Marianne's Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to join them in their quest to find and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Experience the winter wonderland in the Tromsø Area. | | |
QUIET SUN: Solar activity has returned to very low levels, and it is likely to remain so for the rest of the week. NOAA forecasters say there is no more than a 1% chance of strong flares on March 24-25-26. Solar flare alerts: text or voice
AURORAS AND THE SNOW QUEEN: Some photographers will do anything to get a great shot of the aurora borealis. On March 21st, Ole Salomonsen of Tromsø, Norway, convinced his friend Christine Hals to stand in a freezing water for a photo he calls Auroras and the Snow Queen:
In case you're wondering, yes, they are still friends. "Christine has a special relationship to winter and snow, and she was a perfect match for this shoot," says Salomonsen. "She did vocals (kulning) for the Disney hit Frozen. And while we stood there in the river chilled by -15 C air, Christine sang as auroras danced overhead. It was a special moment."
Another episode of auroras is expected on March 28th when an incoming solar wind stream hits Earth's magnetic field. Will the Snow Queen return as well? Stay tuned. Aurora alerts: text or voice
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
MYSTERIOUS BRIGHT SPOTS ON CERES: Last year, NASA's Dawn spacecraft went into orbit around Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. Immediately, researchers were mesmerized by a number of bright spots peppering the planet's charcoal-gray surface. What were they? No one knew, but they hoped that close-up images taken during a low orbit in Feb. 2016 might crack the mystery. On Tuesday, those images were released, and here is an example:
This is the largest bright spot on Ceres, located at the center of Occator Crater. Dawn took the picture at point-blank range, just 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the crater's floor. By far the best photo ever taken of a bright spot on Ceres, it reveals a dome criss-crossed by numerous linear features and fractures.
It does not, however, solve the mystery. "The intricate geometry of the crater interior suggests geologic activity in the recent past, but we will need to complete detailed geologic mapping of the crater in order to test multiple hypotheses for its formation," says Ralf Jaumann of the German Aerospace Center. He is a member of the Dawn science team that released the new images at the 47th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, on March 22nd.
One idea gaining favor is that the bright area might be a crust of salt marking the spot where a briny underground ocean briefly broke through to the surface. If so, Ceres might not be as dry as it looks. Indeed, the density of Ceres suggests that 1/3rd of its mass is H2O, and some researchers think Ceres contains more freshwater than Earth itself. Sounds like a mystery worth solving. For more information about the Dawn mission, visit NASA.gov.
Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery
PLANT YOUR OWN SPACE GARDEN: Northern spring has arrived, and that means it's time to plant flowers. Mutant space flowers, that is. These Zinnia seeds flew to the edge of space aboard an Earth to Sky Calculus helium balloon on Feb. 17, 2016:
En route, the seeds were exposed to comic ray doses more than 100x Earth normal, temperatures as low as -63C, and air pressures only 0.3% of sea level.
Zinnias are interesting because they have recently blossomed on the International Space Station. Maybe it's time to plant these space flowers in your garden, too. For $49.95 you can have some. Each order comes with one seed packet flown to the edge of space, and a second seed packet that was kept on Earth as a control sample. Plant them side by side to discover the effect of near-space flight on your flowers. All proceeds support student research.
Speaking of mutants, we have also flown sunflower seeds to the edge of space, where they soaked up cosmic rays for more than 2 hours. What happens when you plant such seeds? Spaceweather.com reader Christian Schwarze bought some and found out. "A second flower grew out of the side of the first one," he says. "Very strange!"
"Unfortunately, we were on holiday while it flowered," says Schwarze.
Readers who wish to repeat these experiments in their own backyard may order sunflowers, zinnias, and many other stratospheric seeds from Earth to Sky Calculus.
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
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 Mar. 24, 2016, the network reported 7 fireballs.
(7 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 March 24, 2016 there were 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. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach. | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 | Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N) |
Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month. |
Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr) |
Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr) |
Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr) |
These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more. 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. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015:
Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.
Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours.
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.
| 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 |
| the underlying science of space weather |