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ONE MONTH UNTIL THE SOLAR ECLIPSE: Mark your calendar. On April 8, 2024, the Moon will pass directly in front of the sun for a total solar eclipse. More than 31 million people live inside the path of totality, which cuts across 13 US states. Millions more will travel to see the sun's ghostly corona--a life-changing sight for many who witness it. Will you be one of them? Details here.
THESE RED LIGHTS ARE NOT AURORAS: Last Sunday, March 3rd, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field. The surprisingly strong impact sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm with bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. Upon closer inspection, however, not all of those lights were auroras. Some were "SAR arcs":
![](images2024/08mar24/sar_strip2.jpg)
During the storm, Märt Varatu photographed this red 'bow over Kiia küla, Estonia. "It was a strong SAR arc," he says.
SARs were discovered in 1956 at the beginning of the Space Age. Researchers didn’t know what they were and unwittingly gave them a misleading name: "Stable Auroral Red arcs" or SARs. In fact, they are not auroras.
Auroras appear when charged particles rain down from space, hitting the atmosphere and causing it to glow like the picture tube of an old color TV. SARs form differently. They are a sign of heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere from Earth’s ring current system, a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet. During the geomagnetic storm of March 3rd, this ring current sprang a significant leak.
The same red arcs were widely observed from Latvia to eastern Russia. Vladimir Nerush photographed this fragment just east of Moscow:
![](images2024/08mar24/sar2_strip.jpg)
"It emerged from the trees and passed right by the Pleiades," says Nerush. "The red color was so pure."
Indeed, SAR arcs are among the reddest things in the sky, with a monochromatic glow at 6300 Å that comes from atomic oxygen in the upper atmosphere. The human eye is relatively insensitive to light at this wavelength; we have a hard time seeing SAR arcs. Cameras catch them easily, though. Pro tip for photographers: Use a 6300 Å filter.
more images: from Juris Seņņikovs of Dobele, Latvia; from Ilgonis Vilks of Jurmala, Latvia
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18K GOLD "LOVE YOU TO THE MOON" LOCKET: This is a very special locket. It's heart-shaped, plated with 18K gold, and we will fly it again during this year's total eclipse of the sun. Keep reading...
On Jan. 26, 2024, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this locket to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight, it floated 111,535 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
![](images2024/14feb24/locket3_strip2.jpg)
Buy it now for $149.95, and we'll fly it again--FOR FREE--during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The students will be launching multiple balloons from the path of totality in Texas. Your pendant will go along for the ride, touching the shadow of the Moon at the edge of space. (Simply type "FLY IT AGAIN" in the comments box at checkout.)
The locket, which opens to hold a personal photo or other small item, comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: Don't be surprised if there's an X-flare today. Sunspot AR3599 has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for the most powerful explosions. And as this back-and-forth animation shows, it may be unstable:
![](images2024/07mar24/shapeshifter_anim_strip.gif)
Over the past 24 hours, the sunspot has reshaped itself, rearranging its internal dark cores. Magnetic fields of opposite polarity are being pulled apart and pressed together, creating conditons for explosive magnetic reconnection. If AR3599 does explode, the resulting solar flare will be geoeffective as the sunspot is directly facing Earth. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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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 Mar 7, 2024, the network reported 3 fireballs.
