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CME TARGETS VENUS AND THE PARKER PROBE: The sun just hurled a CME straight toward Venus. According to a NASA model, it struck the planet during the early hours of Oct. 21st and, at the same time, engulfed NASA's Parker Solar Probe. Why are the two so close together? The spacecraft is plunging toward Venus for a flyby on Nov. 6th that will bend its orbit toward the sun for a record-breaking close approach on Christmas Eve. Full story.
A HEADLESS COMET FOR HALLOWEEN? Last last week, Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) suddenly increased in brightness by 2 magnitudes, buoying the hopes of astronomers who thought the sungrazer might become a Great Comet in late October. Just as quickly, it dashed them. Last night, the comet abruptly faded and seemingly lost its gaseous atmosphere.
An outburst of Comet ATLAS on Oct. 19th. Credit: Michael Jaeger (Farm Tivoli, Namibia)
"The comet has almost certainly nearly fully disintegrated," says Qicheng Zhang of the Lowell Observatory. "There's a small chance it could very briefly spike in brightness in the next day or two as disintegrating comets occasionally go out with multiple closely-spaced outbursts. There's probably not much left of it's primary nucleus, though."
Now for the good news: The comet's crumbling corpse will enter the field of view of SOHO coronagraphs on Oct. 26th (1400 UT), and it could put on a good show for the spacecraft's cameras.
"The comet will become fairly bright in the SOHO coronagraphs as any rocky material in the debris field starts sublimating," says Zhang. "I expect peak brightness to occur 12 hours before perihelion (0.008 AU on Oct. 28th)."
There's another tantalizing possibility. If any rocky fragments hiding in the current debris field are larger than ~100 meters, they could provide raw material for a bright tail that swings around the sun and becomes visible in the night sky after perihelion. If so, astrophotographers would be able to photograph a "headless comet" for Halloween. Stay tuned!
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COMET TSUCHINSHAN-ATLAS AND THE MILKY WAY: Now that the bright Moon has left the evening sky, photographers are able to see a rare juxtaposition of two celestial wonders: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS and the Milky Way. Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau sends this picture from Raphael, Argentina:
"On Oct. 19th, a timeworn windmill stood silhouetted against the sky as night began to fall," says Poupeau. "Above it, Comet Tsuchinshan/ATLAS—a fleeting visitor that may never return—and the bright planet Venus shared the horizon with the Milky Way. Each element came together in a moment that connected the earthly with the infinite universe, where the ephemeral meets the eternal."
more images: from David Kriegler of Gulf Shores, Alabama; from Chris Cook in the Mojave Desert of California;
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THE NEW MOONCAT: On Oct. 11th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon into a severe geomagnetic storm. Their mission: To discover the storm's effect on atmospheric radiation. The New Mooncat went along for the ride.
You can have it for $199.95. Wrapped around a circular stone of polished black onyx, the golden cat floated through the stratosphere for almost 3 hours while radiation sensors in the payload measured the storm. The pendant comes with a greeting card showing the cat in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back.
The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling space jewelry to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Don't wait for Christmas--get yours now!
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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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 0ct 20, 2024, the network reported 20 fireballs.
