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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 653.9 km/sec
density: 2.7 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2358 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1
2017 UT Nov26
24-hr: B1
0409 UT Nov26
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 26 Nov 16
Sunspot AR2612 has a stable magnetic field that poses little threat for strong flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 12
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 26 Nov 2016

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2016 total: 25 days (7%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Updated 26 Nov 2016


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 81 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 26 Nov 2016

Current Auroral Oval:
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: 5.2 nT
Bz: -0.3 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2358 UT
Coronal Holes: 26 Nov 16

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from this large coronal hole. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds NASA's AIM spacecraft has suffered an anomaly, and a software patch is required to fix it. As a result, noctilucent cloud images will not return until further notice. AIM science team members are optimistic that the
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 08-06-2016 16:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2016 Nov 26 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: 2016 Nov 26 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
05 %
MINOR
05 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
20 %
15 %
SEVERE
20 %
10 %
 
Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016
What's up in space
       
 

Based in Tromsø directly under the Arctic Circle, Marianne's Arctic Xpress offers a comfortable 7 seater minivan for aurora, fjord, whale, and wildlife tours day and night. 100% PASSION and a very high % of finding aurora. Book Now

 

SOLAR WIND SPARKS BRIGHT AURORAS: A high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and this is causing G1-class geomagnetic storms around the poles. Arctic observers are reporting bright auroras despite cloudy winter weather. Solar wind speeds are expected to remain high throughout the weekend. Free: Aurora Alerts

FALSE AURORAS OVER THE YUKON: Attracted by the solar wind, Thomas Jacquin of Whitehorse, Canada, went outside to look for the auroras. He saw something completely different. "Not to be mistaken for Northern Lights, these bright colorful stripes are called light pillars," he says.

Also known as "false auroras," light pillars are caused by ice crystals in the air which intercept urban lights and spread them into colorful columns. No solar activity is required for the phenomenon. The only ingredients are ice and light pollution.

"The different colors in this picture come from the various color temperatures of our street lights," explains Jacquin. "The warm orange ones come from traditional high pressure sodium lamps whereas the bright white pillars come from new LED lamps. While the new LED technology saves energy, it also increases light pollution and health concerns if the color temperature is not carefully selected. 3000K LEDs (warm yellow) are preferred over 4000K ones (bright white)."

More auroras, false and otherwise, may be found in the realtime photo gallery:

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

PLANET AIRGLOW: Jeff Dai was camping in the Himalayas on Nov. 18th when he photographed a green light in the sky. But it was not the aurora borealis.  "It was airglow," says Dai, who wrapped his photos of the display into a 'little planet':


"This is a 360-degree stereographic projection showing our camp site in Tibet," says Dai.  "In places like this, far from urban lights, the sky is filled with wonders."

Although airglow looks like the aurora borealis, it is not. Auroras are caused by gusts of solar wind. Airglow is caused by chemi-luminescent reactions in Earth's upper atmosphere.  These reactions get started during daylight hours when the atmosphere is bathed in strong UV radiation from the sun.  At night we see the afterglow, colored green by oxygen atoms 90-100 km high or sometimes red by hydroxyl ions 86-87 km high.

"Also unlike auroras, airglow is visible all over the globe," adds Dai. "Though brightest 10-15 degrees above the horizon it fills the sky and may be photographed from dark-sky sites everywhere." Browse the airglow gallery for more examples.

Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery

A FAR OUT STOCKING STUFFER: It's out of this world: the Sirius Space Pendant. To raise money for their space weather ballooning program, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown 3 dozen pendants to the edge of space–and you can have one for $69.95. The pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and certifying that it has been to the stratosphere and back again.

The pendants flew to the edge of space on Nov. 20, 2016, alongside an array of cosmic radiation sensors. (We're reducing the data now!) After the balloon exploded, the payload parachuted back to Earth, landing in the snowy San Antonio mountains north of Tonopah, Nevada, where a student team recovered it on Nov. 22nd.

The research of Earth to Sky Calculus is not supported by government grants or corporate donations. Instead, we are entirely crowd-funded. Proceeds from the sale of items like the Sirius Pendant go right back into cutting-edge student research. More edge of space Christmas gifts may be found in the Earth to Sky Store.


Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

  All Sky Fireball Network
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 Nov. 25, 2016, the network reported 30 fireballs.
(25 sporadics, 4 Leonids, 1 Quadrantid)

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]

  Near Earth Asteroids
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 November 26, 2016 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2016 WW2
Nov 25
0.3 LD
7 m
2016 WU2
Nov 25
1.5 LD
14 m
2016 WV2
Nov 25
6.7 LD
23 m
2016 WG
Nov 25
4.2 LD
95 m
5143 Heracles
Nov 28
57.2 LD
2.4 km
2016 WQ
Nov 30
4.5 LD
33 m
2016 WQ3
Dec 1
1.5 LD
8 m
2015 YA
Dec 13
9.6 LD
15 m
2015 XX169
Dec 13
7.4 LD
15 m
2015 YQ1
Dec 21
6.2 LD
11 m
2006 BZ7
Dec 22
74.5 LD
1.4 km
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 12% 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.

  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
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