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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 439.1 km/sec
density: 2.7 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2344 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A6
2320 UT Mar10
24-hr: B1
0745 UT Mar10
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2340 UT
Daily Sun: 10 Mar. 10
The Earth-facing side of the sun is blank--no sunspots. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 09 Mar 2010

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 4 days
2010 total: 6 days (9%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 776 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
explanation | more info
Updated 09 Mar 2010


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 77 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 08 Mar 2010

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.9 nT
Bz: 2.7 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes:
There are no large coronal holes on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2010 Mar 10 2201 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: 2010 Mar 10 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
March 10, 2010

NEW AND IMPROVED: Turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a field-tested global satellite tracker. The Satellite Flybys app now works in all countries.

 

THE MYSTERY OF PHOBOS: Something is wrong with Phobos. The martian moon looks like a solid, but it is not as dense as a rocky solid should be. Some researchers think Phobos might be riddled with vast caverns; others say it is just a "rubble pile" masquerading as a solid body. To solve the mystery, Europe's Mars Express spacecraft is making a series of close Phobos-flybys this month. March 10th update: According to gravity-field data just beamed back from Mars Express, mass is not evenly distributed throughout the moon’s interior. A detailed analysis is underway by ESA researchers. Stay tuned!

SOLAR ERUPTION: Magnetic fields around the corpse of old sunspot 1045 erupted this morning, March 10th, at 0745 UT. SOHO's extreme ultraviolet telescope recorded the action, which you can see by clicking on the image below:

The eruption did not produce a lot of X-rays (the corresponding flare registered only B1), but it did hurl a billion-ton coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The cloud is not aimed directly at Earth, but it could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on or about March 13th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras around that date.

IDITAROD SKIES: This week, hundreds of the world's finest athletes are racing 1,150+ miles across some of most extreme and beautiful terrain in the world--the Iditarod trail of Alaska. If any of those sled dogs raise their blue eyes to the sky, they might see something like this:

Daryl Peterson took the picture on March 21, 2009. "I went to Nome last year to shoot the finish of the Iditarod," he recalls. "During the race you can almost bank on seeing some Northern Lights, even when solar activity is low."

He's right. On average, March is the most geomagnetically active month of the year; October is a close second (histogram). The reason is not fully understood, but it has something to do with the orientation of Earth's axes and the sun's magnetic field around the time of the equinoxes. The Iditarod takes place smack-dog in the middle of aurora season.

Now, if only huskies could operate a camera....

March Northern Lights Gallery
[previous Marches: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003]

 
       
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 10, 2010 there were 1106 potentially hazardous asteroids.
March 2010 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2001 PT9
March 3
11.1 LD
15
305 m
4486 Mithra
March 12
73.5 LD
15
3.3 km
2001 FM129
March 13
44.1 LD
16
1.5 km
2002 TE66
March 28
48.0 LD
15
940 m
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.
Essential 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 and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
   
  more links...
   
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