Lights Over Lapland has a full catalogue of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Check out our daytime and evening activities and book your adventure! | | |
NO CMEs THIS TIME: A pair of M1-class solar flares yesterday did *not* hurl CMEs toward Earth. The impulsive flares were too shortlived to lift significant clouds of plasma out of the sun's atmosphere. Maybe next time? The source of the flares, sunspot AR2918, has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that is poised to explode again. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
TRACKING THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE: NASA's next great space telescope, the James Webb (JWST), is now hurtling toward the L2 Lagrange point where it will park to explore the cosmos. Last night in Puerto Rico, Efrain Morales Rivera photographed the spacecraft en route, 350,000 miles from Earth:
Shining like a 10th magnitude star, JWST was racing through the stars of the constellation Orion. "I photographed it using a 12-inch LX200 telescope," says Morales.
The launch of the JWST on Dec. 25th was a success, but mission planners are still holding their breaths. The 10 billion dollar telescope has to execute a complex sequence of deployments--unfolding pallets, sunshields, and the telescope's mirrors themselves--before the observatory can start work.
Meanwhile, amateur astronomers are tracking the telescope using coordinates provided by JPL Horizons (select the 'App' tab and enter 'JWST' as the target body). Got a picture? Submit it here.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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THE LEONARD NEBULA: There's a new nebula in the night sky. It's a piece of Comet Leonard's tail that was just pinched off by a gust of solar wind. Bill Williams photographed it on Dec. 27th from the Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida:
"Last night I took multiple exposures with my 100mm Vixen refractor and SBIG 16803 CCD camera and made a mosaic of the images," explains Williams. "The head of the comet was already setting behind some cedar trees when I photographed the upper reaches of the tail. It is way more than 15 degrees long."
The "Leonard Nebula" is a cloud of gas that became disconnected from the rest of the tail days ago when the comet was hit by a solar wind stream. Interplanetary magnetic fields around the comet's tail crissed-crossed and reconnected, releasing a burst of energy that gave birth to the nebula. A similar process takes place in Earth's magnetosphere during geomagnetic storms powering, among other things, the aurora borealis.
Get ready for more. Comet Leonard is approaching the sun for a 0.61 AU close approach on Jan. 3rd. Increasing heat and proximity to solar storms could spark new outbursts and ruptures. Astronomers in the southern hemisphere will have the best view as the comet glides through the constellation Microscopium--although as Williams' photo shows, northerners can see it, too.
Where is Comet Leonard? Right here.
Realtime Comet Leonard Photo Gallery
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HUMMINGBIRD-SUNFLOWER PENDANT: This pendant has a secret compartment--and it has touched the edge of space. On Nov. 4, 2021, our Sterling Silver Hummingbird-Sunflower Pendant flew to the stratosphere on board an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon:
You can have it for $133.95. Inscribed on the back with "Always on my mind, Forever in my heart," each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. These make great Christmas gifts.
Bonus: The pendant contains a tiny chamber, which you may fill with the ashes of a loved one or anything else you wish to keep close to your heart.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora 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 Dec 28, 2021, the network reported 11 fireballs.
(8 sporadics, 3 Dec. Leonis Minorids)
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 December 29, 2021 there were 2245 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2016 TR54 | 2021-Dec-24 | 16.9 LD | 15.5 | 135 |
2017 YK5 | 2021-Dec-24 | 19.6 LD | 13.3 | 54 |
2018 AH | 2021-Dec-27 | 11.9 LD | 12.7 | 112 |
2021 YL | 2021-Dec-28 | 12.9 LD | 8 | 29 |
2017 AE3 | 2021-Dec-29 | 9.3 LD | 19.1 | 155 |
2021 YK | 2022-Jan-02 | 0.5 LD | 7 | 12 |
2014 YE15 | 2022-Jan-06 | 19.3 LD | 6.4 | 8 |
2020 AP1 | 2022-Jan-07 | 4.6 LD | 5.7 | 4 |
2013 YD48 | 2022-Jan-11 | 14.6 LD | 14.8 | 107 |
2021 BA | 2022-Jan-18 | 9.8 LD | 9.1 | 22 |
7482 | 2022-Jan-18 | 5.2 LD | 19.6 | 1732 |
2018 PN22 | 2022-Jan-21 | 11.4 LD | 2.7 | 11 |
2017 XC62 | 2022-Jan-24 | 18.7 LD | 4.3 | 112 |
2021 BZ | 2022-Jan-27 | 17.6 LD | 14.6 | 39 |
2018 CA1 | 2022-Feb-05 | 9.8 LD | 15.1 | 32 |
2007 UY1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 13.9 LD | 6.6 | 89 |
2020 DF | 2022-Feb-14 | 12 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
2018 CW2 | 2022-Feb-18 | 2.2 LD | 10.8 | 25 |
2020 CX1 | 2022-Feb-18 | 7.2 LD | 8.2 | 54 |
455176 | 2022-Feb-22 | 14 LD | 25.1 | 257 |
2017 CX1 | 2022-Feb-23 | 15.2 LD | 5 | 8 |
2016 QJ44 | 2022-Feb-24 | 19.6 LD | 8.5 | 324 |
2021 QO2 | 2022-Feb-25 | 20 LD | 11 | 65 |
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 |
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 (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data:
This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out.
We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset.
En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere:
The dose rates shown above are expressed 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 higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, 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. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link 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 first graph ("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 |
| 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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