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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 504.7 km/sec
density: 5.1 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2349 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B4
1710 UT Dec05
24-hr: C2
1521 UT Dec05
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 05 Dec 15
Sunspots AR2462 and AR2463 are crackling with minor C-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 25
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 05 Dec 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 05 Dec 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 98 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 05 Dec 2015

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 4 unsettled
24-hr max: Kp= 4
unsettled
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 8.7 nT
Bz: 5.4 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2349 UT
Coronal Holes: 05 Dec 15

Solar wind flowing from this broad coronal hole could reach Earth as early as Dec. 7th. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds is about to begin. Monitor the daily daisies, below, from NASA's AIM spacecraft for the first wisps of electric blue above Antarctica.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 12-05-2015 16:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 Dec 05 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
05 %
05 %
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 Dec 05 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
35 %
35 %
MINOR
20 %
20 %
SEVERE
05 %
05 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
30 %
30 %
SEVERE
55 %
55 %
 
Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015
What's up in space
 

Marianne's Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to join them in their quest to find and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Experience the winter wonderland in the Tromsø Area.

 
Chase the Light Tours

SIGMA HYDRID METEORS: On the nights of Dec. 3rd and 4th, NASA's network of all-sky meteor cameras recorded 16 fireballs from the sigma Hydrid meteoroid stream. Earth passes through the sigma Hydrid stream every year in early- to mid- December; the source of the debris is unknown. Typically, the shower produces no more than 1 or 2 faint meteors per hour. The detection of 16 bright fireballs in only a couple of nights suggests that sigma Hydrid activity could be higher than usual. Listen for sigma Hydrid echoes in the audio feed from our live meteor radar.

DAWN COMET HAS TWO TAILS: Now that the morning Moon is waning in brightness, amateur astronomers are once again getting a good view of Comet Catalina. Images reveal not one, but two tails. Akihiro Yamazaki sends this picture from Yamanashi, Japan, taken Dec. 4th:

"This is a 36 x 30 second exposure through my 6-inch Astro-Physics telescope," says Yamazaki. "I used a SONY-A7S digital camera set at ISO 2500."

Why does Comet Catalina have two tails? Almost all comets do. The sun-warmed nucleus of a comet spews a mixture of dust and gas into space. Quickly, the mixture separates into two distinct tails: The gaseous "ion tail" is pushed straight away from the sun by solar wind. The weightier dust tail resists solar wind pressure and aligns itself more or less with the comet's orbit. In Yamazaki's picture of Comet Catalina, the ion tail points up; the dust tail points down.

This is Comet Catalina's first visit to the inner solar system--and its last. The comet's close encounter with the sun in mid-November has placed it on a slingshot trajectory toward interstellar space. Although the comet is leaving the solar system, it will become easier to see in the weeks ahead as it approaches Earth. At the moment the comet shines like a 7th magnitude star--invisible to the naked eye. It could brighten by one or two magnitude by mid-January. Sky maps and observing tips may be found in this article from Sky and Telescope.

A date of special interest is Dec. 7th when the comet pairs up with the planet Venus and the waning crescent Moon in the early morning sky. Catalina will be about 4o degrees away from the Venus-Moon combo. Stay tuned for more information about that, and meanwhile browse the realtime comet gallery for sightings. Backyard astronomy alerts: text or voice

Realtime Comet Photo Gallery

SPACECRAFT BUZZES EARTH, PROCEEDS TO ASTEROID: Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft swung past Earth on Dec 3rd at 7:08 p.m. JST, passing over the Pacific Ocean around the Hawaiian islands at an altitude of about 3,090 km. JAXA (the Japanese space agency) has just released these images of our planet taken by the speeding probe:

More images are available here with captions in Japanese.

The flyby was a slingshot maneuver designed to propel Hayabusa 2 toward asteroid Ryugu, the target of an ambitious sample return mission in 2018-2020. JAXA says the spacecraft is in good health following its close encounter with Earth. [press release]

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery


Realtime Meteor 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 Dec. 5, 2015, the network reported 41 fireballs.
(32 sporadics, 8 sigma Hydrids, 1 Geminid)

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 December 5, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2007 BG29
Dec 1
54.1 LD
1.1 km
2015 WZ12
Dec 1
8.8 LD
23 m
2015 XP
Dec 5
1.4 LD
32 m
2015 WA13
Dec 6
7.5 LD
25 m
2015 WF13
Dec 7
10.8 LD
80 m
2015 VZ145
Dec 8
9.2 LD
80 m
2015 XC
Dec 8
3.3 LD
40 m
1998 WT24
Dec 11
10.9 LD
1.1 km
2015 XE1
Dec 19
13.2 LD
27 m
2011 YD29
Dec 24
9.7 LD
24 m
2003 SD220
Dec 24
28.4 LD
1.8 km
2008 CM
Dec 29
22.8 LD
1.5 km
2004 MQ1
Jan 2
55.4 LD
1.1 km
1999 JV6
Jan 6
12.6 LD
410 m
1685 Toro
Jan 22
60.9 LD
1.7 km
2001 XR1
Jan 23
74.4 LD
1.5 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.
  Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere
Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N)
Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month.
Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr)
Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr)
Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr)
Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr)
Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr)
Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr)
Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr)
These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more.

Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. Here is the data from our latest flight, Oct. 22nd:

Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.

Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours.

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.

  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
Synergy Spray Foam Insulation of Houston TX
  Protection from the Sun!
Kotton Grammer, Search Engine Marketing
  a sponsor of SpaceWeather.com
Columbia Northern High School
  Web-based high school science course with free enrollment
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
  more links...
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