| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 1 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 4.7 nT Bz: 0.1 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2351 UT Coronal Holes: 15 Jul 18 There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds in he northern hemisphere is underway. Check here daily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 07-15-2018 16:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Jul 15 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: 2018 Jul 15 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 10 % | MINOR | 01 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 25 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 20 % | 15 % | | | | | | | | | | | | All-inclusive Northern Lights trips in Tromsø, Norway. Small groups, big experiences! Highly qualified guides ensure unique and unforgettable adventures with a personal touch. Visit Explore the Arctic | | | MOON-VENUS CONJUNCTION: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. The crescent Moon is passing by Venus, forming a tight conjunction in the sunset sky. Try to catch them before the sky fades to black. A Venus-Moon conjunction framed by twilight blue is extra-beautiful. Sky maps: July 14, 15. Browse: Photo Gallery. GREEN FLASH ON THE SUN: For seaside photographers, nothing beats a green flash--that sudden pulse of verdant light at sunset as the sun vanishes beneath the ocean waves. James Young was on a beach in Oregon on July 11th when captured a green flash. But it didn't come from the ocean waves. It came from the top of a cloud: This is a rare cloud-top green flash, sometimes seen as the sun's rays graze a distant cloud bank. They are not well understood. Ordinary green flashes require a temperature inversion layer near the sea surface. Similar inversions may sometimes occur at the top of marine stratus clouds, giving rise to the type of ragged cloudy flash Young witnessed. "It was very bright--a beautiful mystery to end the day," he says. Realtime Green Flash Photo Gallery MARS IN A SKILLET: As Mars approaches Earth for a 15-year close encounter on July 27th, it is brightening to a luminosity rarely seen from the Red Planet. How bright is it? Mars is almost 3 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. It is 30% brighter than Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. Mars is so bright, you can see it in a skillet: "I was cleaning up my outdoor gas grill last night after having a barbeque when I noticed a bright reflection in my skillet. I then looked up, and it was Mars," says Frankie Lucena of Puerto Rico. "I went inside to get my camera and took this photo," he adds. "It is the best photo of Mars that I have been able to take so far this season. Maybe the vegetable oil in the skillet helped to bring out its colors." Readers, if you have not yet seen Mars with your own eyes this month, please do. You can't miss it shining brightly in the southern sky at midnight. The planet's color, accurately shown in Lucena's skillet, is amazing. [sky map] Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On June 12th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a sterling silver Celtic love knot 34.1 km (111,877 feet) above Earth's surface: You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Realtime Aurora 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 Jul. 15, 2018, the network reported 8 fireballs. (7 sporadics, 1 psi Cassiopeid) 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 July 15, 2018 there were 1912 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2018 NQ3 | 2018-Jul-10 | 14.6 LD | 8.9 | 20 | 2018 NF1 | 2018-Jul-12 | 18.1 LD | 10.8 | 38 | 2018 NW1 | 2018-Jul-14 | 9.9 LD | 9.2 | 28 | 2018 ND4 | 2018-Jul-14 | 12.7 LD | 11.9 | 35 | 2018 NV2 | 2018-Jul-15 | 10.1 LD | 15.1 | 42 | 2018 NM | 2018-Jul-17 | 1.4 LD | 6.7 | 19 | 2018 NL4 | 2018-Jul-18 | 10.4 LD | 12.7 | 51 | 2018 NQ1 | 2018-Jul-19 | 16.4 LD | 6 | 32 | 2018 NE1 | 2018-Jul-21 | 10.1 LD | 14.2 | 82 | 2018 NF4 | 2018-Jul-21 | 18.8 LD | 12.8 | 112 | 2018 NR1 | 2018-Jul-27 | 17.1 LD | 5.1 | 37 | 2018 LQ2 | 2018-Aug-27 | 9.4 LD | 1.5 | 39 | 2016 GK135 | 2018-Aug-28 | 16.8 LD | 2.8 | 9 | 2016 NF23 | 2018-Aug-29 | 13.3 LD | 9 | 93 | 1998 SD9 | 2018-Aug-29 | 4.2 LD | 10.7 | 51 | 2018 DE1 | 2018-Aug-30 | 15.2 LD | 6.5 | 28 | 2001 RQ17 | 2018-Sep-02 | 19.3 LD | 8.3 | 107 | 2015 FP118 | 2018-Sep-03 | 12.3 LD | 9.8 | 490 | 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 13% 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 | | fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | the underlying science of space weather | | Reviews here can help you to pick up best memory foam mattresses. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |