 | | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 1 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 3.3 nT Bz: 2.9 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2345 UT Coronal Holes: 16 Sep 20  Solar wind flowing from this minor coronal hole should reach Earth on Sept. 17-18. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The northern-hemisphere season for noctilucent clouds has ended. The southern season begins in November. Between now and then, Earth has no noctilucent clouds. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2020 Sep 16 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 01 % | 01 % | CLASS X | 01 % | 01 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2020 Sep 16 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 05 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 20 % | 15 % | SEVERE | 20 % | 10 % | | | |  | | | | | | | | Safe aurora tours: Thinking of a visit to Norway? Marianne's Heaven on Earth Aurora Tours has a 7-seater minivan for families who don't require social distancing. See the Northern Lights or take a scenic day tour. Book here | | | AURORAS LOVE EQUINOXES: Northern autumn begins in less than a week. That's good news for Arctic sky watchers, because auroras love equinoxes. At this time of year, cracks form in Earth's magnetic field--a phenomenon known as the "Russell-McPherron effect." Solar wind pours through the gaps to fuel bright Northern Lights. Happy autumn! Aurora alerts: SMS Text. SOLAR CYCLE 25 HAS BEGUN: Solar Cycle 25 is officially underway. NASA and NOAA made the announcement during a media teleconference yesterday, Sept. 15th. According to an international panel of experts, the sunspot number hit rock bottom in Dec. 2019, bringing an end to old Solar Cycle 24. Since then, sunspot counts have been slowly increasing, heralding new Solar Cycle 25.  Click here to view NOAA's interactive sunspot plotter "How quickly solar activity rises is an indicator on how strong the next solar cycle will be," says Doug Biesecker of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, co-chair of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel. "Although we've seen a steady increase in sunspot activity this year, it is slow." The panel believes that new Solar Cycle 25 will be a weak one, peaking in 2025 at levels similar to old Solar Cycle 24. If their prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 25 (like Solar Cycle 24 before it) will be one of the weakest since record-keeping began in 1755. "While we are not predicting a particularly active Solar Cycle 25, violent eruptions from the sun can occur at any time," warns Biesecker. Indeed, even Solar Minimum can produce a superstorm, so Solar Cycle 25 should not be taken lightly despite the panel's low expectations. Radio blackouts, power outages and severe geomagnetic storms are possible in the years ahead.  Above: Solar Cycle 25 auroras photographed on Sept. 14, 2020, by Jani Ylinampa in Finland. For now, solar activity should remain generally low. Sunspot counts still have a long way to go before they reach levels typical of Solar Maximum. For the rest of 2020, periods of quiet will be occasionally interrupted by minor solar storms, with only a slight chance of big events. On the bright side, the first Northern Lights of Solar Cycle 25 are dancing around the Arctic Circle right now, and the coming season for aurora watching promises to be the best in years. Stay tuned! Aurora alerts: SMS Text. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter APOLLO 11 PROOF SILVER DOLLAR (COLLECTOR'S ITEM): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider this: On July 20, 2019 (the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing), the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this rare proof silver dollar to the stratosphere:  The US Mint created Apollo 11 coins to celebrate the first Moon landing--but you can no longer buy them from the Mint. You can, however, get one from Earth to Sky Calculus. The students are selling the collector's item for $229.95 to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. The silver dollar is curved and reproduces the helmet of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Reflected in Buzz's visor are Neil Armstrong, the United States flag, and the lunar lander. The opposite side of the coin shows Neil's iconic footprint on the Moon. Included is a greeting card showing the coin in flight and a certificate of authenticity. