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. | | |
SOLAR SECTOR BOUNDARY CROSSING: Earth is about to cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet--a vast wavy structure in interplanetary space separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. The crossing, called a "solar sector boundary crossing," is expected on June 16th and could trigger minor geomagnetic activity around Earth's poles. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
GIANT JELLYFISH SPRITES OVER EUROPE: Sprite season is underway in Europe. On June 13th, Czech photographer Daniel Ščerba-Elza recorded these giant jellyfish over a mesoscale convective thunderstorm:
"My camera was set up in the Jeseniky mountains," says Ščerba-Elza. "The sprites were more than 200 km away, across over border with Slovakia." Considering the distances involved, the jellyfish must have been nearly 50 km tall, measured from heads to tentacle-tips.
"The storm was very active," continues Ščerba-Elza. "During my observing session, I observed more than 30 clusters like this."
This kind of hyperactivity may be boosted by Solar Minimum, happening now. During this low phase of the solar cycle. cosmic rays from deep space flood into the inner solar system, allowed in by the sun's weakening magnetic field. Some models hold that cosmic rays help sprites get started by creating conductive paths in the atmosphere. That would make the summer of 2020 a good time to look for jellyfish in the sky.
Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery
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NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS IN MOTION: Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) aren't like any other clouds on Earth. Indeed, they're barely on Earth at all. The clouds float 83 km above the planet's surface, seeded by meteoroids, glowing electric-blue ... oh, and they move strangely, too. Friedrich Deters photographed the clouds in motion from Spring Lake Park, Minnesota, on June 8th:
Even a short animation like this one shows the almost hypnotic motions of the cloud's finely-structured ripples. No other kind of cloud moves like an NLC, which twists and turns in the unique winds at the edge of space.
"Noctilucent clouds have spread well south of Canada," says Deters. "People just north of the Iowa border spotted them on June 8th as well. It felt a lot like last summer."
Indeed, last summer was remarkable. In 2019, NLCs spread as far south as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, setting records for low-latitude sightings. This summer could be just as good. Record-cold temperatures in the mesosphere are boosting NLC production, and they could be coming soon to a sky near you.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
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APOLLO 11 PROOF SILVER DOLLAR (COLLECTOR'S ITEM): Are you looking for a far-out Father's Day gift? Consider this: On July 20, 2019 (the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing), the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this rare proof silver dollar to the stratosphere:
The US Mint created the coins to celebrate the first Moon landing--but you can no longer buy them from the Mint. You can, however, get one from Earth to Sky Calculus. The students are selling the collector's item for $229.95 to support their cosmic ray ballooning program.
The silver dollar is curved and reproduces the helmet of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Reflected in Buzz's visor are Neil Armstrong, the United States flag, and the lunar lander. The opposite side of the coin shows Neil's iconic footprint on the Moon. Included is a greeting card showing the coin in flight and a certificate of authenticity.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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Realtime Aurora 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 June 14, 2020, the network reported 7 fireballs.
(6 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 14, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2020 KY | 2020-Jun-10 | 17.3 LD | 2.4 | 20 |
2020 LF | 2020-Jun-10 | 4.9 LD | 8.9 | 30 |
2020 JQ2 | 2020-Jun-11 | 15.2 LD | 4.5 | 25 |
2020 LK | 2020-Jun-11 | 11 LD | 17.3 | 73 |
2020 JS1 | 2020-Jun-11 | 9.9 LD | 5 | 19 |
2020 JU1 | 2020-Jun-13 | 19 LD | 6.6 | 49 |
2020 LC | 2020-Jun-13 | 12.4 LD | 7.7 | 49 |
2020 KB3 | 2020-Jun-13 | 3.2 LD | 7.5 | 37 |
2020 LL | 2020-Jun-14 | 5.6 LD | 19.8 | 29 |
2017 MF7 | 2020-Jun-14 | 3.7 LD | 10.9 | 23 |
2020 KP6 | 2020-Jun-16 | 3.6 LD | 10.8 | 41 |
2020 JU3 | 2020-Jun-17 | 6.9 LD | 10.9 | 55 |
2020 KF3 | 2020-Jun-17 | 12.5 LD | 3.5 | 15 |
2020 LG | 2020-Jun-18 | 8.9 LD | 10.6 | 51 |
2018 PD22 | 2020-Jun-19 | 17.2 LD | 14.6 | 56 |
2020 KR1 | 2020-Jun-22 | 11.6 LD | 6.8 | 42 |
441987 | 2020-Jun-24 | 9.8 LD | 12.9 | 186 |
2017 FW128 | 2020-Jun-25 | 6.9 LD | 5.4 | 11 |
2020 KQ7 | 2020-Jun-27 | 10.3 LD | 2.6 | 18 |
2020 JX1 | 2020-Jun-29 | 3.3 LD | 5 | 60 |
2019 AC3 | 2020-Jul-01 | 10.5 LD | 3.4 | 12 |
2007 UN12 | 2020-Jul-04 | 16.7 LD | 2.9 | 6 |
2020 KJ7 | 2020-Jul-13 | 11.9 LD | 3.4 | 30 |
2009 OS5 | 2020-Jul-13 | 17.6 LD | 2.6 | 45 |
2016 DY30 | 2020-Jul-19 | 9 LD | 15.1 | 3 |
2002 BF25 | 2020-Jul-21 | 9.4 LD | 6.8 | 129 |
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 |
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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