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A BIG SUNSPOT IS EMERGING: A new and apparently large sunspot is emerging over the sun's southeastern limb. Amateur astronomers with solar telescopes should point their optics right here to see what is coming. This is the same active region that produced a dramatic explosion from the farside of the sun on Feb. 7th. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
STRANGE TIDES IN THE PLASMASPHERE: Tides are one of the oldest phenomena known to physics. Ocean waters rise and fall like clockwork in response to the gravitational pull of the sun and Moon. There's nothing surprising about tides.
Yet, researchers studying tides have just found a big surprise. There are tides in Earth's plasmasphere, and they are very strange. The discovery was published in the Jan 26th edition of Nature Physics.
The plasmasphere is a lopsided donut of cold plasma inside Earth's magnetic field. It is created by leakage from the top of Earth's atmosphere (the ionosphere). The outer surface of the plasmasphere is called "the plasmapause"--and that is where the tides have been found.
"We can think of the plasmapause as the surface of a 'plasma ocean' surrounding Earth," says one of the lead authors Quanqi Shi of Shandong University. "Using a 40-year database of satellite observations, we report the first identification of lunar tides on the surface of this plasma ocean."
It is not surprising that Moon's gravity would stretch and modulate the shape of the plasmasphere. After all, the plasmasphere is made of matter, and matter responds to gravity. But the response is not what the researchers expected.
Shi explains: "Interestingly, the lunar plasmaspheric tide forms a few percent bulge that is offset 90 degrees ahead of the Earth-Moon axis, which is significantly different from the high tide in Earth's liquid oceans." This inexplicable offset was verified by nearly 36,000 plasmapause crossings by various spacecraft over almost four solar cycles from 1977 to 2015.
Above: Sample images of the plasmasphere taken by NASA's IMAGE spacecraft (left) and China's Chang’e-3 spacecraft (right). [extended caption] [source]
What's going on? The researchers aren't certain, but they believe gravity and electromagnetism may have joined forces to produce a new kind of tidal effect.
Space physicists have long known that the Moon's gravity affects winds in Earth's ionized upper atmosphere. This means the Moon can actually modify electrical currents in the ionosphere, altering electromagnetic fields. The research team looked at data from NASA's Van Allen Probes and found that, indeed, electric fields reaching up into the plasmasphere appear to be modulated by lunar tides. Computer models suggest that these fields can shift the bulge to a 90 degree offset position and explain its daily and monthly variations.
"Our discovery of this plasma tidal effect may indicate a fundamental interaction mechanism in the Earth-Moon system that has not been previously considered," says Shi. "Understanding this phenomenon could lead to better forecasts of space weather and improved safety for spacecraft and satellites."
For more information about these strange tides, please read the team's original research.
SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Two days ago, sunspot AR3213 didn't even exist. Now it stretches almost 100,000 km across the surface of the sun with at least two dark cores larger than Earth. The fast-growing spot is crackling with solar flares. The strongest so far, an M6-class flare on Feb 7th (2307 UTC), caused a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean:
Mariners and ham radio operators around the Pacific may have noticed unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz for at least an hour after the flare.
This explosion did not produce a CME. However, future explosions might. The sunspot has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong flares; NOAA forecasters say there is a 25% chance of M-flares and a 5% chance of X-flares on Feb. 8th. The sunspot is almost directly facing Earth, so stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
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18K GOLD CUPID'S COMPASS: Are you looking for a romantic gift? Consider Cupid's Compass. This premuim 18K gold-filled pendant flew to the stratosphere on Jan. 6th onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $259.95. Engraved with the words "I'd be lost without you", the hypoallergenic pendant has a 5-star cubic zirconia crystal in the middle surrounded by a ring of equally high-grade 5A cubic zirconia nuggets. It is a visually striking pendant that makes a once-in-a-lifetime Valentine's, anniversary or birthday gift.
The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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 Feb 08 2023, the network reported 2 fireballs.
