| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 3 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 3 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 7.3 nT Bz: -2.6 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2348 UT Coronal Holes: 21 Oct 17 Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on Oct. 24-25. Credit: NASA/SDO. Noctilucent Clouds Latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show that the 2017 northern summer season for noctilucent clouds has finished. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2017 01:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2017 Oct 21 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 20 % | 20 % | 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: 2017 Oct 21 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 05 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 30 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 25 % | 10 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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 | | | METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: The annual Orionid meteor shower is peaking this weekend with rates near 20 meteors per hour. Each meteor is a speck of dust from Halley's comet hitting the top of Earth's atmosphere at speeds near 65 km/s (145,000 mph). The best time to look is during the dark hours before dawn when the constellation Orion is high in the sky. [sky map] [photo gallery] M-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: A new sunspot rotating into view over the sun's southeastern limb erupted during the late hours of Oct. 20th. The resulting M1-class solar flare broke a string of deep quiet that has lasted since mid-September. An extreme UV telescope onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast: Play it again. The movie shows a volume of gas in the sun's atmosphere being swept aside by the explosion. That gas formed the core of a bright coronal mass ejection (CME)--a cloud that billowed away from the sun at approximately 340 km/s. Because the blast site was so far off the Sun-Earth line, the CME will not hit Earth. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery VOLCANIC AURUPTION: Last night, the most famous mountain in Iceland erupted. Or rather, it aurupted. Photographers H.+J. Sperr caught a plume of green light spewing from the tip of Kirkjufell: "Auroras dancing behind the iconic peak make it look like a volcanic breakout was in progress," says Sperr who captured the image from the nearby town of Grundarfjördur. "At the time, geomagnetic activity was supposedly low, but the auroras were bright and active anyway." Already one of the most photographed landmarks in Iceland, Kirkjufell gained even more attention in 2017 when it featured prominently in an episode of Game of Thrones. And now this....! More volcanic auruptions are possible on Oct. 24th when Earth enters a stream of solar wind flowing from a large hole in the sun's atmosphere. Stay tuned. Free: Aurora Alerts. Note: Thanks to Spaceweather.com reader J. Cloud for coining the term "volcanic auruption." Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery STERLING SILVER SPACE PUMPKIN: On Oct. 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a space weather balloon from the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California. Its mission: to measure cosmic rays at the top of Earth's atmosphere. The payload carried an array of X-ray/gamma-ray detectors, GPS trackers, temperature/pressure sensors and, for fundraising, some pumpkin pendants: This sterling silver pendant ascended to an altitude of 32 km (105,000 feet), deep inside the stratosphere where cosmic ray dose rates are hundreds of times sea level. After the balloon exploded, as planned, the payload parachuted back to Earth, landing in the Eureka Valley on the outskirts of Death Valley National Park. You can have one for $139.95. Each necklace comes with a unique gift card showing the pendant 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 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 Oct. 21, 2017, the network reported 96 fireballs. (49 sporadics, 39 Orionids, 4 epsilon Geminids, 2 Leonis Minorids, 1 Southern Taurid, 1) 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 October 21, 2017 there were 1847 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2017 UG1 | 2017-Oct-16 | 11.3 LD | 5.8 | 10 | 2017 TH5 | 2017-Oct-16 | 0.3 LD | 12.1 | 8 | 2017 UU1 | 2017-Oct-16 | 2 LD | 5.7 | 15 | 2017 TU3 | 2017-Oct-17 | 8.2 LD | 11.9 | 42 | 2017 TE5 | 2017-Oct-17 | 1.3 LD | 10.9 | 23 | 2017 UA | 2017-Oct-17 | 1.2 LD | 8 | 7 | 2017 TW5 | 2017-Oct-17 | 3.1 LD | 15.5 | 14 | 2017 TX5 | 2017-Oct-18 | 4.6 LD | 10.2 | 23 | 2017 TD5 | 2017-Oct-18 | 11.2 LD | 18.7 | 36 | 2006 TU7 | 2017-Oct-18 | 18.7 LD | 13.3 | 148 | 2017 UJ | 2017-Oct-19 | 2.8 LD | 12 | 27 | 2017 TG2 | 2017-Oct-19 | 19.9 LD | 19.2 | 168 | 2017 TD6 | 2017-Oct-19 | 0.5 LD | 9.2 | 13 | 2017 TA6 | 2017-Oct-19 | 6.7 LD | 4.4 | 16 | 2017 UG | 2017-Oct-20 | 4.3 LD | 10.6 | 11 | 2017 SY20 | 2017-Oct-20 | 18.9 LD | 7.2 | 48 | 2017 UP | 2017-Oct-20 | 6.6 LD | 14.3 | 21 | 2017 TO2 | 2017-Oct-20 | 13.9 LD | 13.7 | 79 | 2017 SH14 | 2017-Oct-20 | 15.4 LD | 6.9 | 45 | 2017 UH1 | 2017-Oct-21 | 5 LD | 21.9 | 23 | 2017 TG4 | 2017-Oct-21 | 4.8 LD | 11.4 | 51 | 2017 UM1 | 2017-Oct-21 | 7 LD | 17.3 | 26 | 2017 TC5 | 2017-Oct-21 | 15.6 LD | 8.3 | 20 | 2017 TV5 | 2017-Oct-22 | 3.4 LD | 10.7 | 15 | 171576 | 2017-Oct-22 | 5.8 LD | 21.2 | 677 | 2017 TQ5 | 2017-Oct-22 | 5.5 LD | 5.8 | 11 | 2017 TQ4 | 2017-Oct-22 | 11.2 LD | 11 | 40 | 2017 US | 2017-Oct-22 | 7.5 LD | 4.1 | 24 | 2017 TK6 | 2017-Oct-23 | 19.3 LD | 11.7 | 46 | 2017 UH | 2017-Oct-25 | 15.1 LD | 10.9 | 19 | 2017 TL4 | 2017-Oct-25 | 14.6 LD | 11.4 | 48 | 2017 TZ4 | 2017-Oct-31 | 19.3 LD | 13.1 | 101 | 2003 UV11 | 2017-Oct-31 | 15 LD | 24.5 | 447 | 2017 TZ3 | 2017-Nov-09 | 10.3 LD | 8.7 | 34 | 444584 | 2017-Nov-17 | 8.7 LD | 14.8 | 324 | 2008 WM61 | 2017-Dec-03 | 3.8 LD | 4.7 | 16 | 2015 XX169 | 2017-Dec-14 | 9.7 LD | 6.3 | 11 | 2011 YD29 | 2017-Dec-19 | 17.6 LD | 7.7 | 20 | 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. | |