Marianne's Arctic Xpress supports World Cancer Day by donating 50% of the price paid on all bookings Feb. 3-5 to cancer research. Arctic clothing and semi-pro cameras included. Groups of 2 to 8 welcome. Book Now | | | 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 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] 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. 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 | | Beautyz for top beauty products reviews and their buying guides | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | |