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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 378.0 km/sec
density: 6.1 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2244 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2245 UT Sep15
24-hr: A0
2245 UT Sep15
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 15 Sep 07
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 14 Sep 2007
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Updated: 2007 Sep 15 2156 UT
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.9 nT
Bz: 1.3 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT
Coronal Holes:
Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: Hinode X-Ray Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2007 Sep 15 2203 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: 2007 Sep 15 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
10 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
September 15, 2007
Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. .

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS: NASA's adventurous Discovery program--responsible for the first rover on another planet, the first landing on an asteroid, the first samples of a comet returned to Earth and much more--is about to get even better: full story.

NEW MEXICO FIREBALL: On Sept 13th at approximately 3 o'clock in the morning MDT, an extremely bright fireball streaked over New Mexico, "It was terrifying," says eyewitness Susan K. Burgess. "I was stargazing outside my house near Santa Fe when the landscape started becoming very bright, as if a brilliant full moon was quickly rising from the southwest. The fireball itself [slowly moved] over the house and disintegrated with a great deal of scatter in the northwest sky."

At the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, a Sentinel all-sky video camera captured the fireball in flight:


Click to view the complete movie.

Based on data from the video, the visual magnitude of the fireball was -14.6, about four times brighter than a full Moon!

"The fireball was a pure emerald green, uncomfortably bright to look at," adds Harald Edens located in the Magdalena Mountains west of Socorro, NM. "The object was disintegrating when I saw it, with pieces parallel-tracking and trailing the fireball. Those smaller pieces had all different colors--most notably red. I think it has been a piece of space junk."

Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft not only photographed the fireball, but also recorded echos of a distant radio station bouncing off the meteor's ionized trail: movie. "This fireball turned night into day!" he says.

RAINBOW UNDERFOOT: "Last week, we took a helicopter ride to see lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii," says photographer Mila Zinkova. "But before we reached the lava we saw a beautiful rainbow. It seemed to me that it made a complete circle beneath the heliocopter." (continued below)


more images: #1, #2, #3, #4

Indeed, with the sun overhead and no ground to interrrupt the 'bow below, a complete 360-degree rainbow was on display underneath the chopper. If only Mila had had her fisheye lens!

"Hawaii with its fine rain showers mixed with brilliant sun is ideal for rainbows," notes atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "The only problem is that the sun is often too high! Rainbows are always directly opposite the sun and when the is high in the sky the rainbow top dips below the horizon where you cannot see it. The solution? Climb a mountain or hire a helicopter for a better view."

Cowley adds that if you're not in Hawaii, "a lawn sprinkler does a good job, too"


September 2007 Aurora Gallery
[August 2007 Aurora Gallery] [Aurora Alerts]

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 15, 2007 there were 885 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Sept. 2007 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2007 RF1
Sep. 2
8.5 LD
18
26 m
2007 RS1
Sep. 5
0.2 LD
17
3 m
2007 RJ1
Sep. 16
2.5 LD
16
40 m
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.
Essential Links
NOAA Space Environment Center
  The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  From the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
  more links...
©2007, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
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