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INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an M-class solar flare today to 40% (plus a 10% chance of X-flares). Two sunspots, AR3140 and AR3141, have unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields. If either explodes, the flare will be geoeffective. Both sunspots are facing Earth. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
BLUEWALKER 3 SIGHTINGS: Evidence is mounting that AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 satellite has unfurled its its huge antenna. Multiple observers have seen the satellite shining like a 1st magnitude star--a 50-fold increase in brightness compared to just a few days ago. Paul Maley of Arizona saw it in bright morning twilight on Nov. 11th, and Gary Dowdle of Texas caught it just before sunrise on Nov. 12th:
"The satellite was very low in the northeastern sky, about 16.5 degrees above the horizon," says Dowdle. "Nevertheless, it was easily visible to the naked eye at magnitude +2 just below the handle of the Big Dipper."
Paul Maley saw it again on Sunday morning, Nov. 13th. "It came out of Earth's shadow at magnitude +3 then steadily brightened to magnitude +1," he says. "Its visual profile remains unchanged over the last 3 days. The spacecraft appears completely stable with no signs of tumbling."
BlueWalker 3 is a revolutionary communications satellite designed to provide cell phone service from space. To detect weak cell phone signals from Earth's surface it needs a very large antenna. BlueWalker 3's is about the size of a squash court:
Astronomers have worried that BlueWalker 3 could become one of the brightest objects in the night sky, reflecting bright beams of sunlight into telescopes on the ground below. Those fears have not been fully realized. If the satellite is really only as bright as a 1st magnitude star, then it would be no worse than, say, China's Tiangong space station or the ISS.
It may be too soon to relax, though. While this is only a single satellite for now, Bluewalker's maker AST SpaceMobile plans to launch more than 100 larger satellites called BlueBirds. These satellites could be more than twice the size of BlueWalker 3 and much brighter. Flocks of Bluebirds could ruin a lot of astronomical observations.
Set against this detriment to astronomy is the good these satellites could do by providing emergency services and cell phone connectivity to remote areas. AST SpaceMobile explains.
You can help monitor BlueWalker 3. Morning and evening flybys are currently happening over the USA. Check Heavens Above for local flyby times and let us know what you see.
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DOUBLE-V OVER THE MOON: This is rare during the day. It's super rare at night. When the Moon came up over the Netherlands on Nov. 12th, Peter Paul Hattinga Verschure saw a luminous double-V form in the sky:
"Shortly after moonrise this striking spot of light developed 22 degrees above the low Moon in the northeast," says Verschure. "It appeared to be the combination of two V-shaped arcs."
These are ice halos. The lower 'V' is a upper tangent arc created by moonlight shining through pencil-shaped ice crystals. The upper 'V' is a rare Parry arc created by similar kinds of ice crystals, but... To make the Parry arc, the crystals had to be horizontal, not rotate, and have two faces horizontal, too. It sounds improbable, and it is.
Parry arcs are rare even during the day when sunlight improves their visibility. They're almost unheard of at night. "I believe this kind of Parry arc by moonlite has never been seen before in the Netherlands," says Verschure.
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WHERE NO CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT HAS GONE BEFORE: You cannot buy a rare Capt. Kirk space ornament on Amazon. But you can get one from the Earth to Sky Store. On Oct 9, 2022, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched Capt. Kirk to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Here he is floating 109,620 feet high:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling Kirk ornaments to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Made by Hallmark in the 1990s, the ornament comes with a greeting card showing the captain of the Enterprise 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 Nov 13, 2022, the network reported 5 fireballs.
