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NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS AROUND THE SOUTH POLE: NASA's AIM spacecraft is monitoring the atmosphere above Antarctica. High-altitude weather patterns there are beginning to favor the formation of noctilucent clouds. The electric-blue clouds have not yet appeared, but they could be just days away. Monitor the latest satellite images right here on Spaceweather.com. Aurora Alerts: SMS Text.

PULSATING AURORAS: Living inside the Arctic Circle for a complete 11-year solar cycle, Chad Blakely of Abisko, Sweden, has seen every kind of aurora the sun has to offer. Just before daybreak, on Monday, Nov. 5th, he spotted his favorite: The pulsating aurora. "It wasn't very bright--but it was absolutely amazing," says Blakley. This still image captures one of the pulses:

"The best way to describe a pulsating aurora is to imagine the sky as a large checker board," says Blakley. "As the pulsating begins, the black squares on the board would illuminate as a green aurora. Then, in an instant, all the black squares lose their illumination and the red squares on the imaginary checkerboard immediately glow green. I remember seeing lots of these pulsating auroras at the bottom of the last Solar Minimum, and I was always fascinated by the phenomenon," he says.

Pulsating auroras are nothing new. Arctic people have been watching them for hundreds of years. But researchers have only recently figured out what causes them. In the Feb. 14, 2018, issue of Nature, a team led by S. Kasahara of the University of Tokyo conclusively linked pulsating auroras to "chorus waves" in Earth's magnetic field. Chorus waves are electromagnetic oscillations that sound heavenly when played through the loudspeaker of a low frequency radio. Using ground-based cameras and NASA spacecraft, Kasahara's team showed that chorus waves can modulate electrons raining down from space onto Earth's upper atmosphere, causing auroras to blink, pulse and strobe. 

"It is one of nature’s greatest light shows," says Blakley, and he should know.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newslette

THE STRATOSPHERIC CLOUD PENDANT: The most beautiful clouds on Earth are located in the stratosphere: Polar Stratospheric Clouds. Their extraordinary colors inspired this authentic Swarovski pendant--and it has been to the stratosphere! On Nov. 2, 2019, it hitched a ride 109,580 feet high on board an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon:

You can have it for $159.95. The students are selling Stratospheric Cloud Pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each heart-shaped pendant comes with a card showing it floating through the stratosphere like a real cloud, and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education

TAURID FIREBALLS: This week, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Comet Encke, source of the annual Taurid meteor shower. Gravel-sized meteoroids are hitting Earth's upper atmosphere at 65,000 mph, creating a slow drizzle of fireballs emerging from the constellation Taurus. Yuichi Takasaka saw one on Nov. 5th over Silver Star Mountain in Vernon, British Columbia:

"We saw not only meteors, but also smokey wisps of debris that swirled in the atmosphere for as much as 10 minutes," says Takasaka.

Taurids are also called "the Halloween fireballs" because they are most often noticed by crowds outdoors after dark on Halloween. In fact, they may be seen on any night from mid-October to mid-November. The best time to look is during hours around midnight when Taurus is high in the sky. Typical meteor rates are no more than a few per hour, but sometimes just one fireball is enough...

rRealtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter

On Nov. 06, 2019, the network reported 44 fireballs.
(41 sporadics, 3 northern Taurids)

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]

Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid	Date(UT)	Miss Distance	Velocity (km/s)	Diameter (m)
2019 VH2	2019-Nov-01	2.8 LD	10.9	6
2019 VC	2019-Nov-01	2.4 LD	4.1	6
2019 UG12	2019-Nov-01	4 LD	11.9	20
2019 UP7	2019-Nov-01	15.5 LD	9.4	25
2019 UM4	2019-Nov-01	11.1 LD	9.2	20
2019 UD13	2019-Nov-01	15.3 LD	23.2	72
2019 UG11	2019-Nov-01	0.5 LD	10.1	17
2019 UR12	2019-Nov-02	9.8 LD	6.7	45
2019 VV	2019-Nov-02	6.3 LD	8.7	31
2019 VW	2019-Nov-02	5.6 LD	4	16
2019 VA	2019-Nov-02	0.3 LD	8.6	8
2019 UU3	2019-Nov-02	13.3 LD	13.9	30
2015 JD1	2019-Nov-03	12.9 LD	11.9	269
2019 VM2	2019-Nov-03	3.6 LD	15.1	14
2019 UL8	2019-Nov-03	2.8 LD	12.8	19
2019 UH3	2019-Nov-03	10.4 LD	8.5	25
2019 VD	2019-Nov-04	0.5 LD	12	12
2019 VR	2019-Nov-04	0.4 LD	9.6	9
2019 UH5	2019-Nov-05	13.3 LD	3.5	12
2019 VU	2019-Nov-05	2.7 LD	15.3	12
2019 UE13	2019-Nov-06	8.3 LD	8.9	26
2019 UM13	2019-Nov-06	11.5 LD	5.9	17
2019 VR1	2019-Nov-06	2.9 LD	9.3	14
2019 UL4	2019-Nov-07	16.7 LD	9	30
2019 UO7	2019-Nov-07	3.8 LD	4.1	10
2019 VM1	2019-Nov-08	11.3 LD	6.1	19
2019 UM12	2019-Nov-08	1.3 LD	13.6	43
2019 UR4	2019-Nov-08	7.3 LD	4.5	15
2019 VE2	2019-Nov-09	7.1 LD	5	12
2019 UB7	2019-Nov-10	13.7 LD	17.5	56
2019 VN	2019-Nov-11	3.1 LD	13.6	32
2019 VW1	2019-Nov-12	15.3 LD	8.5	26
2019 VN2	2019-Nov-12	16 LD	3.8	14
2010 JG	2019-Nov-12	19.6 LD	14.9	235
2019 UB14	2019-Nov-12	4.9 LD	15.4	22
2019 UH1	2019-Nov-13	9.5 LD	9.1	51
2019 UN12	2019-Nov-13	3.8 LD	28.8	145
2019 VX	2019-Nov-13	4.1 LD	10.8	31
2019 UE8	2019-Nov-15	7.7 LD	6.6	26
2019 UR2	2019-Nov-18	18 LD	13.4	126
2019 UK6	2019-Nov-20	15.4 LD	7.7	63
481394	2019-Nov-21	11.3 LD	7.9	372
2019 VK	2019-Nov-21	5.8 LD	7.6	42
2008 EA9	2019-Nov-23	10.5 LD	2.2	10
2019 VF1	2019-Nov-25	13.4 LD	17.3	89
2017 AP4	2019-Dec-03	8.5 LD	7.5	15
2018 XW2	2019-Dec-07	17.4 LD	13	28
216258	2019-Dec-20	15.3 LD	11.8	324
2013 XY20	2019-Dec-21	18.4 LD	1.9	28
2017 XQ60	2019-Dec-22	11 LD	15.6	47
310442	2019-Dec-26	19 LD	12.3	372
2019 AE3	2020-Jan-02	4.9 LD	8.2	13

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

SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.

To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:

The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

In this plot, dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x.

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.

Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.

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

NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts

fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.

Aurora 30 min forecast

from the NOAA Space Environment Center

Heliophysics

the underlying science of space weather

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