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CME IMPACT TODAY--UPDATED: Another CME struck Earth's magnetic field today. It arrived on May 17th at 1311 UT, causing a minor 11 nT jolt on USGS magnetometers in Boulder, Colorado. The weak impact overperformed as it sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm. Using their phones, high-latitude observers may be able to record auroras with nightsky photo settings after sunset. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
STRONG SOLAR FLARE: New sunspot AR3685 erupted today (May 17th at 2108 UT), producing a strong M7-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the explosion:
This follows an X3-flare (movie) from the same sunspot on May 15th. Neither of these flares was squarely Earth-directed because of the sunspot's location near the sun's SE limb. The geometry is changing, though. Next week, eruptions from AR3685 will target our planet. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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RARE SOUTH PACIFIC AURORAS CONFIRM 'GREAT STORM': On the south Pacific island of New Caledonia, no one expects to see auroras. Ever. Situated about halfway between Tonga and Australia, the cigar-shaped island is too close to the equator for Northern or Southern Lights. Yet on May 10, 2024, this happened:
"I have rarely been so happy when taking a photo!" says Frédéric Desmoulins, who photographed the display from Boulouparis in the island's south province. "I could see the red color of the auroras with my naked eye. According to the New Caledonian Astronomy Society, these photos are the first for this territory."
"The auroral visibility from New Caledonia is really unique and extremely valuable," says Hisashi Hayakawa, a space weather researcher at Japan's Nagoya University. "As far as we know, the last time sky watchers saw auroras in the area was during the Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, when auroras were sighted from a ship in the Coral Sea."
Hayakawa specializes in historical studies of great auroral storms. He tries to go back in time as far as possible. The problem is, magnetometers and modern sensors didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago. Instead, he looks for records of aurora sightings in old newspapers, diaries, ships logs, even cuneiform tablets. Great Storms are identified by their low latitude--anything with naked-eye auroras below 30° MLAT (magnetic latitude).
"May 10th was definitely a Great Storm," declares Hayakawa. "Naked-eye auroras sightings in New Caledonia (MLAT = -26.4°) and Puerto Rico (MLAT = 27.2°) confirm this in both hemispheres."
Note: This is a figure modified from Hayakawa et al. (2024).
In fact, it is among the top 20 Great Storms of the past 500 years. The above timeline from a research paper by Hayakawa has been modified to display the May 10th event. It is the green dot on the far-right end of the timeline.
This isn't just an arcane historical curiosity. "We need to know about Great Storms of the past to understand how big storms might become today," explains Hayakawa. "Our modern technological society depends upon it."
Readers, if you witnessed auroras at low latitudes on May 10th, please submit your photos to our gallery and fill out this questionnaire from Hayakawa. Your observations may be included in a future research paper about this extreme storm.
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18K GOLD TOTAL ECLIPSE PENDANT: This pendant has touched the shadow of the Moon. On April 8, 2024, during a total eclipse of the sun in Texas, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Floating more than 118,110 feet high, the locket spent 3 minutes and 45 seconds wrapped in lunar shadow:
You can have it for $199.95. The 18K gold-plated locket is inscribed with the words "I love you to the Moon and back," and opens to hold a personal photo or other small item. It comes with a greeting card showing the locket in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space during the total eclipse.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
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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 May 17, 2024, the network reported 6 fireballs.
(6 sporadics)
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 May 17, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2024 JN | 2024-May-12 | 4.4 LD | 3.3 | 8 |
| 2024 JB2 | 2024-May-13 | 11.6 LD | 17.7 | 78 |
| 2024 JQ12 | 2024-May-13 | 4.7 LD | 3 | 7 |
| 2024 JP16 | 2024-May-13 | 12.3 LD | 5.4 | 19 |
| 2024 JP10 | 2024-May-13 | 18.8 LD | 25.3 | 69 |
| 2015 KJ19 | 2024-May-14 | 15.8 LD | 23.1 | 112 |
| 2014 WF6 | 2024-May-14 | 7.2 LD | 18.9 | 47 |
| 2024 JN16 | 2024-May-14 | 0.1 LD | 9.3 | 4 |
| 2024 JW6 | 2024-May-14 | 5.7 LD | 8.6 | 17 |
| 2024 JD15 | 2024-May-14 | 4.4 LD | 19.5 | 15 |
| 2024 JY16 | 2024-May-15 | 0.9 LD | 16.8 | 35 |
| 2021 JN10 | 2024-May-15 | 14.7 LD | 13.4 | 33 |
| 2024 JH15 | 2024-May-15 | 1.4 LD | 14.1 | 12 |
| 2021 JJ | 2024-May-15 | 16.8 LD | 5.7 | 28 |
| 2024 JP17 | 2024-May-15 | 5.4 LD | 10.4 | 16 |
| 2024 JS17 | 2024-May-15 | 7.7 LD | 11.1 | 22 |
| 2024 JQ16 | 2024-May-16 | 7 LD | 6.1 | 15 |
| 2024 JG17 | 2024-May-17 | 4.8 LD | 7.9 | 12 |
| 2024 JT17 | 2024-May-17 | 9.6 LD | 7.6 | 23 |
| 2024 JG6 | 2024-May-17 | 11.2 LD | 7.4 | 18 |
| 2022 WN2 | 2024-May-17 | 13.7 LD | 5.5 | 6 |
| 2024 JQ17 | 2024-May-17 | 10.2 LD | 9.3 | 24 |
| 2024 JG8 | 2024-May-17 | 6.2 LD | 6.1 | 12 |
| 2024 JQ1 | 2024-May-18 | 5.7 LD | 3 | 14 |
| 2024 JK8 | 2024-May-19 | 6 LD | 9.8 | 15 |
| 2024 JD1 | 2024-May-20 | 19 LD | 5.5 | 27 |
| 2015 WO1 | 2024-May-20 | 7.4 LD | 15.6 | 86 |
| 2024 JP12 | 2024-May-21 | 11 LD | 6.3 | 18 |
| 2024 JZ17 | 2024-May-21 | 6.6 LD | 10.3 | 22 |
| 2019 VB5 | 2024-May-21 | 7.8 LD | 6.3 | 2 |
| 2024 JG15 | 2024-May-22 | 6.7 LD | 10.8 | 63 |
| 2024 JZ6 | 2024-May-23 | 14.6 LD | 13.8 | 264 |
| 2024 HP | 2024-May-23 | 15.5 LD | 7.7 | 198 |
| 2024 JX14 | 2024-May-23 | 16.4 LD | 6.2 | 27 |
| 2024 HP2 | 2024-May-25 | 5.8 LD | 2.3 | 20 |
| 2024 JY1 | 2024-May-26 | 17.5 LD | 10.3 | 56 |
| 2024 JO16 | 2024-May-27 | 8 LD | 8.8 | 20 |
| 2008 LD | 2024-May-28 | 7.7 LD | 4.5 | 6 |
| 2024 JV17 | 2024-May-28 | 17.3 LD | 8.4 | 47 |
| 2021 LV | 2024-May-29 | 12 LD | 15.5 | 9 |
| 2024 JG | 2024-May-29 | 8.7 LD | 7.4 | 28 |
| 2024 JA3 | 2024-May-30 | 6.2 LD | 8.5 | 36 |
| 2008 XH | 2024-May-31 | 13.8 LD | 14.7 | 102 |
| 2024 JP1 | 2024-Jun-01 | 18.5 LD | 4.7 | 25 |
| 2024 JC1 | 2024-Jun-01 | 15.1 LD | 4.8 | 32 |
| 1998 KY26 | 2024-Jun-01 | 12 LD | 5.3 | 25 |
| 2016 JC6 | 2024-Jun-01 | 19.9 LD | 7.1 | 188 |
| 2024 JR17 | 2024-Jun-05 | 19.4 LD | 14.5 | 90 |
| 2008 YN2 | 2024-Jun-05 | 10.5 LD | 7.7 | 20 |
| 2021 LW3 | 2024-Jun-06 | 9.7 LD | 9.8 | 86 |
| 2024 CR9 | 2024-Jun-11 | 19.2 LD | 7.4 | 447 |
| 2022 XC1 | 2024-Jun-12 | 16.5 LD | 6.5 | 21 |
| 2022 WW11 | 2024-Jun-17 | 19.7 LD | 14.4 | 15 |
| 2019 NJ | 2024-Jun-27 | 17.2 LD | 10.1 | 66 |
| 415029 | 2024-Jun-27 | 17.3 LD | 25.9 | 2304 |
| 2022 MM1 | 2024-Jun-28 | 7.8 LD | 10.9 | 39 |
| 2010 XN | 2024-Jun-28 | 14.1 LD | 11.3 | 52 |
| 2022 HD1 | 2024-Jun-29 | 17.3 LD | 7.2 | 63 |
| 2017 MB3 | 2024-Jun-30 | 5 LD | 6.5 | 30 |
| 2022 BY39 | 2024-Jul-02 | 13.2 LD | 3 | 4 |
| 2022 YS5 | 2024-Jul-11 | 11 LD | 5.8 | 38 |
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. See also, all satellite statistics. |
| | 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 |
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