(10 sporadics, 6 Orionids, 3 Leonis Minorids, 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 October 21, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2024 SD2 | 2024-Oct-17 | 10.1 LD | 6.1 | 26 |
| 2019 UH14 | 2024-Oct-17 | 8 LD | 10.3 | 62 |
| 2024 TC15 | 2024-Oct-17 | 4.8 LD | 9.2 | 15 |
| 2024 RV50 | 2024-Oct-18 | 19.4 LD | 15.6 | 227 |
| 2024 UF | 2024-Oct-19 | 0.9 LD | 21.3 | 19 |
| 2024 TY21 | 2024-Oct-19 | 3.5 LD | 15.5 | 13 |
| 2024 SH1 | 2024-Oct-20 | 6.4 LD | 2.7 | 15 |
| 2024 UE | 2024-Oct-20 | 2.4 LD | 22 | 19 |
| 2024 SE4 | 2024-Oct-22 | 6.9 LD | 2.2 | 10 |
| 2015 HM1 | 2024-Oct-24 | 14.4 LD | 10.9 | 32 |
| 2024 TP17 | 2024-Oct-24 | 12.1 LD | 5.8 | 54 |
| 363305 | 2024-Oct-24 | 11.8 LD | 4.9 | 186 |
| 2024 TR6 | 2024-Oct-24 | 14.8 LD | 15.2 | 48 |
| 2021 UE2 | 2024-Oct-24 | 13.6 LD | 7.1 | 40 |
| 2023 TG14 | 2024-Oct-24 | 6.6 LD | 6.9 | 24 |
| 2024 TB2 | 2024-Oct-26 | 3.1 LD | 2.9 | 35 |
| 2007 UT3 | 2024-Oct-26 | 17.7 LD | 10.4 | 23 |
| 2016 BF1 | 2024-Oct-27 | 10.4 LD | 9.2 | 30 |
| 2024 SE26 | 2024-Oct-28 | 9.8 LD | 12.6 | 106 |
| 2020 WG | 2024-Oct-28 | 8.7 LD | 9.4 | 160 |
| 2024 SU13 | 2024-Oct-29 | 10.9 LD | 6 | 32 |
| 2021 CV1 | 2024-Oct-30 | 14.4 LD | 23.6 | 38 |
| 2023 KX3 | 2024-Oct-31 | 18.8 LD | 2.4 | 25 |
| 2022 UD21 | 2024-Oct-31 | 11.4 LD | 11.8 | 27 |
| 2016 VA | 2024-Nov-01 | 1.5 LD | 21.2 | 11 |
| 2024 TX13 | 2024-Nov-03 | 1.9 LD | 7.7 | 41 |
| 2020 VX1 | 2024-Nov-03 | 19.4 LD | 7.8 | 93 |
| 2023 VS | 2024-Nov-04 | 15.2 LD | 4.3 | 4 |
| 2024 TD22 | 2024-Nov-05 | 8 LD | 11.9 | 50 |
| 2022 JM | 2024-Nov-06 | 19.7 LD | 6.2 | 6 |
| 2019 WB7 | 2024-Nov-11 | 17.3 LD | 5.7 | 43 |
| 2020 UL3 | 2024-Nov-12 | 4.1 LD | 10.5 | 80 |
| 2020 AB2 | 2024-Nov-13 | 18.9 LD | 7.2 | 14 |
| 2019 VU5 | 2024-Nov-14 | 12 LD | 23.3 | 46 |
| 2019 VL5 | 2024-Nov-14 | 9.6 LD | 8.5 | 24 |
| 2023 WK3 | 2024-Nov-18 | 16.1 LD | 14.5 | 272 |
| 2012 KO11 | 2024-Nov-20 | 6.2 LD | 9.4 | 43 |
| 2020 VX4 | 2024-Nov-20 | 10.5 LD | 10.5 | 11 |
| 2009 WB105 | 2024-Nov-25 | 15.1 LD | 18.9 | 71 |
| 2006 WB | 2024-Nov-26 | 2.3 LD | 4.2 | 98 |
| 2018 DC4 | 2024-Nov-29 | 18.8 LD | 4.5 | 12 |
| 2019 JN2 | 2024-Nov-30 | 9.4 LD | 7.7 | 25 |
| 2021 XZ | 2024-Dec-02 | 13.2 LD | 7.4 | 8 |
| 447755 | 2024-Dec-03 | 14.4 LD | 12.2 | 402 |
| 2020 XR | 2024-Dec-04 | 5.8 LD | 12.3 | 388 |
| 2021 WA5 | 2024-Dec-05 | 9.8 LD | 5.9 | 12 |
| 2018 XU3 | 2024-Dec-11 | 16.8 LD | 10.8 | 28 |
| 2007 XB23 | 2024-Dec-11 | 1.2 LD | 4.8 | 14 |
| 2022 YO1 | 2024-Dec-17 | 2 LD | 14.3 | 4 |
| 2020 XY4 | 2024-Dec-19 | 12.8 LD | 8.8 | 14 |
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. | | 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 (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-year low:
What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, 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. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking 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 graph labeled "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 |
| | current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. |
| | Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
| | 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 |
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