Directly under the Arctic Circle! Marianne's Arctic Xpress in Tromsø offers fjord, whale and wildlife tours by day, aurora tours by night. Book Now and get a 10% discount on combo day and night adventures. | | | SUNSET SKY SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look southwest. Venus and Saturn have gathered in a loose conjunction just above the rosy glow of sunset -- and the crescent Moon is moving in to join them. The three celestial bodies will form a must-see triangle on Wednesday evening. Sky maps: Nov. 1, Nov. 2. THE CROOKED CRESCENT MOON: Even the Moon dressed up for Halloween. It went as a crooked crescent. John Stetson photographed young Luna from his home on the shore of Sebago Lake, Maine: "When I saw it on Oct. 31st, the Moon was only 29 hours past New," says Stetson. Temperature gradients near the lake's surface caused the atmosphere to act like a weird lens, "distorting the color and shape of the crescent as the Moon approached the horizon. It was a real treat!" Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery SPOOKY AURORAS: Earth is exiting a stream of solar wind that produced magnificent auroras around the Arctic Circle during the last week of October. Although the storms are subsiding, there was still enough residual solar wind to shine an eerie light over Tromsø, Norway, on Halloween: "Let me introduce Albert," says Egon Filter who took the picture. "He has been observing Northern Lights from Tromso for many years. Albert says it keeps him young!" Egon and Albert were traveling with Marianne's Heaven on Earth Aurora Chaser Tours, a proud supporter of Spaceweather.com. As Earth leaves one stream of solar wind, another is in the offing. A cluster of minor coronal holes on the sun is spewing plasma into space, and the material should reach our planet on Nov. 4th or 5th. Geomagnetic activity is possible on those dates, with a resurgence of lights around the Arctic Circle. Free: Aurora Alerts. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery 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 Nov. 1, 2016, the network reported 36 fireballs. (25 sporadics, 8 Northern Taurids, 3 Orionids) 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 November 1, 2016 there were 1739 potentially hazardous asteroids. Notes: LD means "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. | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere | Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here: This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. What is this all about? Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 12% since 2015: Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation. 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. The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger 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. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com | | the underlying science of space weather | | Find homes for sale in Ocala, Orlando and Tampa with the #1 real estate company in Central Florida Local Realty Service | | Visit Need An Eitzah for all your questions and forum discussions on Jewish life. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | |