This is an AI Free Zone: AI is everywhere -- except here. Spaceweather.com is written by Dr. Tony Phillips, a carbon-based lifeform with 30 yrs of forecasting experience. If you find a mistake, rest assured it was made by a real human being.
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CO-ROTATING INTERACTION REGION: Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on April 17th when a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is expected to hit Earth. CIRs are transition zones between fast and slow-moving streams of solar wind. They contain shock waves and enhanced magnetic field that often spark high-latitude auroras. Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
THE DEEPENING MYSTERY OF THE MARCH FIREBALLS: If you love a good mystery, look no further than the night sky in March 2026. There were no major meteor showers scheduled for March, yet suddenly fireballs started appearing everywhere.
"During the month of March, reports of very bright fireballs to the American Meteor Society (AMS) suddenly doubled," says Mike Hankey, who manages the AMS's fireball reporting system. "Many of them were visible in broad daylight and created loud sonic booms."
Above: The fireball over Koblenz, Germany, that started the "March Madness." [movie]
A daytime fireball over Western Europe on March 8th drew more than 3,200 witness reports. Nine days later, a 7-ton asteroid exploded over Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT. On March 21st, a fireball broke apart above Houston, sending a fragment through the roof of a house. And those were just the headliners.
Hankey has been running the fireball reporting system for nearly 15 years (indeed, he wrote much of the software himself), so he knew something unusual was happening. When the reports kept piling up, he dove into the data -- and what he found is genuinely puzzling.
"The total number of fireballs people saw was not dramatically unusual," Hankey explains. "But the fraction of big fireballs really surged."
At the 50-report threshold (events bright and loud enough to be noticed across multiple states) Q1 2026 produced 40 events, double the historical average. At 100+ reports, the count also doubled. More than 82% of these large events produced sonic booms, indicating objects penetrating deep into the atmosphere.
Hankey wondered if AI might have something to do with it. "People who see fireballs can now talk to their phone and ask AI how to report it," he says. "We naturally wondered if this might be amplifying the number of reports." However, the increase turned on quickly at the start of March, and turned off just as quickly at the start of April--an ON/OFF pattern inconsistent with simple AI amplification.
Digging deeper, Hankey looked at where the fireballs came from. He found not one, but two sources. One cluster of fireballs came from opposite the sun -- the "Anthelion" source. Another came from high declinations -- basically falling upon us from above the plane of the planets. These two directions could not be more different, yet they contributed about equally to the surge.
Predictably, some people wondered if this might have anything to do with interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. "No," says Hankey. "The meteorites dropped by these fireballs were eucrites and diogenites linked to the asteroid Vesta -- not interstellar material."
As we write this in April, the barrage has ended as mysteriously as it began. One thing is certain: When March 2027 rolls around, many eyes will be watching the sky to see if it happens again.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
PREMIUM ITEM--THE WROUGHT IRON SPACE ROSE: Mother's Day is coming soon. Give mom a premium gift that never wilts or dies: The Wrought Iron Space Rose. On Feb. 1, 2026, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched the metal bloom to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $197.95. This is a premium item. The rose was forged by hand from iron, the element created in supernova explosions--so this rose is genuine "star stuff." Buy this rose and you will also receive a greeting card showing the bloom in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
UNNATURAL NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: The correct season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is summer, when sunwarmed plumes of water vapor rise to the edge of space and crystallize around disintegrated meteoroids. April is not the correct time. Yet just before sunrise on April 14th, Christopher Nolker looked up from Cocoa Beach, Florida, and saw them anyway:
"The clouds really were that bright," says Nolker. "I saw them at about 6:20 a.m."
Why April? Because these NLCs are not natural. They were made by SpaceX.
About an hour before Nolker stepped into his front yard, a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral carrying 29 Starlink satellites. As the engines climbed through the atmosphere, they emitted a spray of watery exhaust that mixed with meteor dust to produce the NLCs.
This is not new. Space shuttle launches in the 1990s produced some of the first widely-noticed "rocket NLCs." The phenomenon has intensified in recent years with the exponential increase in SpaceX launch rates. "These are a semi-regular occurrence here in Cocoa Beach due to the combination of clear skies and SpaceX launching so frequently," says Nolker.
