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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 309.9 km/sec
density: 2.3 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A7
2022 UT May15
24-hr: A7
2022 UT May15
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2350 UT
Daily Sun: 15 May 20
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 15 May 2020

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 13 days
2020 total: 104 days (76%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
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 15 May 2020


Thermosphere Climate Index
today: 3.26
x1010 W Cold
Max: 49.4
x1010 W Hot (10/1957)
Min: 2.05
x1010 W Cold (02/2009)
explanation | more data: gfx, txt
Updated 15 May 2020

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 68 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 15 May 2020

Cosmic Rays Solar minimum is underway. The sun's magnetic field is weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth in 2020 are near a Space Age peak.

Oulu Neutron Counts

Percentages of the Space Age average:
today: +10.5% Very High
48-hr change: -0.0%
Max: +11.7% Very High
(12/2009)
Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991)
explanation | more data
Updated 15 May 2020 @ 1700 UT

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.3 nT
Bz: 3.1 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
Coronal Holes: 15 May 20

Solar wind flowing from this minor coronal hole could reach Earth May 18th.
Credit: SDO/AIA

Noctilucent Clouds The northern hemisphere season for noctilucent clouds is coming soon--probably starting in mid- to late-May. Check here for daily images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 05-14-2020 20:55:03 UT
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2020 May 15 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: 2020 May 15 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
15 %
15 %
SEVERE
10 %
10 %
 
Friday, May. 15, 2020
What's up in space
       
 

Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when auroras appear in your area. Aurora tour guides and professional astronomers use this service. Now you can, too!

 

THE GREAT GEOMAGNETIC STORM OF 1921: 99 years ago today, the biggest solar storm of the 20th century struck Earth. It set fire to buildings, burnt out telephone lines, and sparked auroras as far south as Tonga and Samoa. New research suggests that the Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921 may have been even stronger than previously thought. FULL STORY.

RED AND GREEN RIPPLES IN THE SKY: An astronomer at the McDonald Observatory has discovered a planet with fantastic red and green ripples in its atmosphere. It looks a lot like Texas.

Stephen Hummel was walking across the famous University of Texas observatory grounds a couple hours after sunset on May 13th when he noticed the flash of lightning from a distant thunderstorm. "I saw a large column of sprites leaping into the sky and rushed to set up my camera," he says. Aiming southeast towards the city of Alpine, he recorded this movie:

The video shows alternating bands of red and green airglow gliding overhead like ripples in a giant pool of water. At the same time, red bolts of upward directed lightning (sprites) flashed so brightly "I could see them with my unaided eye," he says. "It was a fantastic display."

Filming the sky in rural southwest Texas can be a little risky. Hummel explains: "I had just hiked to the top of a ridge for a better view, and was a little out of breath as I set up my camera. Just then I heard the eerie sound of a mountain lion's call. I left the camera running while I returned to the safety indoors! Later, I gathered the footage, hoping for the best. I was amazed by the results and surprised the airglow was so evident."

Both the sprites and the ripples originated in a towering thunderstorm about 180 miles away. This weather radar map shows Hummel's location (starred) and the instigating storm system:

The thunderstorm was strongly convective with powerful updrafts. Essentially, it pounded the upper atmosphere from below, creating a bulls-eye pattern of pressure waves in the mesosphere more than 80 km above the ground. This pattern impressed itself upon the airglow layer near the edge of space, amplifying aurora-like colors which are usually too faint to see.

It's no coincidence that Hummel saw sprites at the same time. Mesoscale convective storm systems produce a lot of upward directed lightning. Indeed, sprite hunters often train their cameras above the cloudtops of such systems to get the best shots. Strong updrafts are key ingredients of both phenomena.

More sprites and atmospheric bullseyes are in the offing. Northern spring is thunderstorm season and a great time to catch these events. Are you ready?

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

THE INFINITY PENDANT: The most beautiful clouds on Earth are located in the stratosphere: Polar Stratospheric Clouds or PSCs. Their extraordinary colors inspired this authentic Swarovski pendant, which has actually been to the stratosphere. Last November it hitched a ride 109,580 feet high on board an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon:

You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling Stratospheric Cloud Pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each heart-shaped pendant comes with a card showing it floating through the stratosphere like a real cloud, and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

  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 May 15, 2020, the network reported 9 fireballs.
(9 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]

  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 May 15, 2020 there were 2018 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2020 JB1
2020-May-10
2.2 LD
10.4
17
388945
2020-May-10
7.3 LD
8.8
295
2020 JK1
2020-May-11
3.6 LD
4.8
11
2020 JQ1
2020-May-12
7.5 LD
13.3
22
2000 KA
2020-May-12
8.9 LD
13.5
162
2020 JK
2020-May-14
14.8 LD
20.1
56
2020 HS6
2020-May-14
16 LD
23.6
129
2020 JA1
2020-May-14
10.2 LD
6.2
14
2020 JG1
2020-May-15
19.8 LD
5.5
19
2020 JF1
2020-May-15
3.4 LD
10
13
478784
2020-May-15
8.5 LD
3.6
28
2020 HA9
2020-May-15
18.2 LD
15.8
36
2020 JN1
2020-May-16
1.1 LD
18.5
6
2020 JY
2020-May-17
6.3 LD
11.8
45
2020 JL1
2020-May-17
4.1 LD
10.4
8
2020 HG9
2020-May-18
15.6 LD
10.6
73
136795
2020-May-21
16.1 LD
11.7
892
2020 JE1
2020-May-22
14.4 LD
7.5
33
2020 JR1
2020-May-23
3.8 LD
6.2
8
2020 JX
2020-May-23
19.4 LD
7.9
61
2020 JM1
2020-May-28
9.5 LD
5.8
22
163348
2020-Jun-06
13.3 LD
11.1
339
2013 XA22
2020-Jun-08
7.6 LD
6.7
98
2017 MF7
2020-Jun-14
3.7 LD
10.9
23
2018 PD22
2020-Jun-19
17.2 LD
14.6
56
441987
2020-Jun-24
9.8 LD
12.9
186
2017 FW128
2020-Jun-25
6.9 LD
5.4
11
2019 AC3
2020-Jul-01
10.5 LD
3.4
12
2007 UN12
2020-Jul-04
16.7 LD
2.9
6
2009 OS5
2020-Jul-13
17.6 LD
2.6
45
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

SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.

To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

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 Regener-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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