| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 2 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 2.5 nT Bz: -0.1 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2354 UT Coronal Holes: 28 Feb 18 Solar wind flowing from this northern coronal hole could brush against Earth's magnetic field on March 3-4. 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: 02-07-2018 17:55:05 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Feb 28 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 Feb 28 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 01 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 15 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 15 % | 10 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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. | | | EXITING THE SOLAR WIND STREAM: Earth is exiting a stream of solar wind that sparked brief G1-class geomagnetic storms when it arrived on Feb. 27th. The odds of additional storms, according to NOAA, are waning to 25% on March 1st and only 15% on March 2nd. A new stream of solar wind could arrive as early as March 3rd, bringing renewed magnetic unrest. Free: Aurora Alerts MARCH HAS TWO FULL MOONS: Most months only have one full Moon. This month has two: March 2nd and March 31st. According to modern folklore, the second is a Blue Moon. Don't expect the Moon to turn blue, however. A Blue Moon is the second full Moon in a calendar month and, except on rare occasions, it looks as pale-gray as any other lunar disk: Above: The Blue Moon of Jan. 31 2018 with the ISS flying by. Credit: Andrzej Sienko of Old Bridge, NJ If this is giving you a sense of déjà vu, that's because you heard the same news in January 2018. January also had two full Moons, punctuated by a Blue Moon. Two Blue Moons in three months? The last time this happened was almost 20 years ago. In 1999, January and March had two full Moons, separated by a February with no full Moons at all--just like 2018. Enjoy the full Moon on March 2nd. But if you miss it, don't worry, March will give you a second chance. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery SUMMER SUN HALOS: Yesterday's high temperature in Florianópolis, Brazil, topped 90 degrees F, typical of the region's warm summer days. Nevertheless, when Cristiano Andujar looked up from the steps of the City Cathedral, he saw definite signs of freezing air. "There were two beautiful ice halos around the sun," he says. "People on the sidewalk were stopping and pointing." In this photo, which Andujar took, the big ring around the sun is a common 22-degree halo, caused by sunlight shining through hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus clouds. Floating almost 10 km high, these clouds were freezing despite scorching temperatures on the streets of Florianópolis. Just below the 22-degree halo, Andujar's camera captured an intensely colorful band of light called a circumhorizon arc, also caused by ice crystals in the clouds. Summer is the season for circumhorizon arcs because they appear only when the sun is high in the sky--more than 58o above the horizon. The arc's enormous size and pure spectral colors make it one of the most beautiful of all ice halos. Are you sweating under a summer sun? Look up anyway. You might see something very cool. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery CROWD-FUNDING SPACE WEATHER RESEARCH: Did you know that cosmic rays in Earth's atmosphere are intensifying? It's true, and we are monitoring the phenomenon with regular space weather balloon flights to the stratosphere. This student science program is not supported by any government grant or corporate sponsorship. Instead, we raise our research funds by selling these: This pendant, and others like it, have touched the edge of space. We fly them to the stratosphere alongside our cosmic ray sensors for fundraising. You can have one for $199.95. With a sterling silver backface that says "I Love You to the Moon and Back," these blue jewels make great Valentine's, Mother's Day, and birthday gifts. All 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 Feb. 28, 2018, the network reported 12 fireballs. (12 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 February 28, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2016 CO246 | 2018-Feb-22 | 15.3 LD | 5.4 | 21 | 2017 DR109 | 2018-Feb-24 | 3.7 LD | 7.4 | 11 | 2018 CE14 | 2018-Feb-24 | 5.2 LD | 10.2 | 27 | 2018 DR | 2018-Feb-25 | 2.3 LD | 7 | 12 | 2018 DB1 | 2018-Feb-25 | 10.2 LD | 5.7 | 22 | 2018 DU | 2018-Feb-25 | 0.7 LD | 4.6 | 8 | 2016 FU12 | 2018-Feb-26 | 13.2 LD | 4.5 | 15 | 2018 DA | 2018-Feb-26 | 11 LD | 12.8 | 56 | 2014 EY24 | 2018-Feb-27 | 14.8 LD | 8 | 54 | 2018 DT | 2018-Feb-27 | 4.2 LD | 2.6 | 13 | 2018 CU14 | 2018-Feb-27 | 5.5 LD | 4.4 | 11 | 2015 BF511 | 2018-Feb-28 | 11.7 LD | 5.7 | 39 | 2018 DW1 | 2018-Mar-01 | 3.9 LD | 12.2 | 15 | 2018 DE1 | 2018-Mar-01 | 15.3 LD | 6.5 | 29 | 2018 DV1 | 2018-Mar-02 | 0.3 LD | 6.6 | 7 | 2018 DU1 | 2018-Mar-02 | 5.1 LD | 6.3 | 10 | 2018 DS1 | 2018-Mar-03 | 16.4 LD | 16.3 | 36 | 2018 DC | 2018-Mar-03 | 9.3 LD | 8.2 | 40 | 2003 EM1 | 2018-Mar-07 | 16.6 LD | 8 | 45 | 2017 VR12 | 2018-Mar-07 | 3.8 LD | 6.3 | 285 | 2018 BK7 | 2018-Mar-09 | 10.2 LD | 8.7 | 73 | 2015 DK200 | 2018-Mar-10 | 6.9 LD | 8 | 27 | 2018 DH1 | 2018-Mar-27 | 9.2 LD | 14.3 | 218 | 2016 SR2 | 2018-Mar-28 | 18.7 LD | 7.3 | 20 | 2010 GD35 | 2018-Mar-31 | 15.5 LD | 11.6 | 45 | 2004 FG29 | 2018-Apr-02 | 4 LD | 14.9 | 22 | 363599 | 2018-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 224 | 2014 UR | 2018-Apr-14 | 9.3 LD | 4.4 | 17 | 2016 JP | 2018-Apr-20 | 12 LD | 12.7 | 204 | 2012 XL16 | 2018-Apr-23 | 15.8 LD | 6.1 | 28 | 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. | |