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QUIET WEEKEND: With no CMEs heading for Earth, geomagnetic storms are unlikely for the next three days. Quiet conditions should persist through the holiday weekend and possibly beyond if solar activity remains low. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
WATCH FIREFLY PUNCH A HOLE IN THE IONOSPHERE: When Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 3rd, astronomer David Blanchard of Flagstaff, Arizona, thought he might be too far away to see. Instead, he had a front row seat as the rocket punched a huge glowing-red hole in the ionosphere:
"I wish I had started the video capture earlier, but I was using a telephoto lens expecting the rocket to be small and far downrange," says Blanchard. "When I realized how large it was, I swapped in a wide angle lens and re-started recording mid-flight."
The lingering red glow in Blanchard's movie is "the hole." Earth's ionosphere is a layer of electrically-conducting gas enveloping our planet more than 100 km high. It plays a key role in shortwave radio communications and GPS positioning. When Alpha burned through the ionosphere, water and carbon dioxide in therocket's exhaust quenched local ionization by as much as 70%. Red light is the afterglow of this process.
Firefly Aerospace isn't the first to do this. Indeed, the phenomenon has been repeatedly observed and studied for decades. However, ionospheric holes are opening more often than ever before--an unintended side effect of record-high launch rates led by SpaceX's almost-weekly Starlink missions.
A NOAA diagram of the ionosphere
Ham radio operators may notice ionospheric holes when shortwave signals fail to skip over the horizon, shooting through holes instead of bouncing back to Earth. Sudden GPS errors may also result from the anomalies. So far as we know, these effects are short-lived. The holes close (i.e., "re-ionization occurs") as soon as the sun comes up in the morning.
No harm done? Probably. But with launch rates continuing to climb, we are entering uncharted territory. Observers are encouraged to photograph nighttime launches and check their images for the telltale red glow. There may be much to learn.
Note: Human eyes are notoriously insensitive to the 6300 Å color of these holes. Cameras have no trouble, though. "Neither my wife nor I could see the red 'rocket aurora' in real time," notes Blanchard. "But it showed up well in the images."
more images: from Paul D. Maley of Scottsdale, Arizona; from Chris Cook of Long Beach, California; from Stephen Sullivan of Malibu, California; from Jeremy Perez north of Flagstaff, Arizona
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STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY (GOLDEN HEART): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider a rainbow dragonfly from the edge of space. On June 3rd, this sterling silver pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a golden Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with a spray of rainbow-colored crystals. The students are selling dragonfly pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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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 Jul 04, 2024, the network reported 12 fireballs.
(12 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 July 5, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2017 MB3 | 2024-Jun-30 | 5 LD | 6.5 | 30 |
| 2024 JJ25 | 2024-Jun-30 | 10.5 LD | 9.4 | 117 |
| 2024 LJ2 | 2024-Jul-01 | 19.8 LD | 10.4 | 82 |
| 2022 BY39 | 2024-Jul-02 | 13.2 LD | 3 | 4 |
| 2024 LH | 2024-Jul-02 | 4.4 LD | 4.3 | 32 |
| 2024 NC | 2024-Jul-02 | 13.6 LD | 5.5 | 36 |
| 2024 NB | 2024-Jul-02 | 4.7 LD | 12.7 | 25 |
| 2024 NE | 2024-Jul-03 | 13.5 LD | 15.6 | 59 |
| 2024 KQ1 | 2024-Jul-04 | 14.9 LD | 6.9 | 57 |
| 2024 MT1 | 2024-Jul-08 | 3.9 LD | 18.1 | 78 |
| 2024 NB1 | 2024-Jul-09 | 14.6 LD | 9.7 | 63 |
| 2024 ME1 | 2024-Jul-10 | 11.3 LD | 8.4 | 45 |
| 2022 YS5 | 2024-Jul-11 | 11 LD | 5.8 | 38 |
| 2024 NG | 2024-Jul-13 | 9 LD | 7 | 18 |
| 2024 BY15 | 2024-Jul-16 | 16.2 LD | 0.7 | 16 |
| 2024 NF | 2024-Jul-17 | 12.6 LD | 20.3 | 72 |
| 2024 MG1 | 2024-Jul-21 | 11.1 LD | 9.3 | 58 |
| 2024 NH | 2024-Jul-23 | 13.2 LD | 5.5 | 30 |
| 2024 LY2 | 2024-Jul-23 | 12 LD | 7.8 | 94 |
| 2011 MW1 | 2024-Jul-25 | 10.1 LD | 8 | 120 |
| 2024 MH1 | 2024-Jul-26 | 4.7 LD | 5.8 | 26 |
| 2011 AM24 | 2024-Jul-26 | 16.8 LD | 6.2 | 281 |
| 523664 | 2024-Jul-28 | 14.9 LD | 23.7 | 680 |
| 2020 PN1 | 2024-Aug-02 | 18 LD | 5.5 | 29 |
| 2023 HB7 | 2024-Aug-05 | 14.6 LD | 6.1 | 32 |
| 2017 TU1 | 2024-Aug-05 | 10.1 LD | 10.1 | 22 |
| 2024 KH3 | 2024-Aug-10 | 14.6 LD | 11.4 | 196 |
| 2021 GY1 | 2024-Aug-16 | 17.7 LD | 6.3 | 59 |
| 2024 JV33 | 2024-Aug-19 | 12 LD | 11.1 | 213 |
| 2022 BF2 | 2024-Aug-19 | 19.7 LD | 16.4 | 91 |
| 2020 RL | 2024-Aug-27 | 12.2 LD | 8.2 | 34 |
| 2021 RA10 | 2024-Aug-28 | 6.8 LD | 4.9 | 29 |
| 2012 SX49 | 2024-Aug-29 | 11.2 LD | 4.3 | 20 |
| 2016 RJ20 | 2024-Aug-30 | 18.3 LD | 14.8 | 68 |
| 2021 JT | 2024-Sep-01 | 16.4 LD | 8.2 | 12 |
| 2021 RB16 | 2024-Sep-02 | 12.3 LD | 8.4 | 15 |
| 2007 RX8 | 2024-Sep-02 | 18.5 LD | 7 | 44 |
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 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-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.
| | 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. |
| | 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 |
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