| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 1 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 8.2 nT Bz: -1.7 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2351 UT Coronal Holes: 16 Dec 17 Solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on Dec. 17-18. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show that the 2017 northern summer season for noctilucent clouds has finished. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2017 01:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2017 Dec 16 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: 2017 Dec 16 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 25 % | 40 % | MINOR | 10 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 05 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 30 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 35 % | 55 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Lights Over Lapland is excited to announce that we now have TWO aurora webcams covering nearly a 200° view of Abisko National Park in Sweden! Watch the auroras dance live, all season long here. | | | GEOMAGNETIC STORM PREDICTED (G1-CLASS): NOAA forecasters say there is a 35% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on Dec. 17th, increasing to 55% on Dec. 18th when a solar wind stream envelopes our planet. The gaseous material is flowing faster than 600 km/s from a hole in the sun's atmosphere. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the solar wind arrives. Free: Aurora Alerts. HEAVENLY GEMINIDS: The Geminid meteor shower peaked on Dec. 14th with as many as 140 meteors per hour, according to the International Meteor Organization. The shower was rich in fireballs (meteors brighter than Venus). NASA's network of all-sky meteor cameras captured more than 400 fireballs over the USA alone. In Japan, astrophotographer "Kagaya" set up his camera at the Oarai Isosaki-jinja Shrine in Ibaraki and caught a Geminid disintegrating brilliantly behind one of the shrine's iconic Torii gates: In the Shinto religion, Torii gates are considered portals to the sacred. In this case, it led to a heavenly Geminid. "I waited by the gate 4 hours to catch a meteor in just the right position for a good photo--well worth it for a fireball of this magnitude," says Kagaya. "Note that you can see the meteor's reflection in the water," he points out. More scenes from the 2017 Geminid meteor shower may be found in our realtime photo gallery. Browse and enjoy! Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery BUY A TICKET TO THE EDGE OF SPACE: Christmas shopping for a young scientist? Consider this: For the holiday season only, we're reducing the cost of payload space on Earth to Sky Calculus balloons from $500 to only $299. Buy a ticket to space before Dec. 25th and your student can send an experiment, photo, or keepsake item to the stratosphere, completely supported by an Earth to Sky Calculus launch and recovery team. This is not only a great Christmas gift, but also a good kickstarter for science fair projects. Experiments will be flown and returned along with video footage, GPS tracking, temperature, pressure, altimetry and radiation data. To take advantage of the discounted rate, payment must be received before Dec. 25th. However, the flight can take place at any time in the next 12 months. Conditions: No mammals. Plants and non-pathogenic microbes are allowed. Generally speaking, experiments should weigh less than a few hundred grams and occupy a volume less than that of a school lunchbox. A brainstorming session is included with each certificate. Dr. Tony Phillips and other members of the Earth to Sky team will chat with recipients to help them craft an experiment that will work in the harsh environment of the stratosphere. