You are viewing the page for Jun. 2, 2015
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids Internet Shopping Sites high quality binoculars excellent weather stations all-metal reflector telescopes rotatable microscopes
 
Solar wind
speed: 326.4 km/sec
density: 2.7 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B3
2209 UT Jun02
24-hr: C1
0702 UT Jun02
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 02 Jun 15
All of these sunspots are quiet and stable. Solar activity is very low. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 38
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 02 Jun 2015

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
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%)

Updated 02 Jun 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 100 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 02 Jun 2015

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: 5.8 nT
Bz: 3.2 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2350 UT
Coronal Holes: 02 Jun 15

There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for NLCs is underway. NASA's AIM spacecraft spotted the first noctilucent clouds over the Arctic Circle on May 19th. Update: Many readers have noticed that the noctilucent daisy, below, is more than a week old. Here's why: "For the past week we have been experiencing an anomaly in the processing system that we are still trying to track down, so unfortunately no new data has been available," says Cora Randall of the AIM science team. "We are working hard to figure out the problem (we are also keen to see what is happening!), and will make the images available to spaceweather.com as soon as we can."
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 06-02-2015 21:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 Jun 02 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: 2015 Jun 02 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
20 %
20 %
MINOR
20 %
20 %
SEVERE
10 %
10 %
 
Tuesday, Jun. 2, 2015
What's up in space
 

Learn to photograph Northern Lights like a pro. Sign up for Peter Rosen's Aurora Photo Courses in Abisko National Park, winner of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Award 2015.

 
Lapland tours

STRAWBERRY MOON: There's a full Moon tonight, and according to folklore it has a special name--the "Strawberry Moon." It gets its name from June-bearing strawberry plants, which have a short (three week) harvest season that begins about now. Sink your teeth into a Fragaria ananassa, and enjoy the strawberry moonlight.

NOCTILUCENT CLOUD SIGHTINGS: The northern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is underway, and the clouds are growing brighter. "Last night, we saw the first NLCs over Denmark," reports Ruslan Merzlyakov of Nykøbing Mors. He took this picture just one hour past midnight on June 2nd:

At about the same time, electric-blue clouds appeared over Sweden and Russian. The Swedish display was especially vivid.

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet's surface. The clouds are very cold and filled with tiny ice crystals. When sunbeams hit those crystals, they glow electric-blue.

Noctilucent clouds first appeared in the 19th century after the eruption of super-volcano Krakatoa. At the time, people thought NLCs were caused by the eruption, but long after Krakatoa's ash settled, the clouds remained. In recent years, NLCs have intensified and spread with sightings as far south as Utah and Colorado. This could be a sign of increasing greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere.

Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the Sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Realtime NLC Photo Gallery

SPACE STATION MARATHON: What's better than seeing the International Space Station glide brightly among the stars on a warm summer night? How about seeing it four times? For the next few weeks, sky watchers in the northern hemisphere can catch the ISS making multiple passes over their home towns. Photographer Alan Dyer sends this report from Gleichen, Alberta: "On the night of May 31/June 1, I was able to shoot the passage of the International Space Station on each of four successive orbits, at 90-minute intervals, from dusk to dawn."

"Seeing the space station on not one but two, three, or even four orbits in one night is possible at this time of year near northern summer solstice because the Station is now continuously lit by sunlight -- the Sun never sets from the altitude of the ISS," explains Dyer. "When the ISS should be entering night, sunlight streaming over the north pole still lights the station at its altitude of 400 km."

Satellite enthusiasts call this an "ISS marathon." Find out when to look using Spaceweather.com's Simple Satellite Tracker.

ANTARCTIC MICROBES VISIT THE EDGE OF SPACE: On Saturday, May 30th, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched approximately 100 billion Antarctic microbes to the stratosphere. During the 3 hour flight, which skirted the edge of space, the extremophiles were exposed to extreme cold (-63 oC) and doses of cosmic radiation more than 100x Earth-normal. This snapshot shows the payload 111,200 feet above Earth's surface:

The microbes are inside the little white vials on top of the payload. Take a closer look. They are Halorubrum lacusprofundi, a species that normally lives in Antarctica's Deep Lake. These microbes have developed survival tricks, such as cold-tolerant proteins, that could help them adapt to space-like environments.

