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CASSINI DISINTEGRATES: NASA's Cassini spacecraft dived into the atmosphere of Saturn and disintegrated on Friday, Sept.15th. Telemetry received during the plunge indicates that, as expected, the long-serving spacecraft entered Saturn's atmosphere with its thrusters firing to maintain stability, as it sent back a unique set of final science observations. Loss of contact occurred at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT), with the signal received by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna complex in Canberra, Australia. Get the full story from JPL.
MORNING PLANETS ALIGN: Set your alarm for dawn. Three planets and the crescent Moon are gathering for a beautiful alignment before sunrise. Alan Dyer sends this preview from Gleichen, Alberta:
"This was the view on the morning of Sept. 12th, of Venus, Mercury (then at greatest elongation from the Sun) and Mars in the dawn sky, along with the star Regulus." says Dyer. "Mercury and Mars are in close conjunction on the morning of Sept. 16th. With Earth in the picture, this was an image of all four rocky terrestrial planets in one frame!"
In the mornings ahead, the crescent Moon will join the show, hopping from one planet to the next. Venus and the Moon will look especially lovely together on Sept. 17th and 18th, while on the 19th and 20th Venus and Regulus pass one another less than 1 degree apart. Look east before sunrise and enjoy the show! Sky maps: Sept. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
PINK AURORAS OVER YELLOWKNIFE: Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from a wedge-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere. During last night's resulting G2-class geomagnetic storm, Yuichi Takasaka witnessed an outbreak of bright pink auroras over Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada:
"We could see the auroras at 9:10pm although it was not dark yet," says Takasaka. "Auroras danced all night long (Sept. 14/15) and we had an amazing display many many times!!!"
The pink color is probably a sign of nitrogen. Most auroras are green--a verdant glow caused by energetic particles from space hitting oxygen atoms 100 km to 300 km above Earth's surface. Pink appears when energetic particles descend lower than usual, striking nitrogen molecules at the 100 km level and below.
The solar wind stream currently blowing around Earth seems to be sending particles deep enough into Earth's atmosphere to spark this lovely type of aurora. Could more be in the offing? The stream arrived abruptly on Sept. 14th and is still blowing faster than 600 km/s today. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of continued storming on Sept. 15th probably at G1 levels. Free: Aurora Alerts
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
ROSE QUARTZ CRYSTAL ECLIPSE PENDANTS: On Aug. 21st during the Great American Solar Eclipse, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched 11 space weather balloons from the path of totality. They aimed to photograph the Moon's shadow from the stratosphere--and they succeeded. As a fundraiser, some of the balloons carried jewelry. Here is a rose quartz crystal pendant entering the Moon's shadow more than 90,000 feet above the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon:
During the 2.5 hour flight, the pendants were wrapped in the Moon's shadow for more than two minutes, experiencing a spooky darkness colder than -50 C.
You can have one for $149.95. Each crystal pendant comes with a unique gift card showing the jewelry passing through the Moon's shadow and floating at the top of Earth's atmosphere. The interior of the card tells the story of the flight and confirms that this gift has been to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
Solar Eclipse 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 Sep. 15, 2017, the network reported 25 fireballs.
(24 sporadics, 1 September epsilon Perseid)
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 September 15, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2017 OP68 | 2017-Sep-10 | 20 LD | 11.7 | 238 |
2017 QK18 | 2017-Sep-11 | 14.8 LD | 7.8 | 45 |
2014 RC | 2017-Sep-11 | 15.1 LD | 8.9 | 16 |
2017 RX1 | 2017-Sep-13 | 15.6 LD | 5.8 | 59 |
2017 PR25 | 2017-Sep-23 | 17.9 LD | 13.5 | 235 |
2017 RW1 | 2017-Sep-25 | 11 LD | 12.7 | 67 |
1989 VB | 2017-Sep-29 | 7.9 LD | 6.3 | 408 |
2017 OD69 | 2017-Oct-01 | 13.2 LD | 7.6 | 213 |
2017 RV1 | 2017-Oct-12 | 17.8 LD | 10.9 | 359 |
2012 TC4 | 2017-Oct-12 | 0.1 LD | 7.6 | 16 |
2005 TE49 | 2017-Oct-13 | 8.5 LD | 11.2 | 16 |
2013 UM9 | 2017-Oct-15 | 17 LD | 7.8 | 39 |
2006 TU7 | 2017-Oct-18 | 18.7 LD | 13.3 | 148 |
171576 | 2017-Oct-22 | 5.8 LD | 21.2 | 677 |
2003 UV11 | 2017-Oct-31 | 15 LD | 24.5 | 447 |
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 |
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| 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 |
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