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RESEARCHERS PREDICT A SURGE OF COSMIC RAYS: Interplanetary space is about to become a more dangerous place. A new study just published in the research journal Space Weather predicts that galactic cosmic rays will surge in the decades ahead--a result of the sputtering solar cycle. This could limit deep space missions for astronauts to as little as 200 days. FULL STORY.
A CME IS COMING--MAYBE: Sometime today, a CME (coronal mass ejection) might hit Earth. The solar storm cloud was hurled into space on Aug. 16th by a slow-motion solar flare in the sun's southern hemisphere. Click to play a NOAA forecast model of the CME sweeping past Earth on Aug. 20th:
As the forecast animation shows, the CME was never heading directly for us. The bulk of the plasma cloud is expected to sail to the south of our planet. However, its outer edge could graze Earth's magnetic field, and that might be enough to spark a minor (G1-class) geomagnetic storm. There's also a chance the CME will miss, and space weather will remain quiet. Either way, high-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on August 20th. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
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COSMIC RAY DATA--DELIVERED BY MULE: For the past 6 years, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been launching balloons to the stratosphere, monitoring cosmic rays. Almost every data point we collect has a story behind it. This one involves a mule.
Above: The view from the landing site of our July 23, 2020, cosmic ray balloon.
On July 23rd, we launched a balloon as usual. It carried 4 cosmic ray sensors, GPS trackers, a flight computer, and a dozen pepper seeds (a student astrobiology project). The payload flew 35.8 km high--one of our highest flights ever. After the balloon popped, the adventure began. The payload hurtled downward briefly faster than 500 mph. The parachute opened, arresting its fall, and proceeded to guide the payload ... WAY OFF COURSE. The payload was supposed to land in the Buttermilks, a popular climbing area near Bishop, California, where we could easily retrieve it. Instead it touched down almost 40 miles away in the remote Sierra Nevada mountains.
As we began to make our plans to hike in and get it--a 2 day, 60 mile expedition-- something strange happened. The payload started moving again. Little did we know at the time, it was on the back of a mule.
Above: The red circled data point was delivered by Mule Train
About 15 minutes after the payload came to rest in the Sierra backcountry, it was discovered by Will Ellis, a packer from Sierra Pack Station leading a train of mules along the John Muir trail. "It was only two feet from the trail," he says. "What are the odds?"
Will strapped the payload to the back of his lead mule, and proceeded to carry it almost 50 miles from the landing site to Red's Meadow, just outside Mammoth Lakes, CA. From there, Will phoned Earth to Sky and returned the payload to some very grateful young scientists.
Thank you Will Ellis and the Sierra Pack Station for helping us with our research!
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS PENDANT: On Dec. 6, 2019, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon to the stratosphere. This Northern Lights pendant went along for the ride, flying more than 107,612 feet above the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. It makes an out-of-this-world birthday, anniversary, or Christmas gift!
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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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 August 20, 2020, the network reported 20 fireballs.
(18 sporadics, 1 Perseid, 1 Southern Delta Aquariid)
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 August 20, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2020 QJ | 2020-Aug-15 | 4.1 LD | 4.7 | 16 |
2020 QG | 2020-Aug-16 | 0 LD | 12.3 | 4 |
2020 PJ2 | 2020-Aug-16 | 5.1 LD | 10 | 15 |
2020 QF1 | 2020-Aug-16 | 1.5 LD | 13.3 | 7 |
2020 QF2 | 2020-Aug-18 | 0.5 LD | 10.8 | 9 |
2020 PU1 | 2020-Aug-18 | 6.2 LD | 8.3 | 18 |
2020 QW | 2020-Aug-18 | 4.6 LD | 10.3 | 32 |
2020 QE1 | 2020-Aug-18 | 16.9 LD | 6.4 | 17 |
2020 QY | 2020-Aug-18 | 3.3 LD | 16.1 | 33 |
2020 QC | 2020-Aug-18 | 2 LD | 18.8 | 11 |
2020 PS | 2020-Aug-19 | 6.2 LD | 8.8 | 46 |
2020 QO1 | 2020-Aug-20 | 3.7 LD | 26.5 | 12 |
2020 PY2 | 2020-Aug-20 | 0.9 LD | 16.8 | 16 |
2020 PQ2 | 2020-Aug-21 | 4.6 LD | 19.7 | 49 |
2020 QP | 2020-Aug-21 | 16.1 LD | 24.7 | 56 |
2020 QF | 2020-Aug-23 | 9 LD | 6.9 | 13 |
2020 FA1 | 2020-Aug-23 | 18.4 LD | 1.9 | 20 |
2020 QD1 | 2020-Aug-23 | 10.1 LD | 13.5 | 16 |
2020 PP3 | 2020-Aug-24 | 16.2 LD | 9.5 | 37 |
2020 PJ6 | 2020-Aug-24 | 13.9 LD | 3.3 | 28 |
2020 QE2 | 2020-Aug-25 | 19.9 LD | 12.6 | 38 |
2020 QP1 | 2020-Aug-25 | 19.7 LD | 8.8 | 21 |
2016 AH164 | 2020-Aug-26 | 15.7 LD | 5.6 | 4 |
2020 PF3 | 2020-Aug-26 | 6.4 LD | 9.6 | 28 |
2020 QQ2 | 2020-Aug-27 | 8.6 LD | 6.2 | 16 |
2011 ES4 | 2020-Sep-01 | 0.3 LD | 8.2 | 30 |
2020 PG6 | 2020-Sep-02 | 5.9 LD | 6.6 | 14 |
465824 | 2020-Sep-06 | 19.4 LD | 14 | 162 |
2020 PT4 | 2020-Sep-08 | 4.9 LD | 12.6 | 39 |
2012 RM15 | 2020-Sep-12 | 14.9 LD | 9.8 | 45 |
2017 US | 2020-Sep-13 | 17.3 LD | 5.9 | 21 |
2020 QL2 | 2020-Sep-14 | 18 LD | 10.6 | 77 |
2014 QJ33 | 2020-Sep-18 | 11.5 LD | 8.3 | 65 |
2017 SL16 | 2020-Sep-20 | 8.9 LD | 6.4 | 25 |
2001 GP2 | 2020-Oct-01 | 6.1 LD | 2.2 | 15 |
2010 UC | 2020-Oct-04 | 14.6 LD | 3.2 | 12 |
2019 SB6 | 2020-Oct-07 | 11.9 LD | 7.6 | 16 |
2018 GD2 | 2020-Oct-13 | 16.4 LD | 6.7 | 5 |
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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