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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 499.8 km/sec
density: 1.4 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1
2029 UT Mar07
24-hr: B2
1258 UT Mar07
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 07 Mar 16
Not one of these relatively small sunspots poses a threat for strong flares. Solar activity remains very low. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 68
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 07 Mar 2016

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2016 total: 0 days (0%)
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 07 Mar 2016


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 96 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 07 Mar 2016

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 4 unsettled
24-hr max: Kp= 5
storm
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.8 nT
Bz: 3.1 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
Coronal Holes: 07 Mar 16

There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds began on Dec. 13, 2015. It is expected to end in late February 2016.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 02-12-2016 16:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2016 Mar 07 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: 2016 Mar 07 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 %
20 %
MINOR
30 %
25 %
SEVERE
25 %
20 %
 
Monday, Mar. 7, 2016
What's up in space
       
 

Marianne's Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to join them in their quest to find and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Experience the winter wonderland in the Tromsø Area.

 
Chase the Light Tours

CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH JUPITER: On March 8th, Earth and Jupiter will have a close encounter. The giant planet will be "up all night," soaring almost overhead at midnight and not setting until the sky brightens with the twilight hues of sunrise on March 9th. Get the full story from Science@NASA.

GEOMAGNETIC STORM LIGHTS UP EUROPE AND THE USA: A stream of high-speed solar wind is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and this is causing geomagnetic storms around the Arctic Circle. So far, Northern Lights have descended as far south as Germany in Europe and Massachusetts in the USA. Skies over much of England turned green, too. Sian Louise Gordon sends this picture from Saltburn-by-the-Sea:

"It was an absolutely amazing display here in the north of England," reports Gordon. "The entire northern skyline was lit up! You could clearly make out pillars by eye, which was amazing."

NOAA forecasters say there is a 50% chance of more geomagnetic storms on March 7th as Earth moves deeper into the solar wind stream. The magnetic polarity of the stream is negative--a condition which favors auroras. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for Northern Lights. Aurora alerts: text or voice

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

DON'T FORGET THE PARTIAL ECLIPSE: Mainstream media attention is focused on this week's total eclipse of the sun. Fair enough. The touch of the Moon's cool shadow and the sight of the sun's ghostly corona is a transformative experience. But don't forget the partial eclipse. As this animated map created by Larry Koehn of Shadow and Substance shows, the sun will be partially covered over almost half of the planet:

Unlike the path of totality, which is very narrow, the partial eclipse zone is huge. It touches places as far apart as Alaska (20% coverage), Hawaii (65%), Australia (0% to 60%), China (0% to 40%), Japan (20%), and Papua New Guinea (70%). This is good, because a partial eclipse is total fun.

The first thing to remember about a partial eclipse is don't stare at it. Even the tiniest sliver of sun left uncovered by the Moon can hurt your eyes. Instead, look at the ground. Beneath a leafy tree, you might be surprised to find hundreds of crescent-shaped sunbeams dappling the grass. Overlapping leaves create a natural array of pinhole cameras, each one casting an image of the crescent-sun onto the ground beneath the canopy.

No trees? Try this trick: Criss-cross your fingers waffle-style and let the sun shine through the matrix of holes. You can cast crescent suns on sidewalks, driveways, friends, cats and dogs—you name it. Hand shadows are fun, too, like the crescent-eyed turkey shown above.

Because the partial eclipse lasts for more than an hour, there is plenty of time for shadow play and photography using safely-filtered telescopes and cameras. The view from Hawaii and Alaska, where the eclipse occurs near sunset, should be especially beautiful.

Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery

ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS: The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are flying from Los Angeles to Indonesia to observe the March 9th solar eclipse. Among other things, they are carrying a cosmic ray balloon payload with GPS tracking and 4 radiation sensors. This allows them to measure radiation inside the airplane. Scroll past their flight path to learn more about the experiment:

During the trip, the students will be crossing both the Arctic Circle and the equator in the same 24 hour period, allowing them to gather radiation data rapidly over a wide range of latitude. This will build upon their ongoing study of aviation radiation which, before now, has been limited to latitudes in the continental USA.

Radiation inside airplanes comes from deep space. Galactic cosmic rays are accelerated toward our planet by supernova explosions and other violent events in the cosmos. They penetrate the walls of aircraft with ease and have prompted the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to classify pilots as occupational radiation workers. Today's experiment will probe how Earth's magnetic field at different latitudes protects pilots and passengers from aviation radiation. Stay tuned for results!

ANTI-CREPUSCULAR RAYS: The sun was setting yesterday in the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California when a fan of shadowy rays sprang up from the horizon. They looked like ordinary sunset rays except for one thing--"the sun was on the opposite side of the sky," says Katharine Allen, who witnessed the display and photographed it while she was walking her dogs:

"What was it?" she asks. The answer: Anti-crepuscular rays.

Behind Allen's back, the setting sun dipped behind some ragged clouds. The edges of those clouds cast shadows--immense tubes of darkness--that arced all the way across the sky to converge on the opposite horizon. Such shadows are called "anti-crepuscular rays."

Anti-crepuscular rays are not rare, but they are delicate and often go unnoticed. The next time you see shadows emerging from the sunset, turn around. There may be something beautiful waiting right behind your back.

Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery



Realtime Comet 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 Mar. 7, 2016, the network reported 13 fireballs.
(13 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 March 7, 2016 there were 1683 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2016 DW1
Mar 3
14.2 LD
30 m
2016 EG28
Mar 3
1.9 LD
12 m
2016 EK1
Mar 3
0.5 LD
7 m
2016 DM1
Mar 3
5.9 LD
26 m
2016 DU1
Mar 3
13.1 LD
26 m
2016 EL1
Mar 4
0.6 LD
12 m
2016 EG1
Mar 5
1.1 LD
7 m
2016 DN2
Mar 5
1.8 LD
20 m
2016 EW1
Mar 7
10.8 LD
39 m
2013 TX68
Mar 8
13 LD
38 m
2001 PL9
Mar 9
77.6 LD
1.2 km
2016 EL27
Mar 10
10.9 LD
22 m
2016 EB1
Mar 10
5.4 LD
48 m
2016 EJ27
Mar 12
9.7 LD
41 m
2010 FX9
Mar 19
6.9 LD
62 m
252P/LINEAR
Mar 21
13.9 LD
0 m
BA14 PANSTARRS
Mar 22
9.2 LD
545 m
1993 VA
Mar 23
59.6 LD
1.6 km
2016 CY135
Mar 23
13.9 LD
60 m
2016 EQ1
Mar 24
8.3 LD
29 m
2001 XD
Mar 28
64.5 LD
1.0 km
2016 BC14
Mar 29
9.8 LD
270 m
2002 AJ29
Apr 6
55.2 LD
1.5 km
2002 EB3
Apr 8
55.6 LD
1.2 km
2009 KJ
Apr 10
37.7 LD
1.6 km
2005 GR33
Apr 13
7.8 LD
175 m
2008 HU4
Apr 16
4.9 LD
10 m
2001 VG5
Apr 28
52.4 LD
1.8 km
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
Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N)
Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month.
Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr)
Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr)
Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr)
Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr)
Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr)
Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr)
Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr)
These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more.

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. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015:

Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.

Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours.

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.

  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
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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