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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 621.6 km/sec
density: 1.3 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2334 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1
1725 UT Jan08
24-hr: B2
0923 UT Jan08
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 08 Jan 11
Sunspots 1140 and 1143 are quiet and boring. Solar activity remains low. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 52
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 07 Jan 2011

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2011 total: 0 days (0%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 819 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days

Updated 07 Jan 2011


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 86 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 07 Jan 2011

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.8 nT
Bz: 2.7 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2334 UT
Coronal Holes: 08 Jan 10
Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2011 Jan 08 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: 2011 Jan 08 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
10 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
30 %
25 %
MINOR
15 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
 
Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011
What's up in space
 

Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift.

 
Metallic pictures of the Sun

NACREOUS CLOUD ALERT: Auroras aren't the only colors in the polar sky. Observers around the Arctic Circle are reporting vivid, iridescent nacreous clouds, which form in the stratosphere during the coldest months of northern winter. "Once seen they are never forgotten," says Marketa Stanczykova who photographed these specimens outside Reykjavik, Iceland, on Jan. 4th. Another onlooker in Reykjavik, Albert Jakobsson, describes how "the beautiful colors played in the clouds and kept going for about one and half hour after sunset."

WEEKEND AURORA WATCH: NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of geomagnetic activity during the next 24 hours. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for scenes like this:

Timo Newton-Syms of Ruka, Finland, took the picture on Jan. 7th when a solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field. "The auroras where widespread and visible despite passing clouds and light pollution from the nearby ski slopes," he says. The same stream of solar wind continues to buffet Earth's magnetic field, and is the source of the expected geomagnetic activity this weekend.

more images: from Maxim Letovaltsev of Murmansk, Russia; from Mike Alexander of the Galloway Astronomy Centre, Glasserton, SW Scotland, UK; from Kjetil Skogli of Grøtfjord, Tromsø; from Martin McKenna of Maghera, Co. Derry, N. Ireland; from Bernt Olsen of Tromsø, Norway; from Frank Olsen of Tromsø, Norway;

TRIPLE PUNCH HOLE CLOUDS: "I've lived by the sea for many years, but never seen anything like this," reports Wesley Tyler of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "On Friday, Jan. 7th, there were three punch hole clouds in the same place." He grabbed his camera and recorded the phenomenon:

Considered a mystery for many years, punch hole clouds appear on rare occasions all over the world, sometimes attracting widespread attention, e.g., the famous Moscow UFO cloud of 2009. Recently meteorologists have penetrated the mystery: punch holes form when airplanes fly through thin layers of high altitude clouds. If water droplets in the cloud are supercooled (below freezing but still liquid), they can suddenly turn to snow when shocked by the passage of the plane. This mini-snowstorm occurs over a circular area much wider than the airplane itself.

Not all flights through banks of clouds will produce snow. According to Wired Magazine, only about 7.8 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with clouds at the right elevation for supercooled droplets to form. Because jet aircraft don’t generally cruise at those altitudes, they may only form hole-punch clouds when they take off or land.

The apparition of three rare cloud-holes in one small area suggests a busy airspace around Myrtle Beach. Indeed, the Myrtle Beach International Airport is just miles from where the photo was taken. Or maybe punch hole clouds are still a bit of a mystery after all....


Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery


December 2010 Aurora Gallery
[2010 Recap: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec]

 

  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 January 8, 2011 there were 1167 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2011 AD3
Dec 29
9.4 LD
26.6
21 m
2010 YD
Jan 2
6.7 LD
26.6
21 m
2011 AF3
Jan 6
4.8 LD
25.1
41 m
2008 EA32
Jan 7
76.5 LD
16.5
2.1 km
2011 AN4
Jan 9
5.1 LD
26.4
23 m
2011 AN1
Jan 10
5.5 LD
27.8
12 m
2009 BS5
Jan 11
3.4 LD
27.4
14 m
2003 YG118
Feb 20
67.7 LD
17
1.8 km
2000 PN9
Mar 10
45.5 LD
16.1
2.6 km
2002 DB4
Apr 15
62.5 LD
16.4
2.2 km
2008 UC202
Apr 27
8.9 LD
28.2
10 m
2009 UK20
May 2
8.6 LD
26.4
23 m
2008 FU6
May 5
75.5 LD
17.9
1.2 km
2003 YT1
May 5
65.3 LD
16.1
2.5 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.
  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
Science Central
   
  more links...
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