When the pandemic is over, Marianne Bergli would like to show you something: The Northern Lights. Marianne's team at Heaven on Earth Aurora Tours is eager to see you when flights to Norway resume--perfect for small groups/families. | | |
VENUS AT MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS: If you can wake up before sunrise only once this month, make it July 10th. On Friday morning, Venus will be at its maximum brightness, magnitude -4.7. That's 30 times berighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Bonus: Venus will be less than 2 degrees from red giant star Aldebaran. Bonus #2: Comet NEOWISE is nearby, too. Sky maps: July 9, 10, 11.
A REALLY GOOD COMET: Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is not yet a Great Comet. It is, however, Really Good. Rising just before the sun, NEOWISE is visible to the naked eye and has a tail at least 5 degrees long. Jeremy Perez sends this picture from Merriam Crater east of Flagstaff, Arizona:
"On any given morning, this old cinder cone is perfect," says Perez. "Catching it sharing the horizon with this graceful comet gets kind of goosebumpy for me."
Comet NEOWISE is currently shining about as brightly as a 2nd magnitude star. Its core and part of its tail are easy naked-eye objects from dark, clear sites. Framed by the colors of sunrise, it is arguably the most beautiful comet in many years. But...
The last truly Great Comet was Hale-Bopp in 1997. Shining 10 times brighter than Comet NEOWISE does now, Hale-Bopp was visible to the unaided eye for an astonishing 18 months, and its tail stretched as much as 45 degrees across the sky. Comet NEOWISE doesn't come close to those thresholds of splendor.
Sometimes, though, a Really Good Comet is enough. Wake up before sunrise and take a look. Sky maps: July 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
Realtime Comet NEOWISE Photo Gallery
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NOCTILUCENT COMET: Is it possible to take a once-in-a-lifetime picture three days in a row? On July 6th, Europeans woke up to a spectacular display of noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Many onlookers photographed the rare clouds surrounding Comet NEOWISE--a "once in a lifetime photo-op," we called it. Three days later, it's still happening:
Laura Kranich took this picture on July 8th from Bühl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. "Together with the ~1200 year-old castle on the mountain it was just a breathtaking spectacle," she says. "About 1° of the comet's tail could be seen with the naked eye, despite being embedded in the brightly-glowing noctilucent clouds."
NLCs are Earth’s highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space 83 km above the ground. The clouds form during summer when wisps of water vapor rise up to the mesosphere, allowing water to crystallize around specks of meteor smoke. This summer, record cold temperatures in the mesosphere are boosting their production.
The surge in noctilucent clouds is coinciding with the appearance of a decade-class comet to produce some rare shots, indeed. Tomorrow morning might be "once-in-a-lifetime," too. Stay tuned.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
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THE INFINITY BLACK PEARL: It came from Tahiti--and now it's been to the edge of space. On April 15, 2020, this genuine Black Tahitian South Sea Cultured Pearl flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon, soaring 107,611 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $249.95. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling these exotic space pearls to fund their cosmic ray monitoring program.
Measuring 9 mm in diameter, the pearl is mounted on a 925 sterling silver infinity twist and suspended on a matching 17 inch long sterling silver chain. Each pearl comes with a greeting card showing the pendant 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
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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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 July 8, 2020, the network reported 11 fireballs.
(10 sporadics, 1 phi Piscid)
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 8, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.
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Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2020 MT2 | 2020-Jul-03 | 16.1 LD | 8.4 | 59 |
| 2020 MO | 2020-Jul-03 | 9.3 LD | 9.6 | 41 |
| 2007 UN12 | 2020-Jul-04 | 16.7 LD | 2.9 | 6 |
| 2020 LS | 2020-Jul-04 | 19.4 LD | 11.5 | 75 |
| 2020 NB | 2020-Jul-05 | 0.5 LD | 8.3 | 20 |
| 2020 MU1 | 2020-Jul-11 | 18.8 LD | 2.7 | 38 |
| 2020 ML | 2020-Jul-12 | 11.4 LD | 4.4 | 24 |
| 2020 KJ7 | 2020-Jul-13 | 11.8 LD | 3.4 | 31 |
| 2009 OS5 | 2020-Jul-13 | 17.6 LD | 2.6 | 45 |
| 2020 MQ2 | 2020-Jul-14 | 17.1 LD | 8.3 | 44 |
| 2020 MX | 2020-Jul-17 | 15 LD | 5.3 | 51 |
| 2016 DY30 | 2020-Jul-19 | 9 LD | 15.1 | 3 |
| 2020 ME3 | 2020-Jul-19 | 14.8 LD | 4.6 | 24 |
| 2002 BF25 | 2020-Jul-21 | 9.4 LD | 6.8 | 129 |
| 2020 ND | 2020-Jul-24 | 14.6 LD | 13.6 | 165 |
| 2020 MX3 | 2020-Jul-29 | 9.5 LD | 8.6 | 70 |
| 2018 PY7 | 2020-Jul-31 | 8.9 LD | 9.5 | 16 |
| 2007 RF1 | 2020-Jul-31 | 10.7 LD | 5 | 21 |
| 2018 BD | 2020-Aug-03 | 7.6 LD | 9.4 | 3 |
| 2009 PQ1 | 2020-Aug-05 | 10.8 LD | 13.5 | 112 |
| 2020 FA1 | 2020-Aug-23 | 18.4 LD | 1.9 | 20 |
| 2016 AH164 | 2020-Aug-26 | 15.7 LD | 5.6 | 4 |
| 2011 ES4 | 2020-Sep-01 | 0.3 LD | 8.2 | 30 |
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 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 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.
| | 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. |
| | 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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