Directly under the Arctic Circle! Marianne's Arctic Xpress in Tromsø offers fjord, whale and wildlife tours by day, aurora tours by night. Book Now and get a 10% discount on combo day and night adventures. | | | COMET LANDING ON FRIDAY: On Friday, Sept. 30th, Europe's Rosetta spacecraft will deliberately crash land on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, ending the probe's two year mission in orbit around the comet's nucleus. With cameras and other instruments taking data until the last moment, Rosetta will descend into a mysterious region known as Ma'at home to several "active pits," which are spewing jets of gas and dust into space. Rosetta's death plunge could be exciting, indeed. NASA TV will cover the event live starting at 3:15 a.m.PDT. Tune in! GEOMAGNETIC STORMS CONTINUE: G1-class geomagnetic storms are ringing Earth's poles on Sept. 29th as a high-speed (600+ km/s) stream of solar wind continues to buffet our planet's magnetic field. "We have seen auroras here in Iceland for 5 nights in a row," reports Olivier Staiger, who took this picture of tourists enjoying the lights last night: 
"For the past five days I've been guiding a small private aurora chase tour for the president of a local astronomical society," he says. "We hit the jackpot right on the day they arrived." 5 nights in a row? Make that 6.... More polar auroras are likely tonight as the solar wind continues to blow. If you live near the Arctic Circle, go outside after nightfall. Otherwise, monitor the realtime photo gallery for sightings. Free: Aurora Alerts Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery CELEBRATING AN ANNIVERSARY AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus wish to congratulate Tommy Tat-Fung Tse and his wife Annie. Today is their 20th wedding annversary! To surprise Annie, Tommy sponsored a cosmic ray balloon and used it to fly this special anniversary card to the edge of space: 
"With Love from Space, Mei Mei," says Tommy. "Atalie, Bethany, Curtis and I love you forever!" The card was painted by their daughter Bethany, an art major. It flew to an altitude of 34.7 km (113,845 ft), and parachuted back to Earth on Sept. 11, 2016. In addition to this snapshot, and the card itself, Annie is receiving a complete HD video of the flight. Tommy's anniversary gift to Annie was also a gift to our radiation monitoring program. His sponsorship of the Sept. 11th balloon flight made it possible for us to launch an array of cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere. Thank you, Tommy! Readers, if you would like to contribute to a growing body of knowledge about atmospheric radiation and see your own photo or card at the edge of space, please contact Dr. Tony Phillips to sponsor a flight. Sponsorships are currently available for flights scheduled on Oct. 7th, Oct. 18th, and Oct. 27th. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery
| | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
Updated: Sept. 29 2016 // Next Flight: Oct. 1, 2016
Sept. 20, 2016: Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here: 
This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. 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. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. What is this all about? 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 12% since 2015: 
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 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 data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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. 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 Sep. 29, 2016, the network reported 14 fireballs.
(13 sporadics, 1 Southern Taurid)  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 September 29, 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. | | 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 | | | a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com | | | the underlying science of space weather |  | Find homes for sale in Ocala, Orlando and Tampa with the #1 real estate company in Central Florida Local Realty Service | | Visit Need An Eitzah for all your questions and forum discussions on Jewish life. | | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | 
