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 12 Nov 2022
Thermosphere Climate Index today: 15.93x1010W Neutral Max: 49.4x1010 W Hot (10/1957) Min: 2.05x1010 W Cold (02/2009) explanation | more data:gfx, txt Updated 12 Nov 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: +2.8% Elevated 48-hr change: -1.5% Max: +11.7% Very High (12/2009) Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991) explanation |more data Updated 12 Nov 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 Nov 12 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
05 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
25 %
SEVERE
25 %
20 %
Saturday, Nov. 12, 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 tour guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too!
BLUEWALKER 3 SIGHTINGS (UPDATED): Evidence is mounting that AST SpaceMobile's Bluewalker 3 (BW3) satellite has unfurled its its huge antenna. Multiple sightingsnowconfirm that the satellite is suddenly as bright as a 1st or 2nd magnitude star. Astronomers had previously worried that BW3 could become one of the brightest objects in the night sky; it's too soon to rule that out. Morning flybys are currently happening over the USA. Check Heavens Above for local flyby times and let us know what you see.
NEW CHINESE SATELLITE SURPRISES SKY WATCHERS: Last night a strange gaseous plume glided over the middle of the USA, surprising sky watchers. "It looked like some sort of fuel dump or re-entry by a polar-orbiting satellite," says Dan Bush, who recorded the event from Albany, Missouri:
"My meteor camera recorded this video on Nov. 11th at approximately 6:14 p.m. CDT (0:15UT on Nov. 12)," says Bush.
What was it? Dutch radio astronomer and satellite expert Cees Bassa solved the mystery. Hours earlier China launched an environmental satellite from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province. "The launch put the Yunhai-3 satellite and likely the Long March-6A rocket's upper stage in a ~850 km sun synchronous orbit," he explained on SeeSat. "The latest orbital elements match the exact track at the time of Bush's recordings."
When the pair flew over Missouri, the upper stage was probably dumping excess fuel, creating the comet-like display. In the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, amateur astronomer Kevin Palmer saw it, too. He wondered if it might be the newly-brightened Bluewalker 3 satellite. No, it was China.
DOUBLE-V OVER THE MOON: This is rare during the day. It's super rare at night. When the Moon came up over the Netherlands on Nov. 12th, Peter Paul Hattinga Verschure saw a luminous double-V form in the sky:
"Shortly after moonrise this striking spot of light developed 22 degrees above the low Moon in the northeast," says Verschure. "It appeared to be the combination of two V-shaped arcs."
These are ice halos. The lower 'V' is a upper tangent arc created by moonlight shining through pencil-shaped ice crystals. The upper 'V' is a rare Parry arc created by similar kinds of ice crystals, but... To make the Parry arc, the crystals had to be horizontal, not rotate, and have two faces horizontal, too. It sounds improbable, and it is.
Parry arcs are rare even during the day when sunlight improves their visibility. They're almost unheard of at night. "I believe this kind of Parry arc by moonlite has never been seen before in the Netherlands," says Verschure.
WHERE NO CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT HAS GONE BEFORE: You cannot buy a rare Capt. Kirk space ornament on Amazon. But you can get one from the Earth to Sky Store. On Oct 9, 2022, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched Capt. Kirk to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Here he is floating 109,620 feet high:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling Kirk ornaments to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Made by Hallmark in the 1990s, the ornament comes with a greeting card showing the captain of the Enterprise in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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 Nov 12, 2022, the network reported 6 fireballs. (5 sporadics, 1 omicron Eridanid)
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 November 12, 2022 there were 2314 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.
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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