It's waiting for you: The most successful Aurora Photo Tour on Earth! 100% success rate 4 years in a row and winner of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Award. Join LapplandMedia's aurora tours in Abisko, Swedish Lapland! | | | THE SUNSPOTS ARE BACK: Two tiny sunspots have appeared, breaking a 12-day string of spotless suns. Nevertheless, solar activity remains very low. NOAA forecasters say there is no more than a 1% chance of solar flares on July 6th. Solar flare alerts: text or voice NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS DESCEND TO MID-LATITUDES: Noctilucent clouds in France are rare. Yet photographer Lericque Simon has seen them two nights in a row. He captured these electric-blue waves rippling over Wancourt, a small town in Pas-de-Calais, on July 6th: 
"Yesterday, I asked for more noctilucent clouds, and today I was rewarded!" says Simon. "The NLCs this morning were much larger and brighter than the day before with spectacular waves." Observers saw them in other European countries, too: Sweden, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Romania. The sighting in Romania is significant because of its latitude--only 46 degrees. This means the clouds have spread south to mid-latitudes. "It was my first time seeing noctilucent clouds in real life," says Stefan Leahu of Cluj, Romania. "What a wonderful display!" When noctilucent clouds first appeared in the 19th century, you had to travel to near-Arctic latitudes to see them. In recent years, however, they have intensified and spread with sightings as far south as Colorado and Kansas. There is mounting evidence that this is a result of climate change. The frequency of sightings in Europe suggests that electric blue ripples could soon appear over the USA. Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped ~10 degrees below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud. Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery MAGNETIC CANYON ON THE SUN: A canyon-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere is spewing solar wind into space. The structure stretches more than 700,000 km from end to end, as shown in this extreme ultraviolet image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: 
This is called a "coronal hole," a place in the sun's atmosphere where magnetic fields peel back and allow hot gas to escape. Coronal holes are not unusual; they appear on the sun several times a month. This one, however, is much larger than most. Update: NOAA forecasters say that solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could reach Earth as early as July 7th, with a 50% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms when it arrives. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, especially in the southern hemisphere where dark winter skies favor visibility. Aurora alerts: text or voice Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery ASTROARTS AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launch helium balloons to the stratosphere. Their purpose is to monitor cosmic rays, which are intensifying as the solar cycle crashes. All that helium costs money, and our research flights depend on sponsors such as AstroArts--shown here at the edge of space on June 29th: 
AstroArts' generous donation of $500 not only propelled their 25th anniversary display to the edge of space, but also added another crucial data point to the growing record of atmospheric radiation. Thank you, AstroArts! Readers, if you would like to send an item of your own to the top of Earth's atmosphere, you can book a flight with as little as two week's notice. Contact Dr. Tony Phillips to become a sponsor! Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Sprite 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 Jul. 6, 2016, the network reported 31 fireballs.
(31 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 July 6, 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. | | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere | | Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 | Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N) | | Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month. | | Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr) | | Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr) | | Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr) | | Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr) | | Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr) | | Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr) | | Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr) | These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more. 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. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015: 
Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level. Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours. 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 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 | | | the underlying science of space weather |  | Tobi -- Proud Supporter of Space Education! | | Claim your tax refund with this UK tax rebate company and get back your overpaid tax. | | Enjoy this fabulous range of leather sofas from a leader in the UK sofa manufacturer industry.. | | 