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All proceeds support hands-on STEM education THE SUN IS DIMMING: Yesterday at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX launched a new sensor to the International Space Station named TSIS-1. Its mission: to measure the dimming of the sun. As the sunspot cycle plunges toward its 11-year minimum, NASA satellites are tracking a decline in total solar irradiance (TSI). Across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the sun's output has dropped nearly 0.1% compared to the Solar Maximum of 2012-2014. This plot shows the TSI since 1978 as observed from nine previous satellites: Click here for a complete explanation of this plot. The rise and fall of the sun's luminosity is a natural part of the solar cycle. A change of 0.1% may not sound like much, but the sun deposits a lot of energy on the Earth, approximately 1,361 watts per square meter. Summed over the globe, a 0.1% variation in this quantity exceeds all of our planet's other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth's core) combined. A 2013 report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), "The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate," spells out some of the ways the cyclic change in TSI can affect the chemistry of Earth's upper atmosphere and possibly alter regional weather patterns, especially in the Pacific. NASA's current flagship satellite for measuring TSI, the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE), is now more than six years beyond its prime-mission lifetime. TSIS-1 will take over for SORCE, extending the record of TSI measurements with unprecedented precision. It's five-year mission will overlap a deep Solar Minimum expected in 2019-2020. TSIS-1 will therefore be able to observe the continued decline in the sun's luminosity followed by a rebound as the next solar cycle picks up steam. Installing and checking out TSIS-1 will take some time; the first science data are expected in Feb. 2018. Stay tuned. Realtime Aurora 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 Dec. 16, 2017, the network reported 36 fireballs. (23 sporadics, 4 Geminids, 3 December Monocerotids, 2 sigma Hydrids, 1 Comae Berenicid, 1 December Hydrid, 1 December Leonis Minorid, 1 sigma Serpentid) 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 16, 2017 there were 1872 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2017 XZ2 | 2017-Dec-10 | 3.9 LD | 8.2 | 12 | 2017 XE2 | 2017-Dec-10 | 11.1 LD | 9.9 | 31 | 2017 XS60 | 2017-Dec-12 | 12.8 LD | 19.1 | 21 | 2017 WE13 | 2017-Dec-12 | 16.4 LD | 5.3 | 26 | 2017 VS14 | 2017-Dec-12 | 15.8 LD | 2.8 | 15 | 2017 XU60 | 2017-Dec-13 | 9 LD | 10.2 | 14 | 2017 WJ28 | 2017-Dec-13 | 12.8 LD | 6 | 21 | 2015 XX169 | 2017-Dec-14 | 9.7 LD | 6.3 | 11 | 2006 XY | 2017-Dec-14 | 3.4 LD | 4.9 | 56 | 2017 XY2 | 2017-Dec-15 | 4.5 LD | 8.2 | 13 | 2017 XK1 | 2017-Dec-15 | 6.2 LD | 12.2 | 32 | 2017 XR2 | 2017-Dec-15 | 12.2 LD | 9.4 | 44 | 2017 XD2 | 2017-Dec-15 | 14.4 LD | 12.3 | 69 | 2017 VT14 | 2017-Dec-17 | 3.8 LD | 10.4 | 84 | 2017 XT60 | 2017-Dec-17 | 8 LD | 7 | 12 | 2017 XW60 | 2017-Dec-18 | 5.2 LD | 8.8 | 9 | 2011 YD29 | 2017-Dec-19 | 17.6 LD | 7.7 | 20 | 2017 WX12 | 2017-Dec-21 | 10 LD | 11.4 | 138 | 2017 XR60 | 2017-Dec-21 | 13 LD | 6.2 | 49 | 2017 XQ60 | 2017-Dec-21 | 13.4 LD | 15.7 | 49 | 2017 TS3 | 2017-Dec-22 | 18.1 LD | 10.2 | 137 | 418849 | 2017-Dec-22 | 15.3 LD | 17.4 | 257 | 2015 YQ1 | 2017-Dec-22 | 17.3 LD | 11.1 | 9 | 2017 WZ14 | 2017-Dec-24 | 7.6 LD | 4.9 | 33 | 2017 XG1 | 2017-Dec-29 | 16.4 LD | 9.9 | 38 | 2017 QL33 | 2017-Dec-30 | 13.3 LD | 8.2 | 190 | 2015 RT1 | 2018-Jan-02 | 19.7 LD | 9 | 30 | 2004 FH | 2018-Jan-10 | 20 LD | 8.5 | 26 | 306383 | 2018-Jan-22 | 14.4 LD | 17.4 | 178 | 2002 CB19 | 2018-Feb-02 | 10.5 LD | 15.6 | 36 | 276033 | 2018-Feb-04 | 11 LD | 34 | 646 | 2015 BN509 | 2018-Feb-09 | 12.9 LD | 17.7 | 257 | 1991 VG | 2018-Feb-11 | 18.4 LD | 2.1 | 7 | 2014 WQ202 | 2018-Feb-11 | 15.1 LD | 19.8 | 62 | 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 | Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here: This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. 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. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. What is this all about? 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 13% since 2015: 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 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. 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. | 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 | | Reviews here can help you to pick up best memory foam mattresses. | | 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. | |