| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 3 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 4.4 nT Bz: 1.1 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2346 UT Coronal Holes: 24 Mar 22 Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds is over. It ended on Feb. 20, 2022, concluding the weakest NLC season in 14 years. The northern season will begin in late May.. Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar Updated at: SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 Mar 24 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 Mar 24 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 20 % | 25 % | MINOR | 05 % | 10 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 30 % | 30 % | SEVERE | 30 % | 40 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Lights Over Lapland has a full catalogue of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Check out our daytime and evening activities and book your adventure! | | | BIG SUNSPOT ALERT: Watch this movie. A big new sunspot group is emerging over the sun's northeastern limb. It is crackling with C-class solar flares and could soon pose a threat for stronger M-flares. With a primary dark core twice as large as Earth, the sunspot is an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. We recommend the projection method. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text. THE THERMOSPHERE IS HEATING UP: Solar Cycle 25 is intensifying--and Earth's upper atmosphere is responding. "The Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI) is going up rapidly right now," reports Linda Hunt of Science Systems and Applications, Inc. "It has nearly tripled in the past year." TCI is a number published daily by NASA, which tells us how hot Earth's upper atmosphere is. The thermosphere, our atmosphere's highest layer, literally touches space and is a sort of "first responder" to solar activity. Hunt created this plot showing how TCI has unfolded during the last 7 solar cycles. Solar Cycle 25 (shown in blue) is just getting started: "So far Solar Cycle 25 is well ahead of the pace of Solar Cycle 24," notes Hunt. If this trend continues, the thermosphere could soon hit a 20-year high in temperature. Before we go any farther, a word of caution: This does not mean Earth is about to heat up. The thermosphere is hundreds of kilometers above our heads. Here on the planet's surface we do not feel its heat; summer days are no warmer when TCI is "hot." As Dr. Marty Mlynczak of NASA notes, "energy driving the climate system near Earth's surface is hundreds of thousands of times greater than in the thermosphere." As far as we know, cyclical warming and cooling of the thermosphere by the solar cycle does not affect climate. Nevertheless, the thermosphere is important. When it heats up, as it is doing now, it also puffs up. Think of a marshmallow held over a campfire. The thermosphere can expand upward so much it actually touches Earth-orbiting satellites. Almost 40 Starlink satellites fell out of the sky earlier this year as a result of aerodynamic drag up there. TCI might also have some predictive value. Hunt's plot shows that the index is on an upward trajectory that most closely mimics Solar Cycle 20, which peaked back in the 1970s. Solar Cycle 20 was an above average solar cycle with plenty of solar activity. Coincidentally, a new prediction for Solar Cycle 25 based on the arrival of the Termination Event suggests the same thing: 25 could be the new 20. If this turns out to be true, Solar Cycle 25 would be stronger than its immediate predecessor, weak Solar Cycle 24. You can follow the progress of TCI as Solar Cycle 25 unfolds. It is published every day right here on Spaceweather.com. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter STAR TREK WINE STOPPER: It's the most far-out wine stopper ever! The USS Enterprise hitched a ride to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon. Here is the starship-shaped stopper floating 105,563 feet above the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains of central California: You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these must-have bar accessories to support their cosmic ray research program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the stopper in flight, telling the story of its trip to the edge of space and back again. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Aurora 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 Mar 24, 2022, the network reported 3 fireballs. (3 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, 2022 there were 2271 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2022 FD | 2022-Mar-19 | 1.4 LD | 3.7 | 22 | 2016 FZ12 | 2022-Mar-19 | 2.2 LD | 8.3 | 16 | 2022 DX | 2022-Mar-19 | 8.5 LD | 1.5 | 8 | 2022 ER5 | 2022-Mar-20 | 2.1 LD | 12.3 | 26 | 2022 FP | 2022-Mar-20 | 18.3 LD | 15.4 | 47 | 2022 EQ6 | 2022-Mar-20 | 7.6 LD | 9 | 21 | 2022 FN | 2022-Mar-20 | 9.9 LD | 11.9 | 15 | 2022 EE4 | 2022-Mar-21 | 18.1 LD | 16.9 | 32 | 2022 DG3 | 2022-Mar-21 | 18.3 LD | 7.2 | 37 | 2022 FO | 2022-Mar-21 | 11.5 LD | 7.9 | 13 | 2020 SQ | 2022-Mar-21 | 2.8 LD | 6 | 12 | 2022 FJ | 2022-Mar-22 | 8.2 LD | 9.2 | 19 | 2022 EA5 | 2022-Mar-23 | 14.9 LD | 8 | 19 | 2022 FC | 2022-Mar-23 | 1.8 LD | 16.8 | 21 | 2013 BO76 | 2022-Mar-24 | 13.3 LD | 13.8 | 271 | 2022 FH | 2022-Mar-25 | 4.1 LD | 14.8 | 19 | 2011 GE3 | 2022-Mar-26 | 7.6 LD | 7 | 22 | 2012 FX35 | 2022-Mar-26 | 13.7 LD | 5.9 | 25 | 2022 FE | 2022-Mar-28 | 9 LD | 7.2 | 15 | 2022 EL5 | 2022-Mar-29 | 7.1 LD | 3 | 12 | 2010 GD35 | 2022-Mar-29 | 17.7 LD | 12.5 | 43 | 2020 FW5 | 2022-Mar-30 | 8.9 LD | 13.1 | 27 | 2022 EK1 | 2022-Mar-30 | 19 LD | 7.6 | 42 | 2022 DX4 | 2022-Mar-31 | 16.7 LD | 6 | 39 | 2007 FF1 | 2022-Apr-01 | 19.4 LD | 12.8 | 155 | 2022 FQ | 2022-Apr-02 | 8.1 LD | 10.3 | 45 | 2021 GN1 | 2022-Apr-02 | 14.4 LD | 14.3 | 19 | 2016 GW221 | 2022-Apr-02 | 9.8 LD | 5.9 | 41 | 2022 FL | 2022-Apr-03 | 8.7 LD | 7.3 | 19 | 2022 EN2 | 2022-Apr-04 | 18.7 LD | 5.6 | 39 | 2012 TV | 2022-Apr-05 | 19.2 LD | 18.1 | 32 | 2020 GH1 | 2022-Apr-09 | 16.8 LD | 7.2 | 28 | 2017 TO2 | 2022-Apr-10 | 17.9 LD | 11.6 | 78 | 363599 | 2022-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 221 | 2020 TQ6 | 2022-Apr-18 | 13.4 LD | 15.4 | 43 | 2017 UR2 | 2022-Apr-22 | 19.4 LD | 9.3 | 10 | 2020 VN1 | 2022-Apr-25 | 19.3 LD | 2.3 | 9 | 418135 | 2022-Apr-28 | 8.5 LD | 10.4 | 443 | 2017 XO2 | 2022-May-01 | 18.8 LD | 12.4 | 118 | 2017 HG1 | 2022-May-04 | 18.2 LD | 6 | 11 | 467460 | 2022-May-09 | 14.9 LD | 11.3 | 513 | 2019 JE | 2022-May-11 | 4.9 LD | 7.2 | 20 | 2012 UX68 | 2022-May-15 | 2.8 LD | 8.2 | 54 | 388945 | 2022-May-15 | 15 LD | 8.2 | 287 | 2013 UX | 2022-May-17 | 16.8 LD | 16.3 | 141 | 2021 WY | 2022-May-18 | 16.9 LD | 9 | 65 | 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 | | Going above and beyond to provide the best homes listings in the Comox real estate market to keep you up to date and informed | | 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. 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