(2 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 February 8, 2023 there were 2328 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 BR5 | 2023-Feb-03 | 10.9 LD | 7.9 | 11 |
| 367789 | 2023-Feb-03 | 4.7 LD | 9.9 | 157 |
| 2010 LK34 | 2023-Feb-03 | 10.3 LD | 26.9 | 141 |
| 2023 BN6 | 2023-Feb-04 | 2 LD | 7.5 | 32 |
| 2020 OO1 | 2023-Feb-04 | 4.8 LD | 7.7 | 19 |
| 2023 BO7 | 2023-Feb-04 | 14.3 LD | 5.1 | 13 |
| 2023 BZ7 | 2023-Feb-04 | 12.1 LD | 9.3 | 21 |
| 2023 BC4 | 2023-Feb-04 | 16.2 LD | 11.6 | 56 |
| 2023 BG4 | 2023-Feb-05 | 17.2 LD | 10.4 | 31 |
| 2023 BT1 | 2023-Feb-06 | 16.9 LD | 8.8 | 30 |
| 2023 CC | 2023-Feb-06 | 3.9 LD | 9 | 22 |
| 2022 YO6 | 2023-Feb-06 | 12.1 LD | 13.4 | 159 |
| 2023 CO | 2023-Feb-06 | 6 LD | 6.6 | 35 |
| 2023 BU7 | 2023-Feb-08 | 1.3 LD | 1.7 | 3 |
| 2023 BS | 2023-Feb-08 | 19.4 LD | 10.9 | 35 |
| 2023 BO8 | 2023-Feb-08 | 4.2 LD | 6.6 | 16 |
| 2022 CX1 | 2023-Feb-09 | 17.4 LD | 13.2 | 14 |
| 2023 BC8 | 2023-Feb-11 | 15.5 LD | 14 | 51 |
| 2021 EP4 | 2023-Feb-13 | 19 LD | 6.1 | 5 |
| 199145 | 2023-Feb-16 | 12 LD | 24.6 | 770 |
| 2022 RG | 2023-Feb-16 | 8.2 LD | 3 | 25 |
| 2020 DG4 | 2023-Feb-17 | 1.4 LD | 6.9 | 8 |
| 2020 CX1 | 2023-Feb-19 | 17.4 LD | 7.7 | 53 |
| 37638 | 2023-Feb-21 | 17 LD | 11.1 | 493 |
| 2023 AA2 | 2023-Feb-22 | 17.4 LD | 10.1 | 133 |
| 2012 DK31 | 2023-Feb-27 | 12.6 LD | 15.5 | 143 |
| 2006 BE55 | 2023-Feb-28 | 9.4 LD | 13.3 | 145 |
| 2021 QW | 2023-Mar-03 | 13.9 LD | 12.1 | 79 |
| 2017 BM123 | 2023-Mar-03 | 12.1 LD | 7.8 | 61 |
| 2007 ED125 | 2023-Mar-03 | 11.7 LD | 13.1 | 224 |
| 2015 EG | 2023-Mar-04 | 13.9 LD | 10.6 | 27 |
| 2023 BK5 | 2023-Mar-05 | 17.8 LD | 8.4 | 62 |
| 535844 | 2023-Mar-07 | 10.5 LD | 7.7 | 149 |
| 2020 FQ | 2023-Mar-09 | 14 LD | 6.3 | 13 |
| 2020 FV4 | 2023-Mar-13 | 17.6 LD | 8.2 | 30 |
| 2023 CM | 2023-Mar-15 | 10.6 LD | 13.8 | 190 |
| 2018 UQ1 | 2023-Mar-17 | 10.7 LD | 11.7 | 143 |
| 2016 WH | 2023-Mar-19 | 18.1 LD | 11.8 | 14 |
| 2018 FE3 | 2023-Mar-21 | 10.1 LD | 5.4 | 13 |
| 2022 YK4 | 2023-Mar-29 | 11.9 LD | 2.3 | 25 |
| 2017 SE12 | 2023-Mar-30 | 5.2 LD | 8.4 | 15 |
| 2016 GH1 | 2023-Mar-30 | 7.7 LD | 5.8 | 11 |
| 2022 GO3 | 2023-Apr-02 | 17 LD | 11.6 | 15 |
| 2021 GN1 | 2023-Apr-02 | 17.7 LD | 14.2 | 18 |
| 2018 FD | 2023-Apr-07 | 17.9 LD | 8.2 | 47 |
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 |
| | 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 |
| | the underlying science of space weather |
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