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NO IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) expected to sideswipe Earth's magnetic field on June 12th either missed or its impact was too weak to cause a noticable disturbance. Geomagnetic storms are unlikely on Saturday, June 13th. Aurora alerts: text, voice
SUNSET PLANETS: If you love stargazing, there's a date you should mark on your calendar: June. That's right, the whole month. Throughout the month of June 2015, the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, will be converging in the sunset sky. Last night in Vulcan, Alberta, photographer Alan Dyer caught them lining up with 1st-magnitude star Regulus:
"Venus and Jupiter were visible even through light clouds," says Dyer. "It was a beautiful sight."
The convergence will continue for the rest of the month. Every night you can see the two planets drawing closer together. By the end of June, Venus and Jupiter will be a jaw-dropping 1/3rd of a degree apart. That's less than the width of a full Moon. You'll be able to hide the pair behind the tip of your pinky finger held at arm's length.
Observing tips: When the sun goes down, step outside and look west. You don't have to wait until the sky fades to black. Venus and Jupiter are so bright, you can see then shining through the twilight. In fact, some people say the planets are especially beautiful when they are surrounded by the cobalt hue of the early evening sky. Browse the realtime photo gallery for daily sightings.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an M-class flare today to 30%. The reasons are circled in this June 12th image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Sunspots AR2367 (left) and AR2360 (right) are growing with unstable magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares. At the moment, both active regions are crackling with low-level C-class flares. It may be just a matter of time before a more significant eruption occurs. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: text, voice
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
MICROBES IN THE STRATOSPHERE: On June 8th, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew another batch of halobacteria to the stratosphere onboard a suborbital helium balloon. Two species made the trip: Halorubrum lacusprofundi from Antarctica and NRC-1 from North America. Here is the view from the payload 106,661 feet above Earth's surface:
Tiny white vials on top of the payload (inset) contain the halobacteria--more than 1011 individual microbes. En route to the stratosphere they were exposed to temperatures as low as -63 C and cosmic radiation dose rates more than 100x greater than on the ground below. Amazingly, billions of the microbes survived this harsh treatment as the flight went on more almost three hours. The Antarctic microbes appear to be especially resiliant.
Astrobiologists have often asked themselves, could halobacteria survive on the planet Mars? Ultimately, balloon flights could help answer that question. Microbiologists Shil and Priya DasSarma are analyzing our flown samples at their NASA-supported laboratory at the University of Maryland. They may be able to unravel the high-altitude survival strategies of this amazing terrestrial extremophile.
HEY THANKS! The students wish to thank Spaceweather.com reader Stuart Bayne for sponsoring this flight. Stuart's $500 contribution paid for the helium and other supplies necessary to get the balloon off the ground. To say "thanks," we flew a picture of Stuart's older brother to the edge of space:
"My brother's birthday is next month," he explains. "I plan to use this picture to make an out-of-this-world birthday card."
Readers, if you would like to sponsor a launch, we can send your family to the edge of space, too. Contact Dr. Tony Phillips to book a flight.
Realtime NLC 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 Jun. 13, 2015, the network reported 9 fireballs.
(8 sporadics, 1 Northern June Aquilid)
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 June 13, 2015 there were 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. | 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 |
| the underlying science of space weather |
| Web-based high school science course with free enrollment |