| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1.33 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 2.00 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 5.96 nT Bz: -3.24 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT Coronal Holes: 15 Dec 22 Solar wind flowing from this southern coronal hole could graze Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 18th. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The southern hemisphere season for noctilucent clouds has begun. NASA's AIM spacecraft detected the first electric-blue puffs over Antarctica on Dec. 1st. Switch view:Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar Updated Dec15 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 Dec 15 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 60 % | 50 % | CLASS X | 15 % | 10 % | 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 Dec 15 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 10 % | MINOR | 01 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 20 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 20 % | 20 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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! | | | CHANCE OF FLARES TODAY: Don't be surprised if there is a solar flare today. NOAA forecasters say there is a 75% chance of M-flares and a 15% chance of X-flares on Dec. 15th. With 11 numbered sunspot groups crossing the face of the sun, odds are good that any eruption will be geoeffective. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text. INCREASING SOLAR ACTIVITY: Yesterday, fast-growing sunspot AR3165 unleashed a remarkable series of M-class solar flares. All day long, no more than a few hours went by without a significant explosion: During the fusillade, the sunspot strobed Earth with more than 10 pulses of extreme ultraviolet and X-radiation. The resulting ionization of Earth's upper atmosphere caused a series of shortwave radio blackouts rolling across all longitudes. Aviators and mariners may have noticed poor reception at frequencies below 15 MHz. Many of the flares hurled CMEs into space. Preliminary coronagraph data from SOHO suggest that all of them will miss Earth, passing upstream of our planet. Maybe next time? Another large sunspot, AR3163, has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that poses a threat for M-class flares--and it is directly facing Earth. Stay tuned! Solar flare alerts: SMS Text. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter IT'S RAINING GEMINIDS: Last night, pieces of rock comet 3200 Phaethon rained over Mt. Hopkins in Arizona. John Ashley photographed the downpour: "I pointed my camera at Smithsonian's MMT Observatory on top of Mount Hopkins," says Ashley. "Over a 4 hour period I captured 35 Geminid meteors." The Geminid meteor shower peaked on Dec. 14th when Earth passed through Phaethon's gravelly stream of debris. Bright moonlight interfered with the display, reducing visible meteor rates by a factor of 2, but there were still plenty of bright ones. Observers with the International Meteor Organization have reported hundreds of sightings. more images: from Gary Dowdle of Fort Davis, TX; from Jeff Berkes of Assateague Island National Seashore, MD; from Frankie Lucena of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico; from Adam Hurcewicz of Bialystok, Poland; from Masayuki Nakamura of Otawara, Tochigi, Japan; Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter GIFTS FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE: Christmas is coming. Are you looking for a far-out gift? Check out the Earth to Sky Store. It's filled with unique items that have flown to the edge of space onboard cosmic ray research balloons. These unique gifts have floated above 99.7% of Earth's atmosphere, experiencing space-like blasts of cosmic rays, extreme cold, and a wild ride parachuting back to Earth after the balloon explodes. Even Amazon doesn't carry items this far out. Don't forget to enter coupon code "SPACESANTA" at checkout for a 10% holiday discount. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 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 Dec 15, 2022, the network reported 92 fireballs. (69 Geminids, 21 sporadics, 1 Quadrantid, 1 Dec. theta Aurigid ) 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 December 15, 2022 there were 2320 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2022 WW | 2022-Dec-10 | 19.2 LD | 6.2 | 30 | 2019 XY | 2022-Dec-10 | 3.6 LD | 12.9 | 9 | 2022 XV | 2022-Dec-10 | 4.7 LD | 13.9 | 46 | 2003 YS70 | 2022-Dec-13 | 10.4 LD | 4.1 | 5 | 2019 XQ1 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.5 LD | 9.8 | 30 | 2018 XU3 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.8 LD | 10.3 | 28 | 2022 XY | 2022-Dec-14 | 11.4 LD | 4.4 | 25 | 2021 XS4 | 2022-Dec-14 | 14.5 LD | 9.7 | 23 | 2022 XX | 2022-Dec-14 | 0.5 LD | 6.6 | 7 | 2015 RN35 | 2022-Dec-15 | 1.8 LD | 5.9 | 85 | 2022 XO | 2022-Dec-15 | 8.4 LD | 8.6 | 20 | 2022 WU11 | 2022-Dec-17 | 11.7 LD | 10.6 | 31 | 2016 YE | 2022-Dec-18 | 18.6 LD | 4.8 | 23 | 2022 XC1 | 2022-Dec-18 | 8.3 LD | 7.1 | 21 | 2014 HK129 | 2022-Dec-20 | 6.7 LD | 11.6 | 216 | 2017 XQ60 | 2022-Dec-21 | 18.8 LD | 16 | 45 | 2022 UD9 | 2022-Dec-22 | 4.6 LD | 10.3 | 159 | 2022 RD2 | 2022-Dec-22 | 13.9 LD | 1.1 | 7 | 2022 XN | 2022-Dec-24 | 8.5 LD | 11 | 46 | 2013 YA14 | 2022-Dec-25 | 2.7 LD | 10.5 | 68 | 2022 TE14 | 2022-Dec-25 | 11.2 LD | 7 | 127 | 2018 YK2 | 2022-Dec-26 | 15.8 LD | 15.1 | 98 | 2022 WV9 | 2022-Dec-27 | 6.5 LD | 7.2 | 46 | 2010 XC15 | 2022-Dec-27 | 2 LD | 10.1 | 182 | 2021 AE | 2022-Dec-28 | 16.5 LD | 15 | 23 | 2021 NF | 2023-Jan-02 | 17.9 LD | 11.3 | 40 | 2011 WR41 | 2023-Jan-03 | 15.8 LD | 8.9 | 34 | 2019 AY3 | 2023-Jan-04 | 16.8 LD | 19.7 | 62 | 2021 TL | 2023-Jan-09 | 14.2 LD | 8.5 | 75 | 2014 LJ | 2023-Jan-14 | 4.8 LD | 3.5 | 7 | 2012 BV13 | 2023-Jan-16 | 12.2 LD | 6.7 | 134 | 2020 BP | 2023-Jan-20 | 5.2 LD | 16.9 | 26 | 2019 BO2 | 2023-Jan-24 | 12.1 LD | 16.2 | 21 | 2019 BZ4 | 2023-Jan-24 | 16.5 LD | 5.6 | 20 | 2020 BZ14 | 2023-Jan-26 | 8.8 LD | 6.7 | 54 | 2022 SO113 | 2023-Jan-29 | 10.5 LD | 3.5 | 73 | 2017 DU34 | 2023-Feb-02 | 13.3 LD | 11.2 | 16 | 367789 | 2023-Feb-03 | 4.7 LD | 9.9 | 149 | 2020 OO1 | 2023-Feb-04 | 4.8 LD | 7.7 | 19 | 2022 CX1 | 2023-Feb-09 | 17.4 LD | 13.2 | 14 | 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. | 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. | | information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary | | current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page | | Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries | | 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 | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | 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. 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