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter Realtime Mars Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 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 Sept. 16, 2020, the network reported 10 fireballs. (7 sporadics, 2 Sept. epsilon Perseids, 1 Southern Taurid) 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 16, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.  | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2020 RT1 | 2020-Sep-11 | 18.5 LD | 8.6 | 45 | 2020 RM | 2020-Sep-11 | 2.7 LD | 6.6 | 14 | 2020 RA1 | 2020-Sep-11 | 8.6 LD | 10 | 31 | 2020 RG2 | 2020-Sep-11 | 3.4 LD | 14 | 13 | 2020 RF2 | 2020-Sep-11 | 18.8 LD | 19.1 | 29 | 2012 RM15 | 2020-Sep-12 | 14.9 LD | 9.8 | 45 | 2020 RA7 | 2020-Sep-12 | 4.2 LD | 6.1 | 14 | 2020 RB1 | 2020-Sep-13 | 11.7 LD | 7.7 | 16 | 2020 RF6 | 2020-Sep-13 | 18.9 LD | 17 | 74 | 2020 RL1 | 2020-Sep-13 | 5.2 LD | 4.8 | 15 | 2020 RH2 | 2020-Sep-13 | 8.6 LD | 8.9 | 15 | 2017 US | 2020-Sep-13 | 17.3 LD | 5.9 | 21 | 2020 RF3 | 2020-Sep-14 | 0.2 LD | 17.2 | 7 | 2020 RW6 | 2020-Sep-14 | 12.6 LD | 13.1 | 65 | 2020 QL2 | 2020-Sep-14 | 17.9 LD | 10.6 | 69 | 2020 RD4 | 2020-Sep-14 | 0.3 LD | 10.2 | 4 | 2020 RA4 | 2020-Sep-15 | 11.3 LD | 9 | 15 | 2020 RJ2 | 2020-Sep-16 | 3.5 LD | 3.9 | 5 | 2020 RW3 | 2020-Sep-16 | 6.7 LD | 12 | 20 | 2020 RN1 | 2020-Sep-17 | 18.5 LD | 9.8 | 32 | 2020 RZ6 | 2020-Sep-17 | 0.9 LD | 8.7 | 16 | 2014 QJ33 | 2020-Sep-17 | 6.7 LD | 8.7 | 65 | 2020 RA6 | 2020-Sep-18 | 1.4 LD | 17.4 | 22 | 2020 RC7 | 2020-Sep-18 | 15.5 LD | 8.4 | 23 | 2020 RB7 | 2020-Sep-18 | 1.4 LD | 19 | 12 | 2020 RH6 | 2020-Sep-19 | 12.4 LD | 8.3 | 35 | 2020 RQ3 | 2020-Sep-19 | 6.2 LD | 25.4 | 31 | 2017 SL16 | 2020-Sep-20 | 8.9 LD | 6.4 | 25 | 2020 RP6 | 2020-Sep-20 | 19.1 LD | 7.9 | 36 | 2020 RQ6 | 2020-Sep-21 | 3.4 LD | 6.5 | 11 | 2020 RD5 | 2020-Sep-22 | 10.6 LD | 17.2 | 52 | 2020 RB6 | 2020-Sep-22 | 6.7 LD | 19.8 | 29 | 2020 RA2 | 2020-Sep-23 | 18.4 LD | 5.4 | 22 | 2020 RO | 2020-Sep-25 | 15.3 LD | 11.8 | 78 | 2020 RF4 | 2020-Sep-26 | 11.7 LD | 13.8 | 43 | 2020 RF5 | 2020-Sep-27 | 14 LD | 3.9 | 54 | 2020 PM7 | 2020-Sep-29 | 7.5 LD | 8.3 | 121 | 2020 RJ3 | 2020-Oct-01 | 15.3 LD | 15.5 | 68 | 2001 GP2 | 2020-Oct-01 | 6.1 LD | 2.2 | 15 | 2020 RZ3 | 2020-Oct-02 | 15.7 LD | 13.3 | 35 | 2010 UC | 2020-Oct-04 | 14.6 LD | 3.2 | 12 | 2020 RV2 | 2020-Oct-05 | 14.9 LD | 4.2 | 25 | 2020 RR2 | 2020-Oct-06 | 16.3 LD | 4.1 | 29 | 2020 RK2 | 2020-Oct-07 | 10.1 LD | 6.8 | 48 | 2019 SB6 | 2020-Oct-07 | 11.9 LD | 7.6 | 16 | 2020 RO1 | 2020-Oct-09 | 17.4 LD | 3.2 | 30 | 2018 GD2 | 2020-Oct-13 | 16.4 LD | 6.7 | 5 | 2020 RM6 | 2020-Oct-15 | 13.1 LD | 7.8 | 38 | 2017 UH5 | 2020-Oct-20 | 8.9 LD | 5.9 | 18 | 2018 VG | 2020-Oct-21 | 15.1 LD | 6.7 | 12 | 2017 TK6 | 2020-Oct-24 | 17.3 LD | 12.4 | 41 | 2008 GM2 | 2020-Oct-25 | 17.7 LD | 3.6 | 8 | 2020 QD5 | 2020-Oct-26 | 10.1 LD | 8.6 | 80 | 2020 OK5 | 2020-Oct-29 | 6.4 LD | 1.3 | 27 | 2018 VP1 | 2020-Nov-02 | 1.1 LD | 9.7 | 2 | 2020 HF4 | 2020-Nov-03 | 16.2 LD | 2.9 | 11 | 2010 JL88 | 2020-Nov-05 | 10.5 LD | 15.7 | 16 | 2019 XS | 2020-Nov-07 | 15.4 LD | 9.4 | 51 | 2018 VS4 | 2020-Nov-09 | 14.9 LD | 10.1 | 25 | 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 | SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%. E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight. The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level. To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners. Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight. SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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 18% since 2015:  The data points in the graph above 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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:
In this plot, 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. 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. 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 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 | | 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 |  | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. Get a bonus when playing at a new casino in the UK. The Genie got you covered! Looking for a new online casino? Try Casimpo the new site dedicated to making online casino simple, or check out the new Avenger Slots Casino and Slot Strike Casino Sites with over 500 online slots and casino games. . | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | |  | |  |  | ©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |