This is an AI Free Zone: Text created by Large Language Models is spreading across the Internet. It's well-written, but frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being.
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FARMERS, DID YOUR TRACTORS JUST GO CRAZY? Many modern farmers use GPS-guided tractors to plant and tend their crops. Last weekend, some of them veered off course. We've received a report of "dancing tractors" on Easter Sunday (April 20, 2025) apparently due to unusual GPS errors. The same thing happened on hundreds of farms last May during a severe geomagnetic storm. There was no geomagnetic storm on April 20, 2025, so we're looking for confirmaton. If you're a farmer or GPS operator and know of unusual disturbances in the past week, please let us know.
THE STARLINK INCIDENT IS NOT WHAT WE THOUGHT: It never made sense. On Feb. 3rd, 2022, SpaceX launched a batch of 49 Starlinks to low-Earth orbit--something they had done many times before. This time was different, though. Almost immediately, dozens of the new satellites began to fall out of the sky.
Above: A Starlink satellite falls from the sky over Puerto Rico on Feb. 7, 2022. [video]
At the time, SpaceX offered this explanation: "Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday (Feb. 3rd) were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday, (Feb. 4th)."
A more accurate statement might have read "...impacted by a very minor geomagnetic storm." The satellites flew into a storm that barely registered on NOAA scales: It was a G1, the weakest possible, unlikely to cause a mass decay of satellites. Something about "The Starlink Incident" was not adding up.
Space scientists Scott McIntosh and Robert Leamon of Lynker Space, Inc., have a new and different idea: "The Terminator did it," says McIntosh.
Not to be confused with the killer robot, McIntosh's Terminator is an event on the sun that helps explain the mysterious progression of solar cycles. Four centuries after Galileo discovered sunspots, researchers still cannot accurately predict the timing and strength of the sun's 11-year solar cycle. Even "11 years" isn't real; observed cycles vary from less than 9 years to more than 14 years long.
Above: Oppositely charged bands of magnetism march toward the sun's equator where they "terminate" one another, kickstarting the next solar cycle. [more]
McIntosh and Leamon realized that forecasters had been overlooking something. There is a moment that happens every 11 years or so when opposing magnetic fields from the sun's previous and upcoming solar cycles collide. They called this moment, which signals the death of the old cycle, "The Termination Event."
After a Termination Event, the sun roars to life–"like a hot stove where someone suddenly turns the burner on," McIntosh likes to say. Solar ultraviolet radiation abruptly jumps to a higher level, heating the upper atmosphere and dramatically increasing aerodynamic drag on satellites.
This plot supports what McIntosh and Leamon are saying:
The histogram shows the number of objects falling out of Earth orbit each year since 1975. Vertical dashed lines mark Termination Events. There's an uptick in satellite decay around the time of every Terminator, none bigger than 2022.
As SpaceX was assembling the doomed Starlinks of Group 4-7 in early 2022, they had no idea that the Terminator Event had, in fact, just happened. Unwittingly, they launched the satellites into a radically altered near-space environment. "Some of our satellite partners said it was just pea soup up there," says Leamon.
SpaceX wasn't the only company hit hard. Capella Space also struggled in 2022 to keep its constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites in orbit.
“The atmospheric density in low Earth orbit was 2 to 3 times more than expected,” wrote Capella Space's Scott Shambaugh in a paper entitled Doing Battle With the Sun. “This increase in drag threatened to prematurely de-orbit some of our spacecraft." Indeed, many did deorbit earlier than their 3-year design lifetimes.
The Terminator did it? It makes more sense than a tiny storm.
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CONSTELLATION CAT CRYSTAL NIGHT LIGHT: It's the most far-out feline night light ever--the Constellation Cat. On March 21, 2025, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a giant helium balloon.
You can have it for $129.95. Outlined by stars in the style of an astronomical constellation, the laser-etched cat comes with an LED stand that produces a soothing glow for your bedside table. Also included: A unique greeting card shows the cat in flight and tells the story of its journey to the edge of space.
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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 Apr 23, 2025, the network reported 11 fireballs.
