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SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Forecasters did not see this one coming. On March 23-24, auroras spread into the United States as far south as New Mexico (+32.8N) during a severe (category G4) geomagnetic storm--the most intense in nearly 6 years. The cause of the storm is still unclear; it may have been the ripple effect of a near-miss CME on March 23rd.
"For about 30 minutes we watched as auroras danced and simmered in the sky above Yellowstone National Park," says Michael Underwood, who photographed the light show from the Mammoth Hot Springs at latitude +45 degrees:
"This was my first time seeing the aurora and hopefully not the last," he says. "It was a truly unbelievable sight."
Other notable mid- to low-latitude sightings were made in Virginia (+38.7N), Colorado (+40.4N), Missouri (+40.2N), Colorado again (+40.6N), Nebraska (+42.4N), Nebraska again (+41N) and North Carolina (+36.2N). More than half of all US states were in range of the display.
Not every light in the sky was the aurora borealis. There was also STEVE. Alan Birdsell photographed the phenomenon from Spokane, Washington:
"This was the first time I have seen a severe geomagnetic storm here in Spokane," says Birdsell. "It was all a very profound and surreal experience."
STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) looks like an aurora, but it is not. The phenomenon is caused by hot (3000°C) ribbons of gas flowing through Earth’s magnetosphere at speeds exceeding 6 km/s (13,000 mph). These ribbons appear during strong geomagnetic storms, revealing themselves by their soft purple glow. STEVE also appeared over South Dakota, Washington State, Idaho, Idaho again, Montana, Montana again, and Scotland.
This remarkable and surprising storm began on March 23rd when magnetic fields in the space around Earth suddenly shifted. In the jargon of space weather forecasting "BsubZ tipped south." South-pointing magnetic fields can open a crack in Earth's magnetosphere and, indeed, that's what happened. Earth's "shields were down" for almost 24 hours, allowing solar wind to penetrate and the storm to build to category G4.
These developments may have been caused the close passage of an unexpected CME. The storm cloud could have left the sun on March 20-21 when SOHO coronagraph data were unusually sparse. We didn't know it was coming. For aurora watchers, it was a welcome surprise. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
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ARCTIC NORTHERN LIGHTS PENDANT: Nothing says "I Love You" like a Northern Lights pendant from the Arctic stratosphere. On Jan. 22nd, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon to measure atmospheric radiation inside the Arctic Circle. This pendant hitched a ride, floating more than 75,000 feet above the frozen terrain of northern Sweden:
You can have it for $139.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a romantic card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space 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 Mar 25 2023, the network reported 12 fireballs.
(12 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 March 25, 2023 there were 2329 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 EV2 | 2023-Mar-20 | 4.6 LD | 13.2 | 21 |
| 2023 FV1 | 2023-Mar-21 | 4.9 LD | 13.8 | 9 |
| 2018 FE3 | 2023-Mar-21 | 10.1 LD | 5.4 | 13 |
| 2023 FL3 | 2023-Mar-21 | 5.4 LD | 9 | 15 |
| 2023 FT | 2023-Mar-22 | 13.4 LD | 10.8 | 37 |
| 2023 FD3 | 2023-Mar-22 | 8.1 LD | 11.3 | 15 |
| 2023 FG | 2023-Mar-23 | 1.8 LD | 10.8 | 11 |
| 2023 FK1 | 2023-Mar-23 | 4.8 LD | 13.4 | 16 |
| 2023 EO1 | 2023-Mar-23 | 6.8 LD | 21.1 | 45 |
| 2023 EF2 | 2023-Mar-23 | 10 LD | 14.2 | 26 |
| 2023 FA | 2023-Mar-23 | 3.1 LD | 8.7 | 18 |
| 2023 FT2 | 2023-Mar-24 | 7 LD | 12 | 23 |
| 2023 DZ2 | 2023-Mar-25 | 0.5 LD | 7.8 | 52 |
| 2023 FL2 | 2023-Mar-26 | 12.2 LD | 6.1 | 21 |
| 2023 DX2 | 2023-Mar-27 | 8.5 LD | 9 | 53 |
| 2023 FW2 | 2023-Mar-27 | 3.2 LD | 8.7 | 9 |
| 2023 FZ2 | 2023-Mar-27 | 3.6 LD | 12.2 | 16 |
| 2019 FT | 2023-Mar-27 | 17.1 LD | 28.2 | 93 |
| 2023 FU3 | 2023-Mar-28 | 12.1 LD | 7.5 | 18 |
| 2022 YK4 | 2023-Mar-29 | 11.9 LD | 2.3 | 25 |
| 2023 FR1 | 2023-Mar-30 | 19 LD | 7.9 | 42 |
| 2023 EK2 | 2023-Mar-30 | 12.9 LD | 15.4 | 88 |
| 2017 SE12 | 2023-Mar-30 | 5.2 LD | 8.4 | 15 |
| 2016 GH1 | 2023-Mar-30 | 7.7 LD | 5.8 | 11 |
| 2023 FO3 | 2023-Mar-31 | 6.6 LD | 10.2 | 16 |
| 2022 GO3 | 2023-Apr-02 | 17 LD | 11.6 | 15 |
| 2021 GN1 | 2023-Apr-02 | 17.7 LD | 14.2 | 18 |
| 2023 FM | 2023-Apr-06 | 7.9 LD | 15.9 | 171 |
| 2018 FD | 2023-Apr-07 | 17.9 LD | 8.2 | 47 |
| 2023 FT1 | 2023-Apr-10 | 19.6 LD | 6.6 | 31 |
| 2019 GK21 | 2023-Apr-13 | 15.2 LD | 8.1 | 27 |
| 2022 YK9 | 2023-Apr-13 | 19.9 LD | 9.9 | 175 |
| 436774 | 2023-Apr-13 | 12.5 LD | 17.6 | 719 |
| 2006 HV5 | 2023-Apr-26 | 6.3 LD | 17.4 | 400 |
| 2021 JF2 | 2023-Apr-28 | 16.6 LD | 8 | 19 |
| 2018 VS6 | 2023-May-01 | 5.2 LD | 11.6 | 14 |
| 2011 KY15 | 2023-May-18 | 19.9 LD | 14.3 | 54 |
| 2021 JK7 | 2023-May-22 | 16.7 LD | 22.9 | 48 |
| 2019 UJ3 | 2023-May-23 | 15.5 LD | 9.8 | 21 |
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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