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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 648.4 km/sec
density: 2.9 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
1945 UT May24
24-hr: A0
1945 UT May24
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 24 May 07
Decaying sunspot 956 is all but gone. Meanwhile, a new, small sunspot may be forming near the eastern limb. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 12
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 22 May 2007
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no large spots on the farside of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 4 Unsettled
24-hr max: Kp= 6
Moderate
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Europe, Antarctica, USA
Credit: NOAA/POES
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.5 nT
Bz: 1.1 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated:Today at 2246 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about May 26th. Credit: STEREO-B Extreme Ultraviolet Imager
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2007 May 24 2203 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
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: 2007 May 24 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
40 %
40 %
MINOR
25 %
25 %
SEVERE
10 %
10 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
40 %
40 %
MINOR
25 %
25 %
SEVERE
15 %
15 %
What's up in Space
May 24, 2007
He already has a neck tie. This year give Dad something truly heavenly for Father's Day: SpaceWeather PHONE.

SOUTH POLE AURORAS: Last night a geomagnetic storm sparked bright auroras over Antarctica. "Luckily we don't have a problem with twilight as we are entering the darkness of winter," says Chantal Steyn of the South-African National Antarctic Expedition who took this picture. Conditions are favorable for more storming tonight: Sky watchers at high latitudes should be alert for auroras.

SOLAR SOUNDS: On May 19th at 12:52 Universal Time, a magnetic filament erupted on the sun. The blast sent shock waves billowing through the sun's atmosphere; those waves, in turn, generated strong Type II solar radio emissions. Amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft heard them in the loudspeaker of his 21 MHz ham receiver. Click on the image to listen:


Dynamic spectrum courtesy UFRO and RadioJove

"It was 6:52 am here in New Mexico, and the sun was just rising over the mountains," says Ashcraft. "I was lucky to catch the full power of the radio emission, which was peaking at the heart of my observing frequencies."

The sun has been remarkably "radio-active" lately. Want to tune in? Visit NASA's RadioJove site to learn how you can build your own radio telescope.

A TREE IN A DROPLET OF WATER: Recipe for a great photo: Splatter a pane of glass with droplets of water. Place the glass in front of a tree. Point a camera at the droplets and--click!


Photo details: Canon EOS 300D, ISO 200, 1/1000s

Photographer Guillaume Bertrand of Saint Laurent sur Sèvre, France, invented the recipe, followed it, and obtained the picture above on March 30, 2007. "I used a Canon EOS 300D digital camera on a tripod with ISO 200 and a 1/1000s exposure," he explains.

There's only one thing wrong with the picture. "It's upside down," he says. "I had to flip it over to make the tree limbs point toward the sky." Water droplets act as inverting lenses, so in the original photo the trees were trunks-up.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Mila Zinkova discovered you can fit an entire suspension bridge inside a raindrop. This photo captures the Golden Gate Bridge multiplied through the rain-splattered windshield of her car.

Near-Earth Asteroids
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 May 24, 2007 there were 862 potentially hazardous asteroids.
May 2007 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
1862 Apollo
May 8
72 LD
13
2.4 km
2007 JD
May 11
12 LD
18
100 m
2007 JZ2
May 14
7.0 LD
19
30 m
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.
Essential Links
NOAA Space Environment Center
  The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  From the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
  more links...
©2007, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
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