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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

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Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 473.3 km/s
density:
2.3 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2244 UT


X-ray Solar Flares

6-hr max:
C1 2110 UT Jul03
24-hr: C4 0455 UT Jul03
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 03 Jul '05

Sunspots 783 and 786 pose a threat for M-class solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI


Sunspot Number: 168
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 02 Jul 2005

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals no large sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 4.0 nT
Bz:
2.9 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

Coronal Holes:

Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Image credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope.


SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts

Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2005 Jul 02 2208 UTC
FLARE 0-24 hr 24-48 hr
CLASS M 30 % 30 %
CLASS X 05 % 05 %

Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at 2005 Jul 02 2208 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 30 % 30 %
MINOR 15 % 15 %
SEVERE 05 % 05 %

High latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 35 % 35 %
MINOR 20 % 20 %
SEVERE 05 % 05 %

What's Up in Space -- 3 Jul 2005
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DEEP IMPACT: Tonight, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft is going to blast a hole through the crust of Comet Tempel 1. At the moment of impact (July 3rd at 10:52 p.m. PDT, July 4th at 0552 UT) the comet might brighten so much that sky watchers on Earth can see it through binoculars or even with the unaided eye from dark-sky sites.

Right: The Deep Impact projectile released and photographed by its mothership on July 2nd. [More]

Observers in the western United States, Hawaii, Mexico and parts of Central and South America are favored. From those places the comet hangs in the southwestern sky after sunset on July 3rd--at the right place and time to view the impact. If the comet does brighten, it will look like a faint fuzzy smudge not far from the bright star Spica. [full story] [sky map] [observing tips]

Live Webcast
start time: 9 pm PDT, from the Arizona Sky Village
presented by Vanderbilt University and the Astronomical League

SUNSPOTS GALORE: What a difference a few days makes. Three days ago, the sun was almost blank, now it's peppered with fast-growing sunspots: movie. The largest of these active regions, sunspot 783, now poses a threat for Earth-directed M-class solar flares. EXTRA: Safe Solar Observing Tips.

"Are we really heading toward solar minimum?" wonders Didier Favre of Los Angeles, CA, who took this picture of the busy sun on July 2nd:

Favre's image is a blink-composite of two exposures--one taken through a white light filter and one through an H-alpha filter. The white light photo shows what the human eye would see: sunspots. The H-alpha photo, tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen, shows more: sunspots, the white "beaches" around sunspots known as "plages," and dark sinuous filaments.



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 are on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

On 3 Jul 2005 there were 703 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

June-July 2005 Earth-asteroid encounters
ASTEROID

 DATE (UT)

 MISS DISTANCE

 MAG.
2005 LM3

June 3

4.0 LD

 18
2005 LU3

June 4

4.9 LD

 20
2005 LD

June 19

7.1 LD

 17
2000 AG6

July 22

8.7 LD

 20
Notes: LD is a "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 Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. See also Snow Crystals.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

SOHO Farside Images of the Sun from SWAN and MDI.

The Latest SOHO Coronagraph Images -- from the Naval Research Lab

The Sun from Earth -- daily images of our star from the Big Bear Solar Observatory

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Aurora Forecast --from the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute

Daily Solar Flare and Sunspot Data -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

What is an Iridium flare? See also Photographing Satellites by Brian Webb.

What is an Astronomical Unit, or AU?

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; Jan-Mar., 2005;

Space Audio Streams: (University of Florida) 20 MHz radio emissions from Jupiter: #1, #2, #3, #4; (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

Recent International Astronomical Union Circulars

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email

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