Learn to photograph Northern Lights like a pro. Sign up for Peter Rosen's Aurora Photo Courses in Abisko National Park. | | | MOSTLY QUIET WITH A CHANCE OF FLARES: The sunspot number is high, but solar activity is low. Not one of the sunspots on the Earthside of the sun is crackling with flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 15% chance of M-class flares and no more than a 1% chance of X-flares on March 24th. Solar flare alerts: text, voice SOLAR WIND SPARKS AURORAS: For the 6th day in a row, a high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field. Intermittent geomagnetic storming around the Arctic Circle has sparked some beautiful auroras--like these, observed last night over Sortland, Norway: "We had some nasty weather in Sortland last night," says photographer . "It was not so very cold, about-3 C degrees, but a chilly gale-force wind chased me into every corner where I tried to hide. I had to keep a firm hand on my tripod to prevent the camera from shaking. An outburst hit us about 10 pm local time with very rapid and powerful auroras. Who cares if it is a little cold?!" More auroras are in the offing. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of geomagnetic storms on March 24th as the solar wind continues to blow. Aurora alerts: text, voice Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery INSIDE THE SHADOW OF THE MOON: Warning: The movie you are about to see could turn you into an eclipse-chaser. Last Friday, March 20th, the Moon passed directly in front of the sun, producing a total eclipse over the Arctic Ocean. For almost three minutes, the cool shadow of the Moon fell on Svalbard, also known as "the island of polar bears" because of its large population of Ursus maritimus. Nick James, who became an eclipse-chaser long ago, was in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, for the event, and he made this movie: "This eclipse was one of my best," says James. "The weather was perfect and the corona was amazing in a very transparent deep blue sky. There were interesting prominences and dramatic shadow bands--both of which are shown in the movie. At totality, the temperature dropped below -20 C, which was a challenge for both the photographer and his cameras!" For more anecdotes from the eclipse, monitor Spaceweather.com's realtime photo gallery: Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Realtime Comet 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 Mar. 24, 2015, the network reported 19 fireballs. (19 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 March 24, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids. 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. | 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 | | the underlying science of space weather | |