During the hours before dawn they might see dozens to hundreds of shooting stars. [sky map]

GREEN COMET: Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2) is approaching Earth and gliding through the constellation Taurus. It's easy to find. Go outside and look south between 9 and 10 PM: sky map. To the unaided eye, it looks like a faint and fuzzy green star. Through a small telescope, you can see the comet's two tails:

"Even under the light of the bright gibbous moon, Comet Machholz was easy to see with the naked eye," says Jimmy Westlake, who took the picture above on Dec. 28th. "This 2-minute exposure shows the narrow ion tail pointing away from the Sun and the diffuse dust tail, which traces the comet's orbit."

VENUS AND MERCURY: Step outside around 6 o'clock in the morning and look east toward the glow of the rising sun. Mercury and Venus are there, shining brightly, less than 2^o apart. Wolf Manfred of Bavaria, Germany, took this picture of the pair on Dec. 31st. They will remain easy to see at sunrise for several days to come. [sky map]

SPACESHIP SILHOUETTE: The middle of the night is normally a bad time to see the International Space Station (ISS). Then, the ISS is in Earth's shadow. Except for a few tiny lights shining through the station's windows, the station is as dark as the night sky itself.

In the south of France on Dec. 29th, in the middle of the night, Simian Etienne took this picture of the pitch-dark ISS passing in front of the moon:

The station's wing-like solar arrays are clearly visible, as are its thermal radiators and a docked Soyuz capsule. The middle of the night might be a bad time to see the ISS, but it's a great time to see its silhouette!

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 are on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

On 1 Jan 2005 there were 654 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

Nov.-Dec. 2004 Earth-asteroid encounters

ASTEROID

MISS DISTANCE

MAG.

2004 TP1

Nov. 2

13 LD

2004 UE

Nov. 9

10 LD

2004 RZ164

Dec. 8

7 LD

2004 VW14

Dec. 24

5 LD

Notes: LD is a "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.

Essential Web Links

NOAA Space Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. See also Snow Crystals.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

SOHO Farside Images of the Sun from SWAN and MDI.

The Latest SOHO Coronagraph Images -- from the Naval Research Lab

The Sun from Earth -- daily images of our star from the Big Bear Solar Observatory

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Aurora Forecast --from the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute

Daily Solar Flare and Sunspot Data -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

What is an Iridium flare? See also Photographing Satellites by Brian Webb.

Vandenberg AFB missile launch schedule.

What is an Astronomical Unit, or AU ?

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; Jan-Mar., 2004;

Space Audio Streams: (University of Florida) 20 MHz radio emissions from Jupiter: #1, #2, #3, #4; (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

Recent International Astronomical Union Circulars

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email

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