 | | | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation  Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1.67 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3.00 quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 7.57 nT
Bz: -1.90 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 1147 UT Coronal Holes: 21 May 24 
There are no equatorial coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA  Polar Stratospheric Clouds
Colorful Type II polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) form when the temperature in the stratosphere drops to a staggeringly low -85C. NASA's MERRA-2 climate model predicts when the air up there is cold enough: 
On May 21, 2024, the Arctic stratosphere is much too warm for Type II polar stratospheric clouds. | more data. Noctilucent Clouds
The southern season for NLCs is over. The first clouds were detected inside the Antarctic Circle on Dec. 4, 2023, by the NOAA 21 satellite. The same satellite detected the last cloud on Feb. 21, 2024. Daily maps are now blank:
Updated: Feb 22, 2024
An instrument onboard NOAA 21 (OMPS LP) is able to detect NLCs (also known as "polar mesospheric clouds" or PMCs). Now that the southern season has ended, attention turns to the northern hemisphere. The first NLCs should appear inside the Arctic Circle in mid to late May.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2024 May 21 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 55 % | 55 % | CLASS X | 10 % | 10 % | Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2024 May 21 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 25 % | 15 % | MINOR | 05 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 20 % | 15 % | MINOR | 30 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 30 % | 25 % | | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | This is an AI Free Zone! Text created by Large Language Models is spreading rapidly across the Internet. It's well-written, artificial, frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being. | | | FARSIDE CME TARGETS VENUS: Giant sunspot AR3664 is probably still active on the farside of the sun. We know because yesterday it (or a companion sunspot) hurled a bright full-halo CME into space. According to a NASA model, the storm cloud will make a direct hit on Venus today, potentially stripping away a small amount of that planet's atmosphere. CME impact alerts: SMS Text MORE AURORAS IN AFRICA: For the first time in more than 30 years, Spaceweather.com has received photos of auroras in Africa. They appeared during the historic geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. The latest submissions come from Tivoli Astro Farm in Namibia where Richard Payne photographed the display: 
"We could see the auroras with the naked eye," says Payne. "Visually, it was a deep red and very large--about 45 degrees vertical and 135 degrees horizontal." Another guest at the farm, Georg Woeber, also saw the sky turn red. "It was amazing to see this happen from the Tropic of Capricorn (23° S)," says Woeber. "This is certainly exceptional," says Hisashi Hayakawa, a space weather researcher at Japan’s Nagoya University. "To my knowledge, these are the first auroras in Namibia since 1989." The lights were also seen from the island of Mauritius east of Madagascar (20.3° S): 
"I couldn't believe my eye!" reports Eric Villars, who was hiking up a mountain near the island's southwest coast. "It was around 04:30 in the morning on the 11th of May. I first saw some pink lights in the sky and thought it was the lights from sunrise--then I realised it was the Southern Lights! I never thought we could see those lights in Mauritius." The display was also photographed from Namibia's Etosha National Park (18.9° S), from Farm Hakos near Windhoek, Namibia (22.5° S), and from a ship off the coast of Capetown, South Africa (32° S). Taken together, these sightings help confirm that May 10th was a "Great Storm" with one of the most widespread auroral displays of the past 500 years. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 18K GOLD TOTAL ECLIPSE PENDANT: This pendant has touched the shadow of the Moon. On April 8, 2024, during a total eclipse of the sun in Texas, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Floating more than 118,110 feet high, the locket spent 3 minutes and 45 seconds wrapped in lunar shadow: 
You can have it for $199.95. The 18K gold-plated locket is inscribed with the words "I love you to the Moon and back," and opens to hold a personal photo or other small item. It comes with a greeting card showing the locket in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space during the total eclipse.
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Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
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Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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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 May 20, 2024, the network reported 10 fireballs.
