 | | | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation  Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 3 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 6 storm
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.4 nT
Bz: 2.0 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2344 UT Coronal Holes: 11 Sep 18 
Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA  Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in the northern hemisphere has come to an end. Images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show no NLCs around the north pole. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2018 14:55:02 SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Sep 11 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: 2018 Sep 11 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 35 % | 30 % | MINOR | 25 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 10 % | 05 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 10 % | MINOR | 25 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 60 % | 55 % | | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | Lights Over Lapland has a brand-new website full of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Take a look at our aurora activities and book your once-in-a-lifetime trip with us today! | | | SUNSET SKY SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. The crescent Moon is passing by Venus en route to Jupiter. These bright heavenly bodies will be putting on a sunset sky show for the rest of the week. Don't miss it! Sky maps: Sept. 11, 12, 13. AURORA ALIEN AND STORM TROOPER: "Yesterday, we had a truly amazing outburst of Northern Lights here in northern Sweden," says Göran Strand. "I did a 180° panorama of the sky to capture the entire display over Handöl. While editing, I tried some different options to present the photo. Suddenly, when I mirrored the photo, I saw something truly out of this world." 
"At the top, the clouds and Northern Lights formed a face that looks like an alien, and at the bottom a Storm trooper is clearly visible," says Strand. "Can this really just be a coincidence? :-)" The strange green forms were sculpted by a G2-class geomagnetic storm, correctly predicted by NOAA forecasters. It began during the late hours of Sept. 10th when a solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field--the gaseous material flowing from a canyon-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere--and continued for much of Sept. 11th. The storm is subsiding now. However, Arctic sky watchers can expect bright auroras to continue, intermittently, as the disturbance peters out on Sept. 12th. Free: Aurora Alerts. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On Jan 27th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a hand-crafted sterling silver Celtic love knot 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface: 
You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. All sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery 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 Sep. 10, 2018, the network reported 94 fireballs.
(89 sporadics, 4 September epsilon Perseids, 1)  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 September 11, 2018 there were 1923 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | | 2018 RE2 | 2018-Sep-06 | 1 LD | 8.7 | 7 | | 2018 RG3 | 2018-Sep-06 | 9.1 LD | 7.4 | 22 | | 2018 RR | 2018-Sep-06 | 2 LD | 9 | 11 | | 2018 RQ | 2018-Sep-07 | 12.5 LD | 13.3 | 40 | | 2018 RJ3 | 2018-Sep-07 | 0.4 LD | 8.4 | 10 | | 2018 RF3 | 2018-Sep-07 | 2 LD | 9.9 | 15 | | 2018 RF | 2018-Sep-08 | 11.8 LD | 13.3 | 44 | | 2018 RD1 | 2018-Sep-08 | 13.5 LD | 10.1 | 51 | | 2018 RW | 2018-Sep-08 | 0.4 LD | 6.3 | 3 | | 2018 RY3 | 2018-Sep-08 | 4.4 LD | 19.7 | 31 | | 2018 RC | 2018-Sep-09 | 0.6 LD | 5.3 | 37 | | 2018 RD4 | 2018-Sep-09 | 2.3 LD | 6 | 8 | | 2018 RE1 | 2018-Sep-10 | 11.1 LD | 26 | 44 | | 2018 RF2 | 2018-Sep-10 | 4 LD | 10.9 | 10 | | 2018 RA1 | 2018-Sep-10 | 2.4 LD | 10.1 | 18 | | 2018 QU1 | 2018-Sep-11 | 10.9 LD | 12.5 | 100 | | 2018 RB1 | 2018-Sep-11 | 2.5 LD | 8.1 | 10 | | 2018 RE3 | 2018-Sep-13 | 1.8 LD | 10.3 | 13 | | 2018 RC4 | 2018-Sep-14 | 10.5 LD | 8.1 | 26 | | 2018 RQ2 | 2018-Sep-15 | 9.8 LD | 14.4 | 94 | | 2018 RC1 | 2018-Sep-15 | 16.7 LD | 2.2 | 20 | | 2018 RA2 | 2018-Sep-16 | 8 LD | 9.3 | 27 | | 2018 RB4 | 2018-Sep-19 | 17.8 LD | 3.6 | 14 | | 2017 SL16 | 2018-Sep-20 | 8.5 LD | 6.4 | 25 | | 2018 RQ1 | 2018-Sep-24 | 4.1 LD | 3.1 | 54 | | 2018 RX3 | 2018-Sep-26 | 20 LD | 14 | 77 | | 2018 EB | 2018-Oct-07 | 15.5 LD | 15.1 | 155 | | 2014 US7 | 2018-Oct-17 | 3.2 LD | 8.7 | 19 | | 2013 UG1 | 2018-Oct-18 | 10.4 LD | 13.4 | 123 | | 2016 GC221 | 2018-Oct-18 | 8.7 LD | 14.4 | 39 | | 475534 | 2018-Oct-29 | 7.5 LD | 18.1 | 204 | | 2002 VE68 | 2018-Nov-04 | 14.7 LD | 8.6 | 282 | | 2010 VQ | 2018-Nov-07 | 15.6 LD | 3.8 | 10 | 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: 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. | | 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 |  | If you are a Youtuber and want to buy real Youtube views than try out Buyrealsocial.com for the best results possible! | | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. | | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | |  | | |  | ©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |
