Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days 2024 total: 0 days (0%) 2023 total: 0 days (0%) 2022 total: 1 day (<1%) 2021 total: 64 days (18%) 2020 total: 208 days (57%) 2019 total: 281 days (77%) 2018 total: 221 days (61%) 2017 total: 104 days (28%) 2016 total: 32 days (9%) 2015 total: 0 days (0%) 2014 total: 1 day (<1%) 2013 total: 0 days (0%) 2012 total: 0 days (0%) 2011 total: 2 days (<1%) 2010 total: 51 days (14%) 2009 total: 260 days (71%) 2008 total: 268 days (73%) 2007 total: 152 days (42%) 2006 total: 70 days (19%) Updated 19 Apr 2024
Thermosphere Climate Index today: 19.62x1010W Warm Max: 49.4x1010 W Hot (10/1957) Min: 2.05x1010 W Cold (02/2009) explanation | more data:gfx, txt Updated 19 Apr 2024
Cosmic RaysSolar Cycle 25 is intensifying, and this is reflected in the number of cosmic rays entering Earth's atmosphere. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth are slowly declining--a result of the yin-yang relationship between the solar cycle and cosmic rays. Oulu Neutron Counts Percentages of the Space Age average: today: -4.6% Low 48-hr change: -0.6% Max: +11.7% Very High (12/2009) Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991) explanation |more data Updated 19 Apr 2024 @ 0700 UT
Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 7.00 strong 24-hr max: Kp= 7.00 strong explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 6.89 nT Bz: 1.94 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT
Coronal Holes: 19 Apr 24
There are no significant equatorial coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA
Polar Stratospheric Clouds Colorful Type II polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) form when the temperature in the stratosphere drops to a staggeringly low -85C. NASA's MERRA-2 climate model predicts when the air up there is cold enough:
On Apr. 19, 2024, the Arctic stratosphere is much too warm for Type II polar stratospheric clouds. | more data.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for NLCs is over. The first clouds were detected inside the Antarctic Circle on Dec. 4, 2023, by the NOAA 21 satellite. The same satellite detected the last cloud on Feb. 21, 2024. Daily maps are now blank:
Updated: Feb 22, 2024
An instrument onboard NOAA 21 (OMPS LP) is able to detect NLCs (also known as "polar mesospheric clouds" or PMCs). Now that the southern season has ended, attention turns to the northern hemisphere. The first NLCs should appear inside the Arctic Circle in mid to late May.
SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2024 Apr 19 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
75 %
75 %
CLASS X
20 %
20 %
Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2024 Apr 19 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
25 %
35 %
MINOR
10 %
15 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
30 %
SEVERE
35 %
50 %
Friday, Apr. 19, 2024
What's up in space
This is an AI Free Zone! Text created by Large Language Models is spreading rapidly across the Internet. It's well-written, artificial, frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being.
MORE CMES ARE COMING: Today's CME strike may be the first of several. Multiple faint CMEs that left the sun earlier this week are on an approximate collision course with Earth. None is especially fast or potent, but their collective effect could cause more geomagnetic storms starting April 21st. Aurora alerts:SMS Text
STRONG GEOMAGNETIC STORM (G3): Earth's magnetic field is reverberating from a CME strike on April 19th (0500 UT), which produced an unexpectedly strong geomagnetic storm. First contact with the CME was unimpressive; the storm didn't start right away. Later, however, solar magnetic fields in the CME's wake connected to Earth's magnetic field; the storm commenced and quickly intensified. Storm levels reached G3 around 1900 UT.
This brief but intense event produced red auroras at mid-latitudes. Dan Bush photographed the lights from Albany, Missouri (latitude +40N):
"The display lasted more than an hour centered around 10:00 UT," says Bush. "The red color was not visible to the naked eye, but it was an easy catch for my sky surveillance camera."
Bush wondered if these were red auroras or, instead, an SAR arc. Red SAR arcs are caused by heat energy leaking into the atmosphere from Earth's ring current system. Answer: They are genuine red auroras. The form and dynamics of the display are conclusive.
The storm is subsiding now. Minor G1-class storming remains possible tonight as Earth exits the CME's wake. Then, there should be a day of relative quiet before more CMEs might arrive on Sunday April 21st. CME impact alerts:SMS Text
A COMET MOVIE FROM SPACE: In only two days, Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will make its closest approach to the sun (0.78 AU). NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft is monitoring the devil comet's progress. On April 12th it captured 12P passing by Jupiter just as a CME billowed into space:
Note the kink in the comet's tail. This is a "disconnection event" caused by a CME impact or sharp gust of solar wind. The full movie shows the kink rippling away from the comet's core.
Stay tuned for new movies as 12P nears perihelion on April 21st. STEREO-A's heliospheric imager may capture additional examples of the comet's tail responding to solar activity at point blank range.
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.
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 Apr 19, 2024, the network reported 8 fireballs. (8 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]
Near Earth Asteroids
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 April 19, 2024 there were 2349 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.
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.
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