Directly under the Arctic Circle! Marianne's Arctic Xpress in Tromsø offers fjord, whale and wildlife tours by day, aurora tours by night. Book Now for out of this world day and night adventures. | | | THE SOLAR WIND HAS ARRIVED: As predicted, today Earth is entering a stream of high-speed solar wind. Flowing from a canyon-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere, the stream could affect our planet for at least the next two days. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Feb.16-17. Free: Aurora alerts. NEUTRONS IN THE STRATOSPHERE: In a joint operation on Feb.12th, Spaceweather.com, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus, and their sister club Earth to Sky Maritime, launched a neutron counter to the stratosphere onboard a high altitude balloon. Neutrons are an important form of cosmic radiation because they provide much of the biologically effective radiation dose at altitudes of interest to aviation and space tourism. How are these particles distributed through our atmosphere? This is what we wanted to find out. We've just finished reducing the data and can report that the experiment was a success. Neutrons were detected throughout the 2 hour flight covering altitudes from ground level to 113,200 ft: This first data set shows that neutrons, like gamma rays, peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a layer known as the Regener-Pfotzer Maximum. Moreover, neutron counts are significantly elevated not only in the stratosphere, but also at lower altitudes where planes fly (20,000 ft to 45,000 ft)--something to think about the next time you buy an airline ticket. We've been monitoring cosmic rays in the atmosphere for more than two years, and find that deep space radiation has been intensifying. Previous payloads measured only X-rays and gamma-rays, however. The addition of a neutron counter to the payload is a major upgrade, providing a more complete picture of the radiation environment. Stay tuned for updates as we improve our technique and gather more data in future flights. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery EARTH ECLIPSES THE SUN: On Valentine's Day, Feb. 14th, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory witnessed an eclipse of the sun -- by our very own planet. Earth passed directly between the spacecraft and the solar disk, producing a near-total blackout: This event marks the beginning of eclipse season for SDO. Twice a year, in the weeks leading up to the equinoxes, Earth can pass directly between the sun and SDO. This is the "spring season." Between now and mid-March, these eclipses will repeat once a day around 07:30 UT. At the beginning of the season, eclipses are short, only a few minutes long. Their duration increases to 72 minutes, mid-season, before tapering off to minutes again as the season winds down. Because most eclipses are relatively short, there is still plenty of uninterrupted time for SDO to monitor activity on the sun. Researchers estimate a scant 2% data loss averaged over the weeks ahead. Realtime PSC Photo Gallery 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. 16, 2017, the network reported 16 fireballs. (15 sporadics, 1 alpha Antilid) 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 16, 2017 there were potentially hazardous asteroids. 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 12% 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 | | a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com | | 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 | | Beautyz for top beauty products reviews and their buying guides | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | |