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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 431.2 km/sec
density: 3.4 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2359 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B5
2143 UT Jan11
24-hr: B5
2143 UT Jan11
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 11 Jan 17
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 11 Jan 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 7 days
2017 total: 9 days (90%)
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 11 Jan 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 73 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 11 Jan 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.8 nT
Bz: 0.5 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 0000 UT
Coronal Holes: 11 Jan 17

Solar wind flowing from this minor coronal hole should reach Earth on or about Jan.12th. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds began on Nov. 17th. Come back to this spot every day to see the "daily daisy" from NASA's AIM spacecraft, which is monitoring the dance of electric-blue around the Antarctic Circle.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 01-11-2017 15:55:04
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 Jan 11 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 Jan 11 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
25 %
25 %
MINOR
10 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
30 %
SEVERE
35 %
30 %
 
Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

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CHANCE OF STORMS ON JAN. 12TH: NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Jan. 12th. The cause is twofold: (1) Earth is expected to cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet; and (2) a minor solar wind stream will hit Earth's magnetic field. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras in response to this double whammy. Free: Aurora Alerts

SUNSPOTS VANISH, SPACE WEATHER CONTINUES: So far in 2017, the big story in space weather is sunspots--or rather, the lack thereof. So far this year, the sun has been blank more than 90% of the time.  Only one very tiny spot observed for a few hours on Jan. 3rd has interrupted the string of spotless days. Devoid of dark cores, today's sun is typical of the year so far:

The last time the sun produced a similar string of spotless days was May of 2010, almost 7 years ago. That was near the end of the previous deep Solar Minimum.  The current stretch is a sign that Solar Minimum is coming again. Sunspot numbers rise and fall with an ~11-year period, slowly oscillating between Solar Max and Solar Min. In 2017, the pendulum is swinging toward the bottom.

Contrary to popular belief, space weather does not stop when sunspots vanish.  Recent nights are proof: Bright auroras have been dancing around the Arctic Circle. Tom Arne Moldenaes of Norway,Groetfjord, recorded this eruption--"like green lava from a volcano," he says--on Jan. 5th when the face of the sun was absolutely blank:

The auroras were sparked by a stream of solar wind flowing from a large hole in the sun's atmosphere. Such "coronal holes" are common during Solar Minimum.

A lot of interesting things happen when sunspots vanish. For instance, the extreme ultraviolet output of the sun plummets. This causes the upper atmosphere of Earth to cool and collapse. With less air "up there" to cause orbital decay, space junk accumulates around our planet.

Also during Solar Minimum, the heliosphere shrinks, bringing interstellar space closer to Earth. Galactic cosmic rays penetrate the inner solar system with relative ease. Indeed, a cosmic ray surge is already underway, with implications for astronauts and even ordinary air travelers.

Stay tuned for updates as we enter a new phase of the solar cycle.

PILEUS CLOUDS: On Jan. 6th, Peter Lowenstein observed a rainbow-colored saucer over Mutare, Zimbabwe--but it wasn't a UFO. "This is a classic example of a pileus cloud," he says.


Pileus clouds form on sunny afternoons when the heat of the summer sun causes cumulus clouds to boil upwards. Roiling toward the sky, cumulus clouds push layers of moist air above them where they cool and condense to form droplet-rich cloud caps or 'pileus' (Latin for cap).

Sometimes, as in Mutare on Jan. 6th, pileus clouds form very quickly. In such cases their water droplets tend to be all the same size--the perfect condition for iridescent colors.

Lowenstein took four pictures over a period of just three minutes. "They show the cloud  appearing, then changing shape and color," he says. "One minute later it had disappeared behind the summit of the growing cumulonimbus cloud."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery


Realtime Sprite 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 Jan. 11, 2017, the network reported 14 fireballs.
(14 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 January 11, 2017 there were 1759 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2016 YK
Jan 8
13.5 LD
80 m
2017 AS4
Jan 8
1.5 LD
21 m
2017 AG13
Jan 9
0.5 LD
27 m
2017 AT4
Jan 9
11 LD
20 m
2017 AM13
Jan 10
14.8 LD
43 m
2017 AJ13
Jan 14
6.7 LD
64 m
2016 YC8
Jan 18
9.5 LD
52 m
2015 BB
Jan 18
13.8 LD
45 m
2002 LS32
Jan 24
53.9 LD
1.0 km
1991 VK
Jan 25
25.2 LD
1.9 km
2000 WN107
Jan 26
62.3 LD
2.8 km
2017 AK3
Jan 26
11.3 LD
49 m
2016 YP4
Jan 26
12.7 LD
17 m
2005 VL1
Feb 4
9.1 LD
18 m
2013 FK
Feb 5
7.1 LD
94 m
2014 DV110
Feb 10
9.8 LD
45 m
2015 QR3
Feb 12
13.1 LD
31 m
2013 WT67
Feb 17
44.2 LD
1.1 km
1992 FE
Feb 24
13.1 LD
275 m
1998 QK56
Feb 24
53 LD
1.3 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

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.

  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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