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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 363.4 km/sec
density: 9.2 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B3
1818 UT Aug15
24-hr: C1
1354 UT Aug15
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 15 Aug 17
New sunspot AR2671 is growing and crackling with C-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 12
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 14 Aug 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2017 total: 56 days (25%)
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%)

Updated 14 Aug 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 68 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 14 Aug 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.0 nT
Bz: 0.3 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
Coronal Holes: 14 Aug 17

Solar wind flowing from this large northern coronal hole could reach Earth as early as Aug. 16th Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds They're back! Images of noctilucent clouds from NASA's AIM spacecraft are available again. The spacecraft's orbit had recently changed, requiring a new way to point AIM's science instruments. This problem has now been solved, and "daily daisies" have returned to Spaceweather.com.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 08-15-2017 15:55:05
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 Aug 15 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
10 %
10 %
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: 2017 Aug 15 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
30 %
35 %
MINOR
15 %
30 %
SEVERE
05 %
15 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
05 %
MINOR
25 %
20 %
SEVERE
55 %
70 %
 
Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over lapland is excited to announce that Autumn Aurora Adventures are available for immediate booking! Reserve your adventure of a lifetime in Abisko National Park, Sweden today!

 

A NEW SUNSPOT EMERGES: Watch this movie. You just witnessed the emergence of new sunspot AR2671 as recorded by extreme ultraviolet  telescopes onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The growing sunspot is crackling with C-class solar flares and throwing moon-sized clouds of plasma into space. If the active region continues to develop, it could become a significant source of space weather in the days ahead. Free: Solar Flare Alerts

WHY GO TO THE PATH OF TOTALITY? On Aug. 21, 2017, every square inch of the USA will experience a solar eclipse.  In most places, the eclipse will be partial--that is, the Moon will cross the sun off-center leaving a crescent shaped portion of the solar disk exposed. Is it really worth the trip to the path of totality when you can stay home and see the partial eclipse?  Pulitzer prize winner Annie Dillard, who witnessed both types of eclipses in 1979, compared them as follows:

"A partial eclipse is very interesting. It bears almost no relation to a total eclipse. Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane."

Indeed, during the minutes of totality, the whole world changes.  Saying that day turns into night barely scratches the surface of it. The shadow of the Moon lances down to Earth from a quarter million miles away. On one end is you; on the other end is a million square miles of dusty lunar terrain. You're connected, and you can feel the cold.


Image Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN), Alkim Ün

Darkness inside the path of totality has an alien quality. Because the shadow is only 70 miles wide, you can see daylight at the edges even while you stand in the dark core. This distant scattered light produces a slight reddish glow and unusual shadow effects. Many birds stop singing, daytime flower blossoms begin to close as if for the night, and bees return to their hives.

"What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know," says Dillard, whose brilliant essay "Total Eclipse" is a must-read for anyone deciding whether to stay home ... or have their minds blown.

Realtime Eclipse Photo Gallery

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on Aug. 16th increasing to 70% on Aug. 17th as Earth moves into a stream of fast-moving solar wind. The wind is flowing from a large hole in the sun's northern atmosphere:

This is a coronal hole (CH)--a region where the sun's magnetic field peels back and allows solar wind to escape. Solar wind is flowing from this hole as fast as 700 km/s (1.6 million mph). High-latitude sky watchers might see auroras, especially during the hours around local midnight on Aug. 16-17. Free: Aurora Alerts

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

THESE PENDANTS HAVE TOUCHED SPACE: On April 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of heart-shaped Venus pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one, 111,550 feet above the Sierras of central California:

These blue jewels make great birthday and Christmas gifts--and you have have one for $129.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.

More items from the edge of space may be found in the Earth to Sky Store. All proceeds support our Solar Eclipse Balloon Network and hands-on STEM education.

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


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery


Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

Realtime Meteor 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 Aug. 15, 2017, the network reported 106 fireballs.
(63 sporadics, 39 Perseids, 2 Northern delta Aquariids, 1 kappa Cygnid, 1)

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 August 15, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2017 OF7
2017-Aug-10
19.2 LD
8.2
79
2014 OA339
2017-Aug-13
12.3 LD
10
47
2017 PK25
2017-Aug-14
2.2 LD
16
31
2017 PD25
2017-Aug-16
9.7 LD
7.9
31
2017 PE
2017-Aug-24
19.5 LD
7.1
45
3122
2017-Sep-01
18.5 LD
13.5
5376
2014 RC
2017-Sep-11
15.1 LD
8.9
16
1989 VB
2017-Sep-29
7.9 LD
6.3
408
2012 TC4
2017-Oct-12
0.1 LD
7.6
16
2005 TE49
2017-Oct-13
8.5 LD
11.2
16
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.

  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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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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