(2 sporadics, 1 northern Taurid, 1 Nov. I Draconid, 1 Nov. omega Orionid)
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 November 13, 2022 there were 2314 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2022 VY | 2022-Nov-08 | 3.1 LD | 10 | 10 |
| 2022 UK5 | 2022-Nov-08 | 14.3 LD | 5.2 | 44 |
| 2020 WD | 2022-Nov-08 | 3 LD | 6 | 8 |
| 2022 UC5 | 2022-Nov-08 | 6.1 LD | 12.9 | 37 |
| 2022 UV20 | 2022-Nov-09 | 7.7 LD | 8.4 | 21 |
| 2022 VT1 | 2022-Nov-10 | 16.5 LD | 9.1 | 27 |
| 2019 XS | 2022-Nov-10 | 16.7 LD | 11.9 | 60 |
| 2022 VN1 | 2022-Nov-10 | 2.7 LD | 11.9 | 33 |
| 2022 VM1 | 2022-Nov-11 | 6 LD | 13.9 | 18 |
| 2022 VP | 2022-Nov-11 | 8.1 LD | 5.1 | 19 |
| 2022 VO1 | 2022-Nov-11 | 3.5 LD | 6 | 15 |
| 2022 UV14 | 2022-Nov-11 | 10.8 LD | 7.6 | 19 |
| 2020 FC4 | 2022-Nov-12 | 19.3 LD | 13.3 | 78 |
| 2022 VE | 2022-Nov-13 | 11.3 LD | 9.6 | 31 |
| 2022 VL1 | 2022-Nov-13 | 1.2 LD | 8.7 | 15 |
| 2022 UH16 | 2022-Nov-14 | 14.8 LD | 9.8 | 22 |
| 2022 UP2 | 2022-Nov-14 | 10.6 LD | 6 | 34 |
| 2019 VL5 | 2022-Nov-15 | 8.5 LD | 8.1 | 24 |
| 2022 UD28 | 2022-Nov-16 | 11 LD | 11.5 | 32 |
| 2018 WH | 2022-Nov-16 | 2.5 LD | 7.7 | 4 |
| 2022 US14 | 2022-Nov-18 | 8.5 LD | 8.3 | 41 |
| 2022 VU1 | 2022-Nov-20 | 7 LD | 7.1 | 19 |
| 2022 VR1 | 2022-Nov-20 | 4 LD | 5.7 | 38 |
| 2022 VX | 2022-Nov-20 | 11.2 LD | 5.9 | 13 |
| 2019 OR1 | 2022-Nov-21 | 18.1 LD | 13.4 | 246 |
| 2022 VS1 | 2022-Nov-22 | 6.5 LD | 7.7 | 23 |
| 2005 LW3 | 2022-Nov-23 | 3 LD | 13.5 | 168 |
| 2022 VQ | 2022-Nov-27 | 7.6 LD | 8.2 | 23 |
| 2010 VQ | 2022-Dec-02 | 11.9 LD | 3.9 | 10 |
| 2009 HV58 | 2022-Dec-02 | 12.3 LD | 28.8 | 427 |
| 2022 UT8 | 2022-Dec-02 | 11.1 LD | 4.2 | 64 |
| 2017 QL33 | 2022-Dec-03 | 16 LD | 6.9 | 195 |
| 2022 VP1 | 2022-Dec-05 | 17.3 LD | 7.1 | 56 |
| 2019 XY | 2022-Dec-10 | 3.6 LD | 12.9 | 9 |
| 2003 YS70 | 2022-Dec-13 | 10.4 LD | 4.1 | 5 |
| 2019 XQ1 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.5 LD | 9.8 | 30 |
| 2018 XU3 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.8 LD | 10.3 | 30 |
| 2021 XS4 | 2022-Dec-14 | 14.5 LD | 9.7 | 23 |
| 2015 RN35 | 2022-Dec-15 | 1.8 LD | 5.9 | 84 |
| 2016 YE | 2022-Dec-18 | 18.6 LD | 4.8 | 23 |
| 2014 HK129 | 2022-Dec-20 | 6.7 LD | 11.6 | 214 |
| 2017 XQ60 | 2022-Dec-21 | 18.8 LD | 16 | 45 |
| 2022 UD9 | 2022-Dec-22 | 4.6 LD | 10.3 | 153 |
| 2022 RD2 | 2022-Dec-22 | 13.9 LD | 1.1 | 7 |
| 2013 YA14 | 2022-Dec-25 | 2.7 LD | 10.5 | 68 |
| 2022 TE14 | 2022-Dec-25 | 11.2 LD | 7 | 127 |
| 2018 YK2 | 2022-Dec-26 | 15.8 LD | 15.1 | 98 |
| 2010 XC15 | 2022-Dec-27 | 2 LD | 10.1 | 184 |
| 2021 AE | 2022-Dec-28 | 16.5 LD | 15 | 23 |
| 2021 NF | 2023-Jan-02 | 17.9 LD | 11.3 | 40 |
| 2011 WR41 | 2023-Jan-03 | 15.8 LD | 8.9 | 34 |
| 2019 AY3 | 2023-Jan-04 | 16.8 LD | 19.7 | 62 |
| 2021 TL | 2023-Jan-09 | 14.2 LD | 8.5 | 75 |
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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