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SUNSPOT UPDATE: Huge sunspot AR2673, which materialized with shocking speed over the weekend, is seething with activity. Today in Romania, solar photographer Maximilian Teodorescu captured this snapshot of plasma currents surging inside the sunspot's magnetic canopy--apparently on the verge of an explosion:
"It's magnetic madness!" says Teodorescu. "What a complex and beautiful sunspot group!"
AR2673 has already produced two M1-class solar flares on Sept.4th and a bigger explosion may be in the offing. Stay tuned. Free: Solar Flare Alerts
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
SUNSPOT SURPRISE: What a difference a day can make. On Saturday, Sept. 2nd, sunspot AR2673 was an unremarkable speck largely ignored by forecasters. On Sunday, Sept. 3rd, it underwent a furious transformation. Play this movie and watch what happens to the tiny sunspot:
AR2673 expanded more than 10-fold in a single day, suddenly becoming one of the largest sunspots of the year. It has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong M-class solar flares. Any such explosion today would be geoeffective as the active region is directly facing Earth. Possible outcomes include moderately-strong shortwave radio blackouts, Earth-directed CMEs and geomagnetic storms later this week.
Amateur astronomers with safely-filtered solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
ROSE AMETHYST CRYSTAL ECLIPSE PENDANTS: On Aug. 21st during the Great American Solar Eclipse, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched 11 space weather balloons from the path of totality. They aimed to photograph the Moon's shadow from the stratosphere--and they succeeded. As a fundraiser, some of the balloons carried jewelry. Here is a rose amethyst crystal pendant entering the Moon's shadow more than 90,000 feet above the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon:
During the 2.5 hour flight, the pendants were wrapped in the Moon's shadow for more than two minutes, experiencing a spooky darkness colder than -50 C.
You can have one for $149.95. Each crystal pendant comes with a unique gift card showing the jewelry passing through the Moon's shadow and floating at the top of Earth's atmosphere. The interior of the card tells the story of the flight and confirms that this gift has been to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
AURORAS VS. TWILIGHT: Sky watchers around the Arctic Circle are noticing a mix of colors that they haven't seen in a while: twilight blue plus aurora green. As summer comes to an end and the midnight sun sets, Northern Lights are back. B.Art Braafhart sends this picture taken last night from Salla in the Lapland of northern Finland:
"Very bright auroras appeared around midnight," says Braafhart. "They remained visible even later when the sun began to come up again. Superb displays!"
There was no geomagnetic storm underway when Braafhart took this picture. Auroras appeared anyway. This is because we are only weeks away from the northern autumnal equinox and auroras love equinoxes. At this time of year even a gentle gust of solar wind can spark a fine display. Free: Aurora Alerts
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora 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 Sep. 4, 2017, the network reported 15 fireballs.
(15 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 September 4, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2017 QN1 | 2017-Aug-30 | 5.5 LD | 10.5 | 17 |
| 2017 QR35 | 2017-Aug-30 | 6.4 LD | 6.9 | 31 |
| 2017 QP2 | 2017-Aug-30 | 10.1 LD | 7.5 | 33 |
| 2017 QQ1 | 2017-Aug-31 | 4.8 LD | 10.2 | 39 |
| 3122 | 2017-Sep-01 | 18.5 LD | 13.5 | 5376 |
| 2017 QT17 | 2017-Sep-01 | 17.3 LD | 10 | 55 |
| 2017 QG18 | 2017-Sep-01 | 4.4 LD | 6.6 | 13 |
| 2017 QV32 | 2017-Sep-02 | 12 LD | 11 | 21 |
| 2017 QR32 | 2017-Sep-02 | 2.8 LD | 18 | 17 |
| 2017 QB35 | 2017-Sep-03 | 0.9 LD | 4.1 | 5 |
| 2017 RB | 2017-Sep-06 | 3.8 LD | 5.2 | 9 |
| 2017 OP68 | 2017-Sep-10 | 20 LD | 11.7 | 287 |
| 2017 QK18 | 2017-Sep-11 | 14.8 LD | 7.8 | 46 |
| 2014 RC | 2017-Sep-11 | 15.1 LD | 8.9 | 16 |
| 2017 PR25 | 2017-Sep-23 | 17.9 LD | 13.5 | 241 |
| 1989 VB | 2017-Sep-29 | 7.9 LD | 6.3 | 408 |
| 2012 TC4 | 2017-Oct-12 | 0.1 LD | 7.6 | 16 |
| 2005 TE49 | 2017-Oct-13 | 8.5 LD | 11.2 | 16 |
| 2013 UM9 | 2017-Oct-15 | 17 LD | 7.8 | 39 |
| 2006 TU7 | 2017-Oct-18 | 18.7 LD | 13.3 | 148 |
| 171576 | 2017-Oct-22 | 5.8 LD | 21.2 | 677 |
| 2003 UV11 | 2017-Oct-31 | 15 LD | 24.5 | 447 |
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 |
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 13% 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.
| | The official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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| | 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 |
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