Noctilucent clouds aren't just a summertime phenomenon anymore. Check the SpaceX launch schedule, and be alert for NLCs.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
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 April 15, 2026, the network reported 6 fireballs.
(6 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]
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 April 15, 2026 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
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Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
| 2022 GE2 |
2026-Apr-10 |
12 LD |
9.2 |
15 |
| 2026 GY1 |
2026-Apr-10 |
2.9 LD |
10.1 |
32 |
| 2026 GW |
2026-Apr-10 |
3.7 LD |
8.5 |
10 |
| 2026 FE7 |
2026-Apr-11 |
8.9 LD |
7.8 |
29 |
| 2026 GC |
2026-Apr-11 |
13.6 LD |
8.2 |
37 |
| 2026 GR1 |
2026-Apr-12 |
0.9 LD |
6.7 |
10 |
| 2023 HB4 |
2026-Apr-12 |
16.8 LD |
8.7 |
15 |
| 2026 FV6 |
2026-Apr-13 |
7.5 LD |
11.2 |
29 |
| 2026 GW1 |
2026-Apr-13 |
3.1 LD |
13.6 |
14 |
| 2026 GX1 |
2026-Apr-14 |
13.1 LD |
4.7 |
16 |
| 2013 GM3 |
2026-Apr-14 |
0.7 LD |
7.4 |
20 |
| 2026 FX13 |
2026-Apr-14 |
7.1 LD |
11.7 |
29 |
| 2026 GT |
2026-Apr-16 |
11.7 LD |
16 |
18 |
| 2026 GA2 |
2026-Apr-16 |
3.6 LD |
10.5 |
14 |
| 2026 GA1 |
2026-Apr-17 |
12.2 LD |
7.8 |
20 |
| 2026 FJ6 |
2026-Apr-18 |
15.8 LD |
9.8 |
90 |
| 2026 GM1 |
2026-Apr-18 |
3.5 LD |
5.6 |
29 |
| 2026 AC4 |
2026-Apr-20 |
10.7 LD |
1.2 |
22 |
| 2022 UG2 |
2026-Apr-20 |
16.3 LD |
10.3 |
13 |
| 2026 GJ1 |
2026-Apr-21 |
8.7 LD |
22.3 |
69 |
| 2025 HQ4 |
2026-Apr-21 |
16.4 LD |
12.5 |
22 |
| 2026 GZ1 |
2026-Apr-21 |
15.5 LD |
10.3 |
49 |
| 2026 BK2 |
2026-Apr-22 |
10 LD |
8.1 |
219 |
| 2022 UU8 |
2026-Apr-25 |
8.7 LD |
4 |
9 |
| 2026 GU1 |
2026-Apr-28 |
12.5 LD |
6.4 |
75 |
| 2026 GD1 |
2026-May-03 |
14.6 LD |
6.7 |
51 |
| 2020 GE3 |
2026-May-09 |
11.1 LD |
6 |
21 |
| 2023 VR5 |
2026-May-16 |
7.5 LD |
2.3 |
10 |
| 2025 KR4 |
2026-May-18 |
15.2 LD |
5.9 |
22 |
| 2023 KH4 |
2026-May-24 |
5.5 LD |
7.9 |
14 |
| 2023 KZ1 |
2026-May-24 |
9 LD |
13.4 |
20 |
| 2023 BM4 |
2026-May-30 |
12.2 LD |
5.7 |
64 |
| 2021 KN2 |
2026-Jun-03 |
8.9 LD |
8.9 |
7 |
| 2018 GE |
2026-Jun-07 |
16.4 LD |
3.1 |
11 |
| 2016 VS |
2026-Jun-12 |
20 LD |
11.1 |
12 |
| 530520 |
2026-Jun-12 |
16.1 LD |
14.6 |
152 |
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
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Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost 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 sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth's surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 10 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (Nov. 2024): Atmospheric radiation is sharply decreasing in 2024. Our latest measurements in November registered a 10-year low:
What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
Technical notes: 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.
Data points in the graph labeled "Stratospheric Radiation" 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 Regener and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
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The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
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Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
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3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
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Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
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information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
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current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. |
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Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
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from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
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from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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the
underlying science of space weather |
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Got a chipped or cracked windshield that prevents you from seeing space weather events while driving? Get windshield replacement from SR Windows & Glass with free mobile auto glass service anywhere in the Phoenix area. |
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