(7 Lyrids, 4 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 24, 2025 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
| 2025 HQ1 |
2025-Apr-18 |
5.6 LD |
6.8 |
26 |
| 2025 HR |
2025-Apr-18 |
5.9 LD |
12.5 |
18 |
| 2025 GL1 |
2025-Apr-18 |
17.4 LD |
16.3 |
72 |
| 2025 HB |
2025-Apr-19 |
1.5 LD |
6.1 |
10 |
| 2025 HG |
2025-Apr-19 |
1.7 LD |
12.5 |
17 |
| 2025 HO |
2025-Apr-19 |
0.5 LD |
11.5 |
5 |
| 2025 FY22 |
2025-Apr-19 |
9.4 LD |
9.2 |
33 |
| 2025 HB1 |
2025-Apr-19 |
14.3 LD |
11 |
52 |
| 2025 HZ |
2025-Apr-20 |
1.2 LD |
9.5 |
5 |
| 2025 HA1 |
2025-Apr-20 |
0.3 LD |
17.8 |
26 |
| 2025 FK12 |
2025-Apr-20 |
9.5 LD |
7.4 |
22 |
| 2025 HC |
2025-Apr-20 |
1.2 LD |
15.4 |
18 |
| 2025 HE |
2025-Apr-20 |
1.9 LD |
10.9 |
12 |
| 2025 HK |
2025-Apr-20 |
12.2 LD |
16.5 |
24 |
| 2025 HD1 |
2025-Apr-21 |
13.1 LD |
16.6 |
25 |
| 2025 HG1 |
2025-Apr-21 |
1.2 LD |
10.6 |
10 |
| 2025 HS |
2025-Apr-21 |
9.8 LD |
11.3 |
21 |
| 2025 HP |
2025-Apr-21 |
7.2 LD |
13.4 |
22 |
| 2025 HU |
2025-Apr-22 |
3.3 LD |
8.6 |
12 |
| 2014 HS124 |
2025-Apr-22 |
10.9 LD |
8.9 |
85 |
| 2025 GD1 |
2025-Apr-22 |
4.2 LD |
5.9 |
28 |
| 2025 HF |
2025-Apr-23 |
2.3 LD |
9.1 |
27 |
| 2025 HN |
2025-Apr-23 |
5.2 LD |
11.5 |
15 |
| 2025 HH1 |
2025-Apr-23 |
13.8 LD |
17.9 |
32 |
| 2025 HM |
2025-Apr-24 |
15.1 LD |
11.6 |
101 |
| 2025 HF1 |
2025-Apr-24 |
1 LD |
14.7 |
19 |
| 2019 FY2 |
2025-Apr-24 |
12.8 LD |
5.3 |
12 |
| 2025 HX |
2025-Apr-24 |
3.5 LD |
12.6 |
11 |
| 2025 HT |
2025-Apr-25 |
3.3 LD |
6.8 |
19 |
| 462959 |
2025-Apr-25 |
12.9 LD |
9.5 |
217 |
| 2025 FK28 |
2025-Apr-25 |
16.6 LD |
11.9 |
64 |
| 2025 HP1 |
2025-Apr-26 |
9.3 LD |
8.5 |
14 |
| 2025 HV |
2025-Apr-27 |
14.6 LD |
16.5 |
50 |
| 2025 HY |
2025-Apr-27 |
10.7 LD |
10.7 |
17 |
| 2025 GT1 |
2025-May-01 |
11.3 LD |
11.1 |
38 |
| 2024 BF |
2025-May-01 |
9.5 LD |
4.6 |
46 |
| 2024 JM2 |
2025-May-03 |
7.2 LD |
11.3 |
62 |
| 2021 JN1 |
2025-May-06 |
18.3 LD |
16.3 |
39 |
| 2021 HZ |
2025-May-08 |
20 LD |
10.2 |
30 |
| 612356 |
2025-May-09 |
11 LD |
5.1 |
305 |
| 2021 KH |
2025-May-10 |
18.3 LD |
7.2 |
19 |
| 2011 HJ7 |
2025-May-12 |
6.6 LD |
15.8 |
118 |
| 2011 YU74 |
2025-May-13 |
11.4 LD |
5 |
90 |
| 2025 DT50 |
2025-May-14 |
16 LD |
6.4 |
105 |
| 2008 ST |
2025-May-20 |
13.5 LD |
2.5 |
14 |
| 387746 |
2025-May-24 |
17.4 LD |
8.3 |
339 |
| 2014 KF22 |
2025-May-25 |
9.1 LD |
11.5 |
19 |
| 390725 |
2025-May-25 |
18.4 LD |
13.5 |
410 |
| 2025 FU5 |
2025-May-28 |
13.4 LD |
7.3 |
92 |
| 2022 KP3 |
2025-May-30 |
10.2 LD |
7.7 |
7 |
| 424482 |
2025-Jun-05 |
9.1 LD |
6.2 |
421 |
| 2020 LQ |
2025-Jun-06 |
17.3 LD |
11.8 |
34 |
| 2018 LE4 |
2025-Jun-07 |
12.2 LD |
13.3 |
62 |
| 2014 LL26 |
2025-Jun-08 |
8 LD |
5.2 |
31 |
| 2022 KQ5 |
2025-Jun-12 |
13.6 LD |
5.1 |
5 |
| 2023 XO15 |
2025-Jun-15 |
17.8 LD |
3.4 |
24 |
| 2000 LF3 |
2025-Jun-17 |
18.9 LD |
14.5 |
169 |
| 2023 XU2 |
2025-Jun-18 |
11.1 LD |
15.6 |
32 |
|
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
| |
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 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 |
| |
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. |
| |
information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
| |
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 |
| |
from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| |
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 |
 |
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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