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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 350.3 km/sec
density: 4.9 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A7
2057 UT Jun27
24-hr: A8
0645 UT Jun27
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 27 Jun 19
The magnetic polarity of sunspot AR2743 marks it as a member of old Solar Cycle 24. It poses no threat for solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 11
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 27 Jun 2019

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2019 total: 109 days (61%)
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 27 Jun 2019


Thermosphere Climate Index
today: 3.49
x1010 W Cold
Max: 49.4
x1010 W Hot (10/1957)
Min: 2.05
x1010 W Cold (02/2009)
explanation | more data
Updated 27 Jun 2019

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 68 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 27 Jun 2019

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: 4.7 nT
Bz: -2.2 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 27 Jun 19


A minor stream of solar wind flowing from this southern coronal hole is grazing Earth's magnetic field, but it is not causing significant geomagnetic activity.
Credit: SDO/AIA

Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for noctilicent clouds is underway. Monitor the daily images from NASA's AIM spacecraft to see how the clouds spread around the Arctic Circle as northern summer unfolds.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 06-27-2019 13:55:03
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2019 Jun 27 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: 2019 Jun 27 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 %
20 %
SEVERE
15 %
10 %
 
Thursday, Jun. 27, 2019
What's up in space
       
 

Special Offer: SAVE 600nok per person. Book a combination aurora borealis chase and scenic day tour during the months of September, October or November 2019 for the special price of 1800 kr. Check Marianne's webpage for details!

 

SOLAR MINIMUM CONDITIONS ARE IN EFFECT: Solar Minimum is underway, and it's one of the deepest minima of the past century. During this low phase of the solar cycle we experience fewer sunspots and solar flares, but get more cosmic rays and noctilucent clouds. NOAA forecasters expect the nadir to last until 2020. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

DSX SPACECRAFT FOUND: Earlier this week, SpaceX launched a new spacecraft named "DSX" into Earth orbit. Assembled and managed by the US Air Force, DSX is on a mission to explore a poorly understood region of space: the gap between the two Van Allen Belts. Last night, the spacecraft passed over the British Columbia home of amateur astronomer Scott Tilley, and he received a loud S-band radio transmission:

"A great signal from a spacecraft 8000 km away!" says Tilley, who is famous for tracking and finding satellites using radio. "Based on the timing and Doppler shift of the signal, DSX appears to have reached its proper orbit."

DSX is now circling Earth in a region once thought to be safe--but maybe not. Earth is surrounded by two radiation belts seething with energetic particles. The gap between those belts, called the "slot region," is usually empty. In 2013, NASA spacecraft discovered that's not always so. During some solar storms, it can flood with radiation from the adjacent belts, sometimes forming a third belt. How much the slot region changes, and how quickly, remains uncertain.

"There haven't been too many measurements to tell us how bad things get in the slot region," says Michael Xapsos of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.  "That's why we're going there."

DSX will investigate conditions in the slot region using a variety of onboard sensors and experiments. NASA's tagalong SET experiment, for instance, will expose sample circuit boards to the environment, monitoring accumulated damage to see what might happen to computers on future spacecraft. Another experiment, WPIx, is even more interesting. It will study wave-particle interactions to discover if VLF (very low frequency) radio signals transmitted from Earth could be used to control or eliminate particles in the slot region.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter

"ONE SMALL STEP"--ORIGINAL SPACE PAINTING: This artwork has touched space. Hand-painted by artist Dana Wilcher, a student member of Earth to Sky Calculus, "One Small Step" flew to the stratosphere on June 23, 2019, onboard a cosmic ray balloon. It shows Neil Armstrong's iconic footprint on the Moon made during the Apollo 11 mission 50 years ago:

You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these commemorative Apollo 11 paintings to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each signed 4x4inch canvas panel comes with a greeting card showing the painting in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back. This makes a great gift for any enthusiast of space exploration.

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


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud 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 Jun. 27, 2019, the network reported 60 fireballs.
(60 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 June 27, 2019 there were 1983 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2019 LM1
2019-Jun-23
9.8 LD
8.7
25
2019 LC5
2019-Jun-23
13.6 LD
11.1
42
441987
2019-Jun-24
7.7 LD
12.6
178
2008 KV2
2019-Jun-27
17.8 LD
11.4
195
2016 NN15
2019-Jun-28
9.6 LD
8.4
16
2019 LR4
2019-Jun-29
11.3 LD
8.3
32
2019 LV1
2019-Jun-29
5.2 LD
6.2
29
2015 XC352
2019-Jul-01
11.9 LD
4.1
26
2019 MT
2019-Jul-01
8.9 LD
4.2
41
2019 MD1
2019-Jul-02
10.3 LD
9.5
17
2016 OF
2019-Jul-07
12.8 LD
8.5
85
2016 NO56
2019-Jul-07
3.4 LD
12.2
26
2019 KD3
2019-Jul-12
15.5 LD
8
82
2016 NJ33
2019-Jul-12
15 LD
4.5
32
2015 HM10
2019-Jul-24
12.2 LD
9.5
68
2010 PK9
2019-Jul-26
8.2 LD
16.5
155
2006 QQ23
2019-Aug-10
19.4 LD
4.7
339
454094
2019-Aug-12
17 LD
8.2
148
2018 PN22
2019-Aug-17
17.1 LD
2.3
11
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 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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