Astrobiologists have long wondered if terrestrial extremophiles like this one could survive on the planet Mars. The Earth to Sky Calculus experiment aims to answer that question by flying microbes to the stratosphere, where the temperature, air pressure, and cosmic radiation environment is akin to that of the Red Planet.

The microbes parachuted back to Earth, landing in a dessicated stretch of California's Owen's Valley. Students recovered the samples less than 2 hours after they touched down. Now, the microbes are en route to the University of Maryland, where microbiologists Priya and Shil DasSarma will analyze them in their NASA-supported lab. We already know that some of the microbes survived--but how many? Stay tuned for updates.

HEY THANKS! All of the high-altitude research you see on Spaceweather.com is crowd funded. Saturday's flight of the Antarctic microbes was sponsored by Coady Torio of Monroe, Michigan, who paid $500 to fly a photo of six local science students to the edge of space:

"Matthew and John Torio, Ella and Joss Harvey, Max Hassett and Evan Zdybek took their love of science to new heights thanks to Earth to Sky Calculus," says Torio. "Their school, Meadow Montessori, is the nation's only accredited Montessori school for grades K-12. The school rigorously promotes the advancement of science not only in the classroom, but at 111,200 feet into the atmosphere as well. Thank you Earth to Sky Calculus for this wonderful experience." (Earth to Sky Calculus thanks them right back!)

Readers, if you would like to send your own students to the edge of space, please contact Dr. Tony Phillips to sponsor a flight

SUNSET SKY SHOW: If you love stargazing, there's a date you should mark on your calendar. It's June. That's right, the whole month. Throughout the month of June 2015, the two brightest planets in the night sky are converging for an amazing sunset sky show. At closest approach on June 30th, Venus and Jupiter will be less than 1/3rd of a degree apart. Even now, a month ahead of time, the gathering is beautiful. Leo Caldas sends this picture from Brasilia, Brazil:

"The Hubble Space Telescope flew by the planets just as I was photographing the conjunction," says Caldas. "Perfect timing."

In the weeks ahead, Venus and Jupiter will draw steadily closer together. You can see the distance shrink every night. Dates of special interest include June 12th, when Venus passes by the Beehive star cluster. Using binoculars, scan the sky around Venus to observe the cluster. On June 19th, the crescent Moon joins Venus and Jupiter to form a bright isosceles triangle in the sunset sky. One night later, on June 20th, the triangle reappears with shape-shifted vertices. From then until the end of the month, the converging planets will rush together, seemingly on a collision course, but actually en route to a near-miss on June 30th-July 1st.

Keep an eye on the sunset sky for the rest of the month. Backyard astronomy alerts: text, voice

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


  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. 2, 2015, the network reported 11 fireballs.
(11 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 2, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2015 KP57
May 28
10.4 LD
44 m
2015 KW120
May 29
1.1 LD
27 m
2015 KH
May 29
14.3 LD
53 m
2015 KQ120
May 31
8.5 LD
20 m
2015 KM57
Jun 3
6.6 LD
36 m
2005 XL80
Jun 4
38.1 LD
1.0 km
2015 KA122
Jun 6
3.3 LD
101 m
2015 KU121
Jun 7
7.5 LD
109 m
2012 XB112
Jun 11
10.1 LD
2 m
2015 KK57
Jun 23
8.3 LD
13 m
2005 VN5
Jul 7
12.6 LD
18 m
2015 HM10
Jul 7
1.1 LD
73 m
1994 AW1
Jul 15
25.3 LD
1.4 km
2011 UW158
Jul 19
6.4 LD
565 m
2013 BQ18
Jul 20
7.9 LD
38 m
1999 JD6
Jul 25
18.8 LD
1.6 km
2005 NZ6
Aug 6
76.5 LD
1.4 km
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 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
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
©2015 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.