(9 sporadics, 1 eta Aquarid)  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 May 21, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | | 2024 JQ16 | 2024-May-16 | 7 LD | 6.1 | 15 | | 2024 JG17 | 2024-May-17 | 4.8 LD | 7.9 | 12 | | 2024 JT17 | 2024-May-17 | 9.6 LD | 7.6 | 24 | | 2024 JG6 | 2024-May-17 | 11.2 LD | 7.4 | 18 | | 2022 WN2 | 2024-May-17 | 13.7 LD | 5.5 | 6 | | 2024 JQ17 | 2024-May-17 | 10.2 LD | 9.3 | 26 | | 2024 JG8 | 2024-May-17 | 6.2 LD | 6.1 | 12 | | 2024 JQ1 | 2024-May-18 | 5.7 LD | 3 | 14 | | 2024 JK8 | 2024-May-19 | 6 LD | 9.8 | 16 | | 2024 JD1 | 2024-May-20 | 19 LD | 5.5 | 27 | | 2015 WO1 | 2024-May-20 | 7.4 LD | 15.6 | 86 | | 2024 JP12 | 2024-May-21 | 11 LD | 6.3 | 19 | | 2024 JZ17 | 2024-May-21 | 6.6 LD | 10.3 | 23 | | 2024 KC | 2024-May-21 | 4.3 LD | 4.6 | 7 | | 2019 VB5 | 2024-May-21 | 7.8 LD | 6.3 | 2 | | 2024 JG15 | 2024-May-22 | 6.6 LD | 10.8 | 63 | | 2024 JZ6 | 2024-May-23 | 14.6 LD | 13.8 | 258 | | 2024 HP | 2024-May-23 | 15.5 LD | 7.7 | 194 | | 2024 JX14 | 2024-May-23 | 16.4 LD | 6.2 | 27 | | 2024 HP2 | 2024-May-25 | 5.8 LD | 2.3 | 20 | | 2024 JY1 | 2024-May-26 | 17.5 LD | 10.3 | 54 | | 2024 JO16 | 2024-May-27 | 8 LD | 8.8 | 20 | | 2008 LD | 2024-May-28 | 7.7 LD | 4.5 | 6 | | 2024 JV17 | 2024-May-28 | 17.3 LD | 8.4 | 46 | | 2021 LV | 2024-May-29 | 12 LD | 15.5 | 9 | | 2024 JG | 2024-May-29 | 8.7 LD | 7.4 | 29 | | 2024 JA3 | 2024-May-30 | 6.2 LD | 8.5 | 36 | | 2008 XH | 2024-May-31 | 13.8 LD | 14.7 | 102 | | 2024 JP1 | 2024-Jun-01 | 18.5 LD | 4.7 | 25 | | 2024 JC1 | 2024-Jun-01 | 15.1 LD | 4.8 | 32 | | 1998 KY26 | 2024-Jun-01 | 12 LD | 5.3 | 25 | | 2016 JC6 | 2024-Jun-01 | 19.9 LD | 7.1 | 188 | | 2024 JR17 | 2024-Jun-05 | 19.4 LD | 14.6 | 87 | | 2008 YN2 | 2024-Jun-05 | 10.5 LD | 7.7 | 20 | | 2021 LW3 | 2024-Jun-06 | 9.7 LD | 9.8 | 86 | | 2024 CR9 | 2024-Jun-11 | 19.2 LD | 7.4 | 447 | | 2022 XC1 | 2024-Jun-12 | 16.5 LD | 6.5 | 21 | | 2022 WW11 | 2024-Jun-17 | 19.7 LD | 14.4 | 15 | | 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 | | 2022 BY39 | 2024-Jul-02 | 13.2 LD | 3 | 4 | | 2022 YS5 | 2024-Jul-11 | 11 LD | 5.8 | 38 | | 2024 BY15 | 2024-Jul-16 | 16.2 LD | 0.7 | 16 | 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. See also, all satellite statistics. | | | 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 |  | Got a chipped or cracked windshield that prevents you from seeing space weather events while driving? Get windshield replacement from SR Windows & Glass with free mobile auto glass service anywhere in the Phoenix area. | | Marketing yourself on YouTube is hard without real organic views on your videos. You can buy organic YouTube views from and enjoy social boosting that is actually real. Highly recommended! | | When looking for casinos to play online when the weather is bad, you can try the SkyCity Online Casino if you are located in New Zealand. If you are not from NZ you can try the Swedish page Svenska casino online to find suitable games, check out svenskacasinoonline.net. Always check your local laws before playing with real money.. | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | |  | | |  | ©2021 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |
