Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days 2022 total: 1 day (<1%) 2021 total: 64 days (18%) 2020 total: 208 days (57%) 2019 total: 281 days (77%) 2018 total: 221 days (61%) 2017 total: 104 days (28%) 2016 total: 32 days (9%) 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%) 2008 total: 268 days (73%) 2007 total: 152 days (42%) 2006 total: 70 days (19%) Updated 11 Aug 2022
Thermosphere Climate Index today: 13.53x1010W Neutral Max: 49.4x1010 W Hot (10/1957) Min: 2.05x1010 W Cold (02/2009) explanation | more data:gfx, txt Updated 11 Aug 2022
Cosmic RaysSolar Cycle 25 is beginning, and this is reflected in the number of cosmic rays entering Earth's atmosphere. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth are slowly declining--a result of the yin-yang relationship between the solar cycle and cosmic rays. Oulu Neutron Counts Percentages of the Space Age average: today: +0.5% Elevated 48-hr change: -1.4% Max: +11.7% Very High (12/2009) Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991) explanation |more data Updated 11 Aug 2022 @ 1700 UT
Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2022 Aug 11 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
40 %
10 %
MINOR
15 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
15 %
MINOR
30 %
25 %
SEVERE
55 %
20 %
Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022
What's up in space
Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora your guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too!
PERSEID METEORS VS THE FULL MOON: Earth is approaching a dense stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Meteor rates should rise quickly during the next 24 hours with a peak expected on Aug. 12-13. Full moonlight will interfere with the display, overwhelming many faint meteors. Fortunately, there will be plenty of Perseidfireballs. Enjoy the show: observing tips.
STARLINK AND THE PLEIADES: SpaceX launched another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, August 9th. The next night, Kevin Fetter of Brockville, Ontario, watched them fly past the Pleiades:
Fetter caught at least 51 of the satellites, some sparkling beautifully in high altitude sunlight. "They passed close enough to the star cluster to make a really nice view," he says.
The August 9th launch was the SpaceX's 21st Starlink mission of the year, bringing the total number of Starlinks in orbit to 3009. This is both an impressive achievement and a potentially troubling development for Earth's orbital ecosystem. The next Starlink launch is scheduled for August 12th--tomorrow!--from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
'EARTHQUAKE BALLOONS' IN THE STRATOSPHERE: If you want to detect an earthquake on Venus--good luck. The planet's surface is hot enough to melt lead, and the atmospheric pressure is crushing. No ground-based seismometer could possibly survive.
What's an extraterrestrial seismologist to do? Launch a balloon.
Above: Researchers prepare to launch a Strateole-2 balloon with sensors capable of detecting earthquakes from thousands of kilometers away.
A new paper just published in the Geophysical Research Letters reports the detection of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake by a fleet of balloons floating through the stratosphere above Indonesia's Flores Sea. Onboard infrasound sensors registered acoustic waves rippling upward from the sea surface below, proving that, here on Earth, balloons can be used as seismometers.
"The same technique should work in the atmosphere of Venus," says Raphael Garcia, the study's lead author and a planetary scientist at the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronatique et de l’Espace of the University of Toulouse. "Balloon-based sensors could float high above Venus's deadly surface, collecting data at a safe distance."
In the fall of 2021, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) launched a fleet of 16 balloons from Mahé Island in the Seychelles archipelago. Unlike ordinary weather balloons, which explode in a matter of hours, these were "superpressure balloons," which can remain aloft for months. Stratospheric winds carried them over the Flores Sea.
Above: Position of the Flores Sea quake (blue square) with ground seismometers (purple stars) and Strateole-2 balloons (red circles)
Four balloons picked up the undersea quake on Dec. 14, 2021. Combining their signals, researchers pinpointed the epicenter within 300 km, the magnitude of the quake within 0.8 units, and its onset within 50 seconds. Furthermore, waveforms recorded by the infrasound sensors were detailed enough to sense structures in the Earth 100 km deep.
Garcia would like to do the same thing on Venus. "We know nothing of its interior," he says. "We don't know how it's made inside, and seismology is one of the best tools to figure that out."
Seismic balloons could come in handy on Earth, too. "Balloons could be used to cover ocean regions where conventional seismometers are not yet deployed," notes Garcia. "Another advantage: Balloons may be rapidly deployed just after a big quake for monitoring aftershocks."
Above: Acoustic waves recorded by four balloons during the Flores Sea earthquake.
The test flights have already unearthed a curiosity in South America. On Nov. 28, 2021, just one of the balloons detected a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in northern Peru. The infrasound frequency, 0.23 Hz, was higher than expected; for comparison, the Flores Sea quake registered a more typical 0.085–0.125 Hz. Garcia's team believes the high pitch may have been caused by a "ringing" of sediments in the Amazonian basin.
Sensing earthquakes from the stratosphere is relatively new. Researchers at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did it for the first time in July 2019. Garcia's study marks the first time an earthquake was detected by more than one balloon. It won't be the last.
For more information, read the original research here.
"SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH": This is a great gift for fans of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus have launched a pod of laser-etched dolphins to the stratosphere. Riding onboard a cosmic ray research balloon, they traveled 34.7 km (113,845 feet) above Earth's surface:
You can have them for $119.95. The students are selling this and other edge of space gifts to support their cosmic ray monitoring program.The crystal sphere comes with a unique gift card showing the dolphins in flight and telling the story of their journey to the edge of space.
Also included is a multi-colored LED illuminated stand. This creates a colorful visual effect and allows the orb to be used as a far-out night light.
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 Aug 11, 2022, the network reported 45 fireballs. (35 sporadics, 9 Perseids, 1 northern delta Aquariid)
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 August 11, 2022 there were 2291 potentially hazardous asteroids.
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
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:
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.
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