(3 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 March 8, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
![](site_images/spacer.gif) |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2024 EH2 | 2024-Mar-03 | 4.6 LD | 12.2 | 18 |
2024 ED | 2024-Mar-03 | 9.3 LD | 17.9 | 33 |
2019 DA1 | 2024-Mar-03 | 14.6 LD | 13.4 | 23 |
2024 EF | 2024-Mar-04 | 0.2 LD | 8.6 | 5 |
2024 CW6 | 2024-Mar-04 | 10 LD | 2.5 | 10 |
2024 EM2 | 2024-Mar-04 | 3.8 LD | 11.4 | 15 |
2024 CK8 | 2024-Mar-04 | 6.9 LD | 4.8 | 31 |
2024 EA | 2024-Mar-04 | 13.8 LD | 12.6 | 125 |
2024 EN2 | 2024-Mar-04 | 2 LD | 17.9 | 17 |
2024 EZ | 2024-Mar-04 | 8.1 LD | 8.6 | 50 |
2024 EH | 2024-Mar-07 | 1.3 LD | 9.5 | 13 |
2024 EJ2 | 2024-Mar-08 | 1.5 LD | 14.8 | 18 |
2024 ET1 | 2024-Mar-08 | 2.5 LD | 12 | 7 |
2024 DW1 | 2024-Mar-08 | 10.5 LD | 19.9 | 61 |
2024 EY1 | 2024-Mar-08 | 6 LD | 7.7 | 8 |
2024 EZ1 | 2024-Mar-08 | 6.8 LD | 6.3 | 13 |
2024 EO | 2024-Mar-09 | 3.6 LD | 19.2 | 21 |
2024 EG | 2024-Mar-09 | 8.4 LD | 19.2 | 44 |
2024 EQ1 | 2024-Mar-09 | 6.6 LD | 17.1 | 34 |
2024 EA2 | 2024-Mar-10 | 5.6 LD | 11 | 11 |
2024 EE2 | 2024-Mar-10 | 13.9 LD | 18.7 | 37 |
2024 DA1 | 2024-Mar-11 | 9.4 LD | 9.9 | 49 |
2024 EG2 | 2024-Mar-12 | 1.7 LD | 19.6 | 25 |
2015 FM34 | 2024-Mar-12 | 19.4 LD | 11.1 | 113 |
2024 EL1 | 2024-Mar-13 | 8.5 LD | 7.9 | 20 |
2020 FU | 2024-Mar-15 | 14.9 LD | 15.5 | 19 |
2024 CJ8 | 2024-Mar-16 | 17.2 LD | 12.1 | 81 |
2024 EQ | 2024-Mar-16 | 6.9 LD | 10.7 | 24 |
2024 EK | 2024-Mar-16 | 7 LD | 7.6 | 17 |
2024 EN | 2024-Mar-18 | 3.9 LD | 12 | 43 |
2020 FD | 2024-Mar-18 | 4.5 LD | 15.1 | 10 |
2024 BD7 | 2024-Mar-19 | 18.8 LD | 10.1 | 140 |
2019 CJ | 2024-Mar-24 | 12.4 LD | 4.4 | 28 |
2021 CF6 | 2024-Mar-25 | 14.6 LD | 8.3 | 62 |
2023 RO49 | 2024-Mar-29 | 14.1 LD | 4.3 | 45 |
2015 MB54 | 2024-Mar-30 | 11.7 LD | 3.8 | 54 |
2024 DQ | 2024-Mar-30 | 6.4 LD | 2.9 | 41 |
2018 CC14 | 2024-Apr-03 | 19.6 LD | 8.9 | 115 |
2023 GC2 | 2024-Apr-04 | 8.7 LD | 5.7 | 12 |
2005 FG | 2024-Apr-08 | 18.4 LD | 5.5 | 57 |
2020 BP13 | 2024-Apr-09 | 15.2 LD | 6.8 | 209 |
2021 RJ19 | 2024-Apr-12 | 19.6 LD | 11.4 | 25 |
2021 GQ5 | 2024-Apr-13 | 8.8 LD | 7.5 | 7 |
2023 FN13 | 2024-Apr-14 | 3.3 LD | 4.9 | 13 |
2022 UO1 | 2024-Apr-14 | 16.7 LD | 14 | 33 |
517681 | 2024-Apr-15 | 18.4 LD | 14.2 | 589 |
439437 | 2024-Apr-15 | 8.5 LD | 16.5 | 609 |
2023 HU3 | 2024-Apr-18 | 15.9 LD | 19.1 | 35 |
2021 JW2 | 2024-Apr-19 | 1.6 LD | 5.1 | 11 |
2017 SA20 | 2024-Apr-19 | 3.8 LD | 6.2 | 8 |
2021 VH2 | 2024-Apr-25 | 9.3 LD | 2.7 | 6 |
2021 GD3 | 2024-Apr-30 | 11.4 LD | 3.5 | 14 |
2022 TN1 | 2024-Apr-30 | 18.6 LD | 17.7 | 295 |
2022 AA5 | 2024-May-02 | 12 LD | 8.9 | 67 |
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:
![](images2022/25jul22/balloondata4_strip.jpg)
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 |
| 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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