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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 408.9 km/sec
density: 6.2 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2350 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B9
1758 UT Jul03
24-hr: M1
1615 UT Jul03
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 03 Jul 17
Departing sunspot AR2664 poses no threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 11
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 03 Jul 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2017 total: 42 days (23%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Updated 03 Jul 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 71 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 03 Jul 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.5 nT
Bz: 2.4 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2350 UT
Coronal Holes: 03 Jul 17

Solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on July 4th. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds NASA's AIM spacecraft, which monitors NLCs from space, recent moved into a new orbit around Earth. Daily data are currently unavailable while the spacecraft's pointing settles. Polar images should resume in early June. Stay tuned!
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 02-24-2017 17:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 Jul 03 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
CLASS X
01 %
01 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2017 Jul 03 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
20 %
SEVERE
25 %
20 %
 
Monday, Jul. 3, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over lapland is excited to announce that Autumn Aurora Adventures are available for immediate booking! Reserve your adventure of a lifetime in Abisko National Park, Sweden today!

 

M-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Unexpectedly breaking weeks of quiet, the sun erupted on July 3rd at 1615 UT, producing an M1-class solar flare. The blast site is on the sun's western limb, so our view of it is severely foreshortened. This complicates efforts to judge its potential for more eruptions in the hours ahead. Stay tuned for updates. Free: Aurora Alerts

INTENSIFYING NOCTILUCENT CLOUD ACTIVITY: Nightfall is supposed to bring darkness. Recent nightfalls in Europe, however, have brought glowing ripples of electric-blue. "Last night, there were the most beautiful noctilucent clouds I have ever seen," says Tamás Csabala, who sends this picture from Debrad, Slovakia:

Marek Nikodem witnessed a similar display over Lake Żnin, near Szubin, Poland. "After a poor start to the season, now is the time of noctilucent clouds. Last night they filled the sky, 140 degrees wide and 110 degrees high, much higher than the zenith. It was unbelievable!"

These and other outbreaks like them are telling us something about the weather in Earth's mesosphere: It's very cold up there. Noctilucent clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise to the top of the atmosphere, coating specks of meteor smoke with fragile crystals of ice. This process requires temperatures as low as 145 K (-128 C). In early June, an unexpected heat wave in the mesosphere temporarily wiped out noctilucent clouds. Their return proves that the heat wave is over.

Noctilucent clouds are usually confined to near-Arctic latitudes. In recent years, however, they have been sighted as far south as Utah and Kansas in the United States. The ongoing apparition in Europe could herald such a widespread display in the nights ahead. Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped ~10 degrees below the horizon. If you see blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud: diagram.

Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery

NOCTILUCENT RADIO ECHOES: Around the Arctic Circle, you can't see noctilucent clouds. Glare from the midnight sun overwhelms their blue glow. Even though Rob Stammes can't see the clouds from Lofoton, Norway, he knows they are there.  They show themselves as squiggles on a chart recorder, the signature of polar summertime mesospheric echoes (PSMEs):

"I detected strong PMSEs on 02-03 July 2017," reports Stammes. "This is related to widespread noctilucent clouds visible south of us in Europe."

PMSEs are terrestrial radio stations reflected from an altitude of 80 km to 90 km. That part of Earth's upper atmosphere is called the "mesosphere." It is, coincidentally, the same place noctilucent clouds are found. The exact cause of PMSEs is not yet known; theorists have proposed explanations ranging from steep electron density gradients and "dressed aerosols" to gravity waves and turbulence. The echoes are often accompanied by visible NLCs.

Stammes operates a VHF radio observatory in northern Norway. "I use my VHF receiving system generally for signals from auroras and meteors," says Stammes, "but occasionally I pick up PSMEs, which sound quite different from aurora echoes and other reflection mechanisms."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

THESE PENDANTS HAVE TOUCHED SPACE: Looking for a far-out gift? On April 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of heart-shaped Venus pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one floating 111,550 feet above the Sierras of central California:

You can have one for $129.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.

More items from the edge of space may be found in the Earth to Sky Store. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation monitoring and hands-on STEM education.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery



  All Sky Fireball Network
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 Jul. 3, 2017, the network reported 6 fireballs.
(6 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]

  Near Earth Asteroids
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 July 3, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2017 NC
2017-Jun-29
8 LD
11.6
25
2017 MB3
2017-Jun-30
5 LD
6.5
31
2017 MC1
2017-Jun-30
2.5 LD
11.6
44
2017 NB
2017-Jul-02
3.5 LD
10
39
2017 MC3
2017-Jul-02
6.5 LD
13.2
57
2017 MO8
2017-Jul-03
4.1 LD
10.9
22
2017 ME4
2017-Jul-03
5.4 LD
6.8
20
2017 MB5
2017-Jul-05
19 LD
9.5
113
2017 MQ7
2017-Jul-06
17.6 LD
10.9
84
2017 MA5
2017-Jul-06
15 LD
7.9
28
2017 MP7
2017-Jul-08
11 LD
8.2
29
2017 MC4
2017-Jul-11
7.7 LD
20.8
154
2017 MR8
2017-Jul-15
3.3 LD
6.9
35
2007 MB4
2017-Jul-16
14.5 LD
9.6
107
2017 BS5
2017-Jul-23
3.1 LD
5.8
54
2014 OA339
2017-Aug-13
12.3 LD
10
47
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 13% 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.

  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
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NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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