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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 400.5 km/sec
density: 5.6 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A1
2010 UT Sep08
24-hr: A1
2010 UT Sep08
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 08 Sep 18
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 08 Sep 2018

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 10 days
2018 total: 141 days (56%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
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%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)

Updated 08 Sep 2018


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 67 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 08 Sep 2018

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.5 nT
Bz: -0.8 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 08 Sep 18

Solar wind flowing from this canyon-shaped coronal hole should reach Earth on Sept. 11-12. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds in the northern hemisphere is coming to an end. Check here daily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 09-03-2018 14:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2018 Sep 08 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 Sep 08 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
35 %
MINOR
01 %
20 %
SEVERE
01 %
05 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
10 %
MINOR
25 %
25 %
SEVERE
20 %
55 %
 
Saturday, Sep. 8, 2018
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over Lapland has a brand-new website full of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Take a look at our aurora activities and book your once-in-a-lifetime trip with us today!

 

A HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: A canyon-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere is facing Earth and spewing solar wind in our direction. Estimated time of arrival: Sept. 11-12. Minor geomagnetic storms and Arctic auroras are possible when the gaseous material reaches our planet next week. Free: Aurora Alerts.

AURORAS AND A FIREBALL: As autumn darkness falls around the Arctic Circle, long-absent wonders are returning to the night sky. Yesterday in Tromsø, Norway, photographer Ole C. Salomonsen witnessed two of them--auroras and a fireball:

"What an awesome display!" says Salomonsen. "I shouted out with joy after realizing I had captured this huge fireball mixed with auroras. I was also happy to have some colors from the sun left in the horizon to make the image complete."

The fireball was a random meteoroid scooped up by Earth's atmosphere just as Salomonsen opened the shutter of his camera. The auroras appeared thanks to a CIR (co-rotating interaction region) that hit Earth a few hours earlier. CIRs are shock-like transition zones in the solar wind separating slow- and fast-moving gas. They often contain strong magnetic fields that do a good job sparking auroras. The two events combined for a truly lucky shot.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

FUNGI CORONA: How do you make colorful rings around the sun? All it takes is a lawnmower and a mushroom. "On Sept. 5th, I was was cutting the grass and accidentally mowed over a puffball mushroom," reports Randy Hollaway of Pittsburgh, PA. "A huge cloud of fungi spores filled the air, creating a beautiful corona."

Many of us have seen coronas. They appear when sunbeams hit small particles in the air, scattering and diffracting the light into colorful rings. Tiny droplets of water in clouds make most coronas. Pollen from flowers and trees can do it too. This may be the first recorded case of a fungi corona.

Take a closer look at Hollaway's photo. Individual spores may be seen glinting in the sunlight. Never has a lawn-mowed mushroom looked so good.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

LASER-ETCHED MOON CUBE: On August 16, 2018, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon to the stratosphere. This unique laser-etched Moon cube went along for the ride, ascending to an altitude of 101,140 feet:

You can have it for $149.95. The students are selling these cubes as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray ballooning program. It's an authentic representation of the Moon, with all of the craters, mountains and lava plains accurately portrayed.

Each Moon-cube comes with a unique gift card showing the item 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 sales support hands-on STEM education


  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 Sep. 8, 2018, the network reported 43 fireballs.
(37 sporadics, 6 September epsilon Perseids)

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 September 8, 2018 there were 1923 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2018 RN
2018-Sep-03
12.5 LD
9.8
62
2015 FP118
2018-Sep-03
12.3 LD
9.8
490
2018 QA
2018-Sep-03
17.5 LD
20.4
73
2018 RR1
2018-Sep-03
0.9 LD
4.6
4
2018 RO1
2018-Sep-04
4.3 LD
11.1
15
2018 RO
2018-Sep-05
5.8 LD
6.4
23
2018 RP
2018-Sep-05
3.8 LD
14.2
21
2018 RS
2018-Sep-05
0.3 LD
17.1
5
2018 RR
2018-Sep-06
2 LD
9
11
2018 RQ
2018-Sep-07
12.5 LD
13.3
40
2018 RF
2018-Sep-08
11.8 LD
13.3
44
2018 RD1
2018-Sep-08
13.5 LD
10
50
2018 RW
2018-Sep-08
0.4 LD
6.3
3
2018 RC
2018-Sep-09
0.6 LD
5.3
41
2018 RE1
2018-Sep-10
11.1 LD
26
44
2018 RA1
2018-Sep-10
2.4 LD
10.1
18
2018 QU1
2018-Sep-11
10.9 LD
12.5
102
2018 RB1
2018-Sep-11
2.5 LD
8.1
10
2018 RC1
2018-Sep-15
16.7 LD
2.2
20
2017 SL16
2018-Sep-20
8.5 LD
6.4
25
2018 RQ1
2018-Sep-24
4.1 LD
3.1
52
2018 EB
2018-Oct-07
15.5 LD
15.1
155
2014 US7
2018-Oct-17
3.2 LD
8.7
19
2013 UG1
2018-Oct-18
10.4 LD
13.4
123
2016 GC221
2018-Oct-18
8.7 LD
14.4
39
475534
2018-Oct-29
7.5 LD
18.1
204
2002 VE68
2018-Nov-04
14.7 LD
8.6
282
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

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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 18% since 2015:

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.

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

In this plot, 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.

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.

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.

  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
NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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