When the pandemic is over, Marianne Bergli would like to show you something: The Northern Lights. Marianne's team at Heaven on Earth Aurora Tours is eager to see you when flights to Norway resume--perfect for small groups/families. | | |
COMET NEOWISE, LOOKING GOOD: Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is plunging toward the sun for a close encounter near the orbit of Mercury on July 3rd. SOHO coronagraphs are monitoring the approach, and it's looking good. The comet has brightened to 3rd magnitude, which would make it a naked-eye object when it emerges from the sun's glare in mid-July. SOHO will be monitoring the comet for the rest of the week, so stay tuned for updates.
NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS OVER LONDON: On June 21st, something rare and magical happened in London. The skies of the great city filled with noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Phil Halper noticed the display, grabbed a camera, and raced from one landmark to another, hurriedly recording pictures like this:
"Even the bright lights of the London Eye on the river Thames couldn't drown out the display," says Halper. "These were the most spectacular NLCs I've ever seen."
If NLCs look alien--that's because they are. The clouds are seeded by meteoroids. They form every year around this time when summertime wisps of water vapor rise up to the mesosphere, allowing water to crystallize around specks of meteor smoke.
Usually you have to be under a dark sky at high latitudes to see these rare clouds--but 2020 is not usual. Record-cold temperatures in the mesosphere are boosting NLCs, brightening them enough to see from places like London.
Halpert is a longtime observer of NLCs, and when he saw their electric-blue ripples forming over the city, he immediately realized it was a special occasion. "I hired a bike and cycled from landmark to landmark, stopping at the London Eye, the Tower of London, Blackfriar's Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral and Temple," he says. "I had to hurry because there is only about one hour of night when the NLCs are visible.'
"Alas, in the rush, I fell off my bike and I ended up in hospital," he says. "But still it was well worth it. I was thrilled to see this magical display." (Thank you, Phil!)
The outbreak over London is a sign that even more intense NLCs could be on the way. Last summer, bright noctilucent clouds over European capitals heralded a descent to even lower latitudes. Indeed, just this morning sky watchers in Oregon witnessed their own outbreak. James W. Young sends this picture from Seaside, OR:
"The NLCs were incredibly intense on the morning of June 23rd," says Young. "I was able to take this picture using just a 1/4-second exposure (ISO 800)."
Observing tips: The best time to look for noctilucent clouds is during the hours after sunset (or before sunrise) when the sun is at least 6 degrees below the horizon: diagram. If you see electric-blue tendrils spreading across the sky ... submit your photos here!
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
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APOLLO 11 PROOF SILVER DOLLAR (COLLECTOR'S ITEM): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider this: On July 20, 2019 (the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing), the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this rare proof silver dollar to the stratosphere:
The US Mint created the coins to celebrate the first Moon landing--but you can no longer buy them from the Mint. You can, however, get one from Earth to Sky Calculus. The students are selling the collector's item for $229.95 to support their cosmic ray ballooning program.
The silver dollar is curved and reproduces the helmet of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Reflected in Buzz's visor are Neil Armstrong, the United States flag, and the lunar lander. The opposite side of the coin shows Neil's iconic footprint on the Moon. Included is a greeting card showing the coin in flight and a certificate of authenticity.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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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 June 23, 2020, the network reported 30 fireballs.
(30 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 June 23, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2020 LG | 2020-Jun-18 | 8.9 LD | 10.6 | 51 |
2018 PD22 | 2020-Jun-19 | 17.2 LD | 14.6 | 56 |
2020 KR1 | 2020-Jun-22 | 11.6 LD | 6.8 | 41 |
2020 LV | 2020-Jun-22 | 5.4 LD | 4.8 | 31 |
2020 MS1 | 2020-Jun-23 | 19.5 LD | 12.7 | 78 |
441987 | 2020-Jun-24 | 9.8 LD | 12.9 | 186 |
2020 MP1 | 2020-Jun-25 | 1.2 LD | 7.8 | 24 |
2017 FW128 | 2020-Jun-25 | 6.9 LD | 5.4 | 11 |
2020 MA | 2020-Jun-25 | 5.3 LD | 7.8 | 31 |
2020 MK | 2020-Jun-27 | 12 LD | 17.8 | 115 |
2020 MF1 | 2020-Jun-27 | 1.3 LD | 10.5 | 10 |
2020 KQ7 | 2020-Jun-27 | 10.3 LD | 2.6 | 18 |
2020 ME1 | 2020-Jun-28 | 2 LD | 10.9 | 21 |
2020 JX1 | 2020-Jun-29 | 3.3 LD | 5 | 62 |
2019 AC3 | 2020-Jul-01 | 10.5 LD | 3.4 | 12 |
2020 MO | 2020-Jul-03 | 9.3 LD | 9.6 | 41 |
2007 UN12 | 2020-Jul-04 | 16.7 LD | 2.9 | 6 |
2020 LS | 2020-Jul-04 | 19.5 LD | 11.6 | 74 |
2020 MU1 | 2020-Jul-11 | 18.8 LD | 2.7 | 38 |
2020 ML | 2020-Jul-12 | 11.4 LD | 4.4 | 23 |
2020 KJ7 | 2020-Jul-13 | 11.9 LD | 3.4 | 30 |
2009 OS5 | 2020-Jul-13 | 17.6 LD | 2.6 | 45 |
2020 MX | 2020-Jul-17 | 15.1 LD | 5.4 | 53 |
2016 DY30 | 2020-Jul-19 | 9 LD | 15.1 | 3 |
2002 BF25 | 2020-Jul-21 | 9.4 LD | 6.8 | 129 |
2018 PY7 | 2020-Jul-31 | 8.9 LD | 9.5 | 16 |
2007 RF1 | 2020-Jul-31 | 10.7 LD | 5 | 21 |
2018 BD | 2020-Aug-03 | 7.6 LD | 9.4 | 3 |
2009 PQ1 | 2020-Aug-05 | 10.8 LD | 13.5 | 112 |
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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