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INEFFECTIVE CME IMPACT: As predicted, a CME struck Earth's magnetic field on June 10th (1725 UT). However, the weak impact was ineffective; it did not cause a geomagnetic storm. The CME was hurled into space by an M9.7-class flare from sunspot AR3664/3697 on June 8th. CME impact alerts: SMS Text
3 MILLON YEARS AGO, AN INTERSTELLAR CLOUD HIT EARTH: Today, Earth is in a safe space. Like all the other planets in the Solar System, it is cocooned within the sun's magnetic field--a giant bubble called "the heliosphere." The heliosphere protects us from dangerous things in the Galaxy like interstellar clouds and cosmic rays.
3 million years ago, the heliosphere may have collapsed. A new paper just published in Nature Astronomy argues that a dense cloud of gas hit the Solar System, compressing the heliosphere to a fraction of its usual size.
"Earth suddenly was outside the protective bubble," says the paper's lead author Merav Opher, a fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and professor at Boston University. "Earth and all the planets were exposed to massive amounts of hydrogen, increased radiation, and interstellar dust."
Researchers have long wondered if something happened to Earth 2 to 3 million years ago. Deep-sea sediments, Antarctic snow, and lunar samples from that time period all contain extraterrestrial radioactive isotopes (iron-60 and plutonium-244). The peak is quite striking.
A nearby supernova might have peppered Earth with these substances, but Opher and colleagues had a different idea. In the constellation Lynx there is a ribbon-shaped cluster of dense interstellar clouds. Using a velocity model for the clouds, they found that the sun and at least one of the clouds may have crossed paths 2 to 3 million years ago
"We show that during the cloud's passage, the heliosphere shrinks to a scale of 0.22 AU, smaller than the Earth's orbit around the sun," says Opher. According to their simulation, the helioshere was compressed and stretched into a tadpole-like structure with Earth's orbit (red circle) on the outside:
There is some evidence that Earth cooled while it was outside the heliosphere. Deep in our oceans, fossils of tiny marine organisms known as foraminifera preserve ancient climate data. Oxygen isotopes in those fossils suggest the temperature dropped 2–3 million years ago. Could this be a result of interstellar gas and cosmic rays altering our atmosphere?
"This idea should be revisited with modern atmospheric modelling," the authors urge.
Eventually, the cloud passed and the heliosphere bounced back. "Earth was inside its protective bubble again," says Opher. It's a good place to be.
Want to learn more? Read the original research.
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STERLING SILVER GEOMAGNETIC CAT: On May 10, 2024, a CME slammed into Earth's magnetic field, sparking the biggest geomagnetic storm in 35 years. Moments later, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon directly into the storm. The Geomagnetic Cat Pendant went along for the ride:
This sterling silver feline floated through the stratosphere for 3 hours during the storm, gathering radiation data for the students' monitoring program. Later, when the sun set and the sky grew dark, red and green auroras danced above the Sierra Nevada mountains of California where the balloon was launched.
You can have it for $219.95. The pendant comes with a greeting card showing the cat in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime gift.
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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 Jun 11, 2024, the network reported 14 fireballs.
(13 sporadics, 1 Daytime Arietid)
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 June 11, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2024 LE1 | 2024-Jun-06 | 9.8 LD | 9.8 | 20 |
2024 LH1 | 2024-Jun-06 | 0 LD | 17.4 | 2 |
2021 LW3 | 2024-Jun-06 | 9.7 LD | 9.8 | 86 |
2024 KA1 | 2024-Jun-07 | 4.9 LD | 8.3 | 30 |
2024 LA | 2024-Jun-07 | 4.7 LD | 18.3 | 25 |
2024 LC | 2024-Jun-08 | 12.2 LD | 8.7 | 27 |
2024 LW2 | 2024-Jun-08 | 4.4 LD | 7.7 | 23 |
2024 LZ1 | 2024-Jun-09 | 4.1 LD | 9.1 | 19 |
2024 CR9 | 2024-Jun-11 | 19.2 LD | 7.4 | 451 |
2024 LD | 2024-Jun-11 | 12.1 LD | 10.7 | 21 |
2024 LV2 | 2024-Jun-11 | 12.3 LD | 28.2 | 77 |
2022 XC1 | 2024-Jun-12 | 16.5 LD | 6.5 | 21 |
2024 LZ2 | 2024-Jun-14 | 3.4 LD | 20.2 | 21 |
2024 LL1 | 2024-Jun-15 | 5.2 LD | 9.2 | 21 |
2024 LH3 | 2024-Jun-16 | 13 LD | 6.1 | 48 |
2024 LU1 | 2024-Jun-17 | 4.8 LD | 7.1 | 22 |
2022 WW11 | 2024-Jun-17 | 19.7 LD | 14.4 | 15 |
2024 KW1 | 2024-Jun-17 | 19.9 LD | 4 | 28 |
2024 KY1 | 2024-Jun-19 | 16.1 LD | 12.2 | 36 |
2024 LO2 | 2024-Jun-21 | 14.2 LD | 9.2 | 29 |
2024 LJ | 2024-Jun-22 | 8.9 LD | 18.5 | 70 |
2024 KN1 | 2024-Jun-23 | 14.7 LD | 4.6 | 28 |
2024 KJ | 2024-Jun-25 | 13.7 LD | 4.5 | 25 |
2019 NJ | 2024-Jun-27 | 17.2 LD | 10.1 | 66 |
415029 | 2024-Jun-27 | 17.3 LD | 25.9 | 2304 |
2022 MM1 | 2024-Jun-28 | 7.8 LD | 10.9 | 39 |
2010 XN | 2024-Jun-28 | 14.1 LD | 11.3 | 52 |
2022 HD1 | 2024-Jun-29 | 17.3 LD | 7.2 | 63 |
2017 MB3 | 2024-Jun-30 | 5 LD | 6.5 | 30 |
2024 JJ25 | 2024-Jun-30 | 10.5 LD | 9.4 | 117 |
2024 LJ2 | 2024-Jul-01 | 19.9 LD | 10.4 | 86 |
2022 BY39 | 2024-Jul-02 | 13.2 LD | 3 | 4 |
2024 LH | 2024-Jul-02 | 4.4 LD | 4.3 | 32 |
2024 KQ1 | 2024-Jul-04 | 14.9 LD | 6.9 | 57 |
2022 YS5 | 2024-Jul-11 | 11 LD | 5.8 | 38 |
2024 BY15 | 2024-Jul-16 | 16.2 LD | 0.7 | 16 |
2024 LY2 | 2024-Jul-23 | 12 LD | 7.8 | 89 |
2011 MW1 | 2024-Jul-25 | 10.1 LD | 8 | 120 |
2011 AM24 | 2024-Jul-26 | 16.8 LD | 6.2 | 281 |
523664 | 2024-Jul-28 | 14.9 LD | 23.7 | 680 |
2020 PN1 | 2024-Aug-02 | 18 LD | 5.5 | 29 |
2023 HB7 | 2024-Aug-05 | 14.6 LD | 6.1 | 32 |
2017 TU1 | 2024-Aug-05 | 10.1 LD | 10.1 | 22 |
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.
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