| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 5 storm explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 4.61 nT Bz: -1.97 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT Coronal Holes: 23 Jul 22 Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from this double coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Noctilucent cloud season is underway. The clouds are currently spreading as far south as +45N (Oregon). Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated Jul23 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 Jul 23 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 05 % | 05 % | 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: 2022 Jul 23 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 25 % | 20 % | MINOR | 10 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 25 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 35 % | 25 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora your guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too! | | | CME IMPACT SPARKS AURORAS AND STEVE: Arriving almost exactly on time, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on July 23rd at 0259 UT. The impact sparked a G1-class geomagnetic storm with auroras from coast to coast in North America. "At about 12 midnight, I noticed a familiar light purple vertical glow to the east," reports Greg Ash of Ely, Minnesota. "It was STEVE!" STEVE is actually not an aurora. The purple-colored arc is the glow from a supersonic river of gas, which flows through Earth’s magnetosphere during some geomagnetic storms. Short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement," STEVE is a relatively recent discovery. Lauri Kangas of Ontario, Canada, saw STEVE, too. "It was quite an active display with green pickets dancing in the Milky Way amongst the satellites and airplanes," says Kangas. "STEVE appeared and disappeared several times over an hour around midnight CDT." Regular auroras (not STEVE) were sighted from New Hampshire to Washington, and one photographer recorded their glow as far south as Virginia: Peter Forister took this picture from the Shenandoah National Park. Using a long exposure, he captured a layer-cake of color with red auroras in the middle and green airglow on top. "The auroras were visible for just a few minutes around 12:15 am EST," says Forister. The storm has subsided now. There is a slight chance that it could flare up again because the solar wind velocity in the CME's wake remains above 500 km/s. If it does re-ignite, however, we would expect no more than minor G1-class activity. Aurora alerts: SMS Text. PS. Congratulations to NOAA analysts for a pinpoint prediction. The CME, which was hurled into space by a solar tsunami eruption on July 21st, arrived within one hour of their forecast. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter STERLING SILVER DRAGONFLY: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider the Sterling Silver Dragonfly. This winged pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon, flying 113,451 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of California: You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with blue marquise crystals--all plated with 14k white gold. It's an exquisite ensemble for birthdays, anniversaries or any other romantic occasion. The students are selling dragonfly 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 trip to the stratosphere and back again. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education SUMMER MOONDOGS: A record-breaking heat wave is baking the USA. Yet there is some cold air if you know where to look for it. Last night in Albany, Missouri, Dan Bush photographed signs of ice around the Moon: "One of our video cameras in the Missouri Skies Meteor Camera Network caught these rare moondogs as well as a bright Moon halo," says Bush. Moondogs are the bright spots to the left and right of the Moon. Like the circular Moon halo, they are caused by ice crystals in high clouds. "This sort of phenomenon is usually associated with cold winter weather," adds Bush. "These particular icy clouds may have been blow-off from the tops of some storms to the north and west of Missouri." Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 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 July 23, 2022, the network reported 26 fireballs. (22 sporadics, 2 alpha Capricornids, 1 southern Delta Aquariid, 1 psi Cassiopeid) 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 July 23, 2022 there were 2283 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2022 OD | 2022-Jul-19 | 2 LD | 12.7 | 30 | 349068 | 2022-Jul-19 | 17.6 LD | 22.9 | 756 | 2022 OK | 2022-Jul-20 | 1.4 LD | 5 | 8 | 2022 OG | 2022-Jul-23 | 6 LD | 13 | 26 | 2017 RX2 | 2022-Jul-24 | 17.2 LD | 14.2 | 17 | 2022 NV1 | 2022-Jul-24 | 13 LD | 8.1 | 51 | 2022 ON | 2022-Jul-25 | 5.1 LD | 11.6 | 13 | 2022 OA | 2022-Jul-25 | 5 LD | 10.5 | 43 | 2022 ML3 | 2022-Jul-26 | 7.6 LD | 1.5 | 13 | 2022 NU1 | 2022-Jul-29 | 12.3 LD | 8.3 | 44 | 2016 CZ31 | 2022-Jul-29 | 7.3 LD | 15.5 | 129 | 531944 | 2022-Jul-30 | 18.2 LD | 5.9 | 192 | 2020 PP1 | 2022-Aug-01 | 13.1 LD | 3.7 | 17 | 2020 PN1 | 2022-Aug-03 | 9.7 LD | 4.6 | 29 | 2015 FF | 2022-Aug-12 | 11.2 LD | 9.2 | 17 | 2019 AV13 | 2022-Aug-22 | 19.1 LD | 8.8 | 135 | 2020 QW3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 14.1 LD | 18.1 | 30 | 2015 QH3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 5.6 LD | 7 | 14 | 2017 BU | 2022-Aug-29 | 15.8 LD | 7 | 32 | 2021 CQ5 | 2022-Sep-01 | 8.7 LD | 13.5 | 7 | 2020 PT4 | 2022-Sep-15 | 19.7 LD | 10.8 | 39 | 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 | 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 (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data: This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out. We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere: The dose rates shown above are expressed 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 higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, 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. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link 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 first graph ("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 | | 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 | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. Alternatively, Online-Casinos.xyz is another massive directory of online casinos listing sites for the UK and Worldwide. Casinos that offer Rupees for bonuses are very generous to Indian players. 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