Lights Over Lapland is excited to announce that we now have TWO aurora webcams covering nearly a 200° view of Abisko National Park in Sweden! Watch the auroras dance live, all season long here. | | |
CME TO MISS EARTH: Yesterday, Jan. 22nd, a magnetic explosion in the decaying remains of sunspot AR2696 hurled a CME into space (movie). Modelling by NOAA analysts confirms that the CME will miss Earth. No geomagnetic activity will result from the B9-category blast. Free: Aurora Alerts.
BLUE MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Wednesday, Jan. 31st, there's going to be a "Blue Moon"–the second full Moon in a calendar month. People who go outside to look may see a different hue: bright orange. This Blue Moon is going to be eclipsed, swallowed by copper-colored shadow of Earth for more than an hour. The eclipse will be visible from Asia, Australia, and most of North America: visibility map.
Other time zones: UT, EST, CST, MST, PST, HST. Credit: Larry Koehn.
The bright orange color of the eclipse may be chalked up to volcanic activity–or rather, lack thereof. Atmospheric scientist Richard Keen from the University of Colorado explains:
"During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through Earth's stratosphere where it is reddened by scattering," he says. "If the stratosphere is loaded with dust from volcanic eruptions, the eclipse will be dark. The cataclysmic explosion of Tambora in 1815, for instance, turned the Moon into a dark, starless hole in sky during two subsequent eclipses."
But Earth is experiencing a bit of a volcanic lull. We haven't had a major volcanic blast since 1991 when Mt Pinatubo awoke from a 500 year slumber and sprayed ten billion cubic meters of ash, rock and debris into Earth's atmosphere. Recent eruptions have been puny by comparison and have failed to make a dent on the stratosphere. To Keen, the interregnum means one thing: "This eclipse is going to be bright and beautiful."
From "Two Centuries of Volcanic Aerosols Derived from Lunar Eclipse Records" by R. A. Keen
Keen studies lunar eclipses because of what they can tell us about Earth's energy balance. A transparent stratosphere "lets the sunshine in" and actually helps warm the Earth below. "The lunar eclipse record indicates a clear stratosphere has contributed about 0.2 degrees to warming since the 1980s."
"Mt. Pinatubo finished a 110-year episode of frequent major eruptions that began with Krakatau in 1883," he says. "Since then, lunar eclipses have been relatively bright, and the Jan. 31st eclipse should be no exception."
In the USA, the best time to look is during the hours before sunrise. Western states are favored: The Moon makes first contact with the core of Earth's shadow at 3:48 am Pacific Time, kicking off the partial eclipse. Totality begins at 4:52 am PST as Earth's shadow engulfs the lunar disk for more than an hour. "Maximum orange" is expected around 5:30 am PST. Easternmost parts of the USA will miss totality altogether.
"I welcome any and all reports on the brightness of this eclipse for use in my volcano-climate studies," says Keen. While actual brightness measurements (in magnitudes) made near mid-totality are most useful, I can also make use of Danjon-scale ratings. Please be sure to note the time, method, and instruments used in your reports." Observations may be submitted here.
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. 29, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of these 18k rose gold plated Valentine's pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon:
The necklaces traveled alongside an array of cosmic ray sensors, which the students use to monitor deep-space radiation penetrating Earth's atmosphere.
You can have one for $149.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey 36 km (118,110 feet) above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California. Sales 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
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 Jan. 23, 2018, the network reported 23 fireballs.
(23 sporadics)
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 23, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2018 BB3 | 2018-Jan-17 | 4.8 LD | 21.7 | 27 |
2018 AG4 | 2018-Jan-17 | 1.4 LD | 9.2 | 23 |
2018 BA | 2018-Jan-17 | 17.3 LD | 12.9 | 35 |
2018 BD | 2018-Jan-18 | 0.1 LD | 10 | 3 |
2018 AF1 | 2018-Jan-18 | 12.4 LD | 24.6 | 89 |
2018 BC | 2018-Jan-19 | 0.7 LD | 2.7 | 5 |
2018 BX | 2018-Jan-19 | 0.7 LD | 5.8 | 6 |
306383 | 2018-Jan-22 | 14.4 LD | 17.4 | 178 |
2018 AK12 | 2018-Jan-23 | 7 LD | 22.3 | 33 |
2018 BT1 | 2018-Jan-23 | 15.3 LD | 16.7 | 90 |
2018 AV11 | 2018-Jan-23 | 11.1 LD | 9.1 | 34 |
2018 AJ | 2018-Jan-23 | 4.7 LD | 5.5 | 41 |
2018 BG1 | 2018-Jan-24 | 10.9 LD | 7.3 | 28 |
2018 BP1 | 2018-Jan-24 | 19.2 LD | 8.2 | 48 |
2018 BA3 | 2018-Jan-24 | 3 LD | 8 | 22 |
2018 AL12 | 2018-Jan-26 | 8 LD | 19.4 | 36 |
2018 BU1 | 2018-Jan-27 | 3.1 LD | 11.3 | 44 |
2018 BQ | 2018-Jan-27 | 9.3 LD | 3.4 | 27 |
2018 AQ2 | 2018-Feb-02 | 13.5 LD | 17.4 | 128 |
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 |
2018 BL1 | 2018-Feb-09 | 16.5 LD | 20.2 | 71 |
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 | 282 |
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.
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