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Solar wind
speed: 374.4 km/sec
density: 4.8 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B6
1944 UT Mar14
24-hr: C2
0554 UT Mar14
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 14 Mar 13
None of these sunspots is strongly flaring. Solar activity is low. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 103
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 14 Mar 2013

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
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%)
Since 2004: 821 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days

Update
14 Mar 2013

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 123 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 14 Mar 2013

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 10.1 nT
Bz: 6.4 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
Coronal Holes: 14 Mar 13
There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2013 Mar 14 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
15 %
15 %
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: 2013 Mar 14 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
35 %
35 %
MINOR
15 %
15 %
SEVERE
05 %
05 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
30 %
30 %
SEVERE
50 %
50 %
 
Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013
What's up in space
 

Hang the Transit of Venus on your wall! Hubble-quality images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory are now available as metallic posters in the Space Weather Store.

 
Venus Transit metal posters

CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on March 15th when a CME might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. The CME was launched by a filament of solar magnetism that erupted on March 12th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the cloud arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

HAPPY PI DAY: March 14th (3.14) is day and all around the world mathematicians are celebrating this compelling and mysterious constant of Nature. Pi appears in equations describing the orbits of planets, the colors of auroras, the structure of DNA. It's everywhere.

Humans have struggled to calculate for thousands of years. Divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter; the ratio is . Sounds simple, but the devil is in the digits. While the value of is finite (a smidgen more than 3), the decimal number is infinitely long:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795
02884197169399375105820974944592307
81640628620899862803482534211706...more

Supercomputers have succeeded in calculating more than 2700 billion digits and they're still crunching. The weirdest way to compute : throw needles at a table or frozen hot dogs on the floor. Party time!

COMET PAN-STARRS UPDATE: Comet Pan-STARRS might have brightened even more than expected when it swung past the sun on March 10th. Updated light curves show the comet peaked at 0th magnitude, about 2.5 times brighter than a 1st-magnitude star. Unfortunately, bright twilight surrounds the comet, making it difficult to find. Last night, Chris Cook pointed it out to his son from a sand dune in Cape Cod, Massachusetts,:


Photo details: 2 sec exposure, Canon 5D w/70-200mm f/2.8L lens, ISO1250

Even staring straight at it, however, father and son had trouble seeing the comet. Cook used a 2-second exposure with his digital camera to improve the view.

The situation will improve in the nights ahead as Comet Pan-STARRS moves away from the sun into darker skies. Soon, it might be possible to walk outside after nightfall, look west, and see the brightening comet with the unaided eye. If you would like to try tonight, look for Comet Pan-STARRS directly underneath the waxing crescent Moon: sky map.

More: NASA video, 3D orbit, ephemeris, light curves.

Realtime Comet Photo Gallery

MAGNETIC ERUPTION ON MARCH 12th: A magnetic filament in the sun's northern hemisphere slowly erupted on March 12th for more than two hours around 1107 UT. Extreme ultraviolet telescopes onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:

The source of the explosion was active region AR1690 on the sun's central meridian. Although AR1690 is almost directly facing our planet, debris from the blast will mostly miss Earth. A CME produced by the explosion is traveling north of the sun-Earth line. Nevertheless, the southern fringe of the CME might hit Earth's magnetic field on March 15th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011]

  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 14, 2013 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2013 EN20
Mar 10
1.2 LD
7 m
2013 ES41
Mar 13
6.5 LD
21 m
2013 EA29
Mar 14
3.5 LD
20 m
2013 ED68
Mar 16
1.4 LD
11 m
2007 EO88
Mar 18
4.4 LD
23 m
1993 UC
Mar 20
49 LD
3.8 km
2013 ES11
Mar 22
6.3 LD
80 m
1997 AP10
Mar 28
45.9 LD
1.8 km
2010 GM23
Apr 13
3.9 LD
50 m
2005 NZ6
Apr 29
24.9 LD
1.3 km
2001 DQ8
Apr 30
74.3 LD
1.1 km
2004 BV102
May 25
69.9 LD
1.4 km
1998 QE2
May 31
15.2 LD
2.2 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.
  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
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
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