| | 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: 5.2 nT Bz: 2.0 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2352 UT Coronal Holes: 18 Jan 18 Solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Jan. 20th, sparking G1-class geomagnetic storms. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Our connection with NASA's AIM spacecraft has been restored! New images from AIM show that the southern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is underway. Come back to this spot every day to see AIM's "daily daisy," which reveals the dance of electric-blue NLCs around the Antarctic Circle.. Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar Updated at: 01-18-2018 16:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Jan 17 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 Jan 17 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 20 % | MINOR | 01 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 20 % | MINOR | 15 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 10 % | 25 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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 | | | A HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: Polar geomagnetic storms are possible this weekend when a stream of fast-moving solar wind is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing from a crescent-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere, shown here in an image based on data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: This is a "coronal hole"--a region where the sun's magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft has sampled the solar wind stream and measured its velocity: ~575 km/s (1.3 million mph). NOAA forecasters say there is a 45% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms when the stream arrives on Jan. 20th. Good news for auroraphiles: This stream is probably preceded by a CIR (co-rotating interaction region). CIRs are transition zones between slow- and fast-moving solar wind. They contain shock-like density gradients and enhanced magnetic fields that often do a good job sparking auroras when they reach Earth. Free: Aurora Alerts. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery COMET PANSTARRS UPDATE: Will Comet PanSTARRS (C/2016 R2) ever relax? For the 3rd month in a row, the hyperactive comet is putting on a show for amateur astronomers now monitoring its progress through the constellation Taurus. "My latest images from Jan. 14th show multiple knots of gas traveling down the comet's twisted tail," reports Michael Jäger of St. Oswald, Austria. "In this 2-hour animation, note how one knot near the comet's core disappears." This kind of activity is nothing new for observers of Comet PanSTARRS. The reason may be summed up in two words: carbon monoxide (CO). The comet is unusually rich in frozen CO, a substance which vaporizes explosively when exposed to even the slightest amount of warming sunlight. The abundance of CO in Comet PanSTARRS is responsible not only for its hyperactivity, but also for its beautiful blue color. Ionized carbon monoxide (CO+) fluoresces with a azure glow in the near vacuum of interplanetary space. Stay tuned for more action from this comet as it approaches the sun for a 2.6 AU perihelion in May of 2018. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery VALENTINE'S DAY IS COMING: Nothing says "I Love You" like a Valentine's pendant from the edge of space. On Dec. 31, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of these heart-shaped pendants to the stratosphere, 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface: You can have one for $99.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Sales of this pendant support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All proceeds support hands-on STEM education 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. 18, 2018, the network reported 24 fireballs. (23 sporadics, 1 gamma Ursae Minorid) 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 18, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2018 AC12 | 2018-Jan-12 | 13.4 LD | 7.8 | 31 | 2018 AZ11 | 2018-Jan-12 | 15.7 LD | 9.4 | 26 | 2017 YU3 | 2018-Jan-14 | 18.3 LD | 13.1 | 61 | 2018 AS2 | 2018-Jan-14 | 1.2 LD | 7.7 | 7 | 2018 AU2 | 2018-Jan-14 | 2.7 LD | 9.3 | 12 | 2018 AA12 | 2018-Jan-15 | 16.6 LD | 7.6 | 39 | 2018 AV2 | 2018-Jan-15 | 6.7 LD | 0.1 | 6 | 2018 AT11 | 2018-Jan-15 | 10.9 LD | 6.9 | 32 | 2018 AM2 | 2018-Jan-16 | 12.2 LD | 13.5 | 23 | 2018 AG4 | 2018-Jan-17 | 1.4 LD | 9.2 | 23 | 2018 BA | 2018-Jan-17 | 17.3 LD | 12.9 | 36 | 2018 AF1 | 2018-Jan-18 | 12.4 LD | 24.5 | 89 | 306383 | 2018-Jan-22 | 14.4 LD | 17.4 | 178 | 2018 AK12 | 2018-Jan-23 | 7 LD | 22.3 | 31 | 2018 AV11 | 2018-Jan-23 | 11.1 LD | 9.1 | 34 | 2018 AJ | 2018-Jan-23 | 4.7 LD | 5.5 | 39 | 2018 AL12 | 2018-Jan-26 | 8 LD | 19.4 | 36 | 2018 AQ2 | 2018-Feb-02 | 13.5 LD | 17.4 | 120 | 2002 CB19 | 2018-Feb-02 | 10.5 LD | 15.6 | 36 | 2018 AH12 | 2018-Feb-04 | 5.3 LD | 5 | 15 | 276033 | 2018-Feb-04 | 11 LD | 34 | 646 | 2015 BN509 | 2018-Feb-09 | 12.9 LD | 17.7 | 257 | 1991 VG | 2018-Feb-11 | 18.4 LD | 2.1 | 7 | 2014 WQ202 | 2018-Feb-11 | 15.1 LD | 19.8 | 62 | 2016 CO246 | 2018-Feb-22 | 15.3 LD | 5.4 | 21 | 2017 DR109 | 2018-Feb-24 | 3.7 LD | 7.4 | 11 | 2016 FU12 | 2018-Feb-26 | 13.2 LD | 4.5 | 15 | 2014 EY24 | 2018-Feb-27 | 14.8 LD | 8 | 54 | 2015 BF511 | 2018-Feb-28 | 11.7 LD | 5.7 | 39 | 2003 EM1 | 2018-Mar-07 | 16.6 LD | 8 | 45 | 2017 VR12 | 2018-Mar-07 | 3.8 LD | 6.3 | 284 | 2015 DK200 | 2018-Mar-10 | 6.9 LD | 8 | 27 | 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. | |