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INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: The sun has been quiet for more than a week. That's about to change. Two new sunspots (3959 and 3962) have unstable delta-class magnetic fields that harbor energy for X-class solar flares. Don't be surprised if one of them explodes before the end of the week. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
SUNSET COMET ATLAS: Three days after it dive-bombed the sun, Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) is still putting on a good show. Dirk Ewers photographed it shining through yesterday's sunset from the Canary Islands:
"At an altitude of 1350m in La Palma, the comet offered great views in binoculars and scopes," says Ewers. "The tail shows a nice curve with some detail and was clearly more visible than the day before. Beautiful sunset colors accompanied the event."
According to observers reporting to the Comet Observation Database, the comet's magnitude is now near -1, much dimmer than it was a few days ago, but still bright enough to photograph in twilight and even blue sky daylight.
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
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THINGS YOU SEE WHILE LOOKING FOR A COMET: Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) was plunging toward the sun on Jan. 12th when Todd Bush walked outside at dawn. "I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the comet," he says. "I got skunked on that. But the sun sure looked wild doing this sunrise happy dance."
Instead of a comet, Bush witnessed a mirage. It was caused by temperature inversions in the atmosphere. When a layer of warm air sits on top of colder air, the sun can be split in two. Looking across the Appalachians from Banner Elk, NC, Bush viewed the rising sun through multiple such layers--cold, warm, cold, warm, cold--splitting the sun into a whole stack of shape-shifting pancakes. Rays of light trapped between some layers (in tunnels called "ducts") produced bright horizontal stripes.
Meanwhile, others did see the comet. Browse the Comet ATLAS gallery for their photos.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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THE EVOLVING TAIL OF COMET ATLAS: French astronomer Nicolas Lefaudeux has simulated the evolving tail of Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3), and he has a prediction. "Comet ATLAS has the potential to show an extended low-brightness dust tail between Jan. 19th and 26th even when the comet's head is below the horizon," he says. This would make it a sort of "headless comet."
"Observers located near the equator and in the southern hemisphere will be best placed to observe this tail. Because it is so big, however, the curved dust tail may be detectable photographically even from the northern hemisphere, especially between Jan. 18th and 22nd. It would be located mostly in the constellation of Aquarius, and overlap the zodiacal light," Lefaudeux continues.
Lefaudeux says the tail of Comet ATLAS reminds him of the tail of Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) in 2007, which was visible in the evening sky after that comet also flew very close to the sun. Here are some examples from Spaceweather.com's 2007 archives: Jan. 20, Jan. 22, Jan. 23, Jan. 24. The tail of Comet ATLAS will be fainter, though.
If you photograph the tail of Comet ATLAS, please submit your images here!
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
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"ALWAYS AND FOREVER" RUBY HEART PENDANT: Are you looking for a far out Valentine's Day gift? Consider the Always and Forever Space Pendent. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $219.95. Engraved with the words "I love you always and forever", this sterling silver pendant has a heart-shaped ruby crystal in the middle surrouunded by a ring of glittering 5A cubic zirconia nuggets. It is a visually striking necklace perfect for Valentine's Day, anniversaries, or romantic birthdays.
The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry 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
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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Realtime Space Weather 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 Jan 16, 2025, the network reported 6 fireballs.
(6 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 January 16, 2025 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2012 UK171 | 2025-Jan-11 | 10.7 LD | 6.4 | 46 |
| 2025 AV2 | 2025-Jan-11 | 7.8 LD | 16.9 | 21 |
| 2025 AZ3 | 2025-Jan-11 | 0.6 LD | 8.2 | 23 |
| 2025 AF1 | 2025-Jan-11 | 4.7 LD | 4.9 | 10 |
| 2024 YZ12 | 2025-Jan-12 | 3.2 LD | 8.5 | 17 |
| 2025 AK3 | 2025-Jan-12 | 13.4 LD | 7.5 | 21 |
| 2022 EE6 | 2025-Jan-13 | 15.5 LD | 8.7 | 45 |
| 2025 AX2 | 2025-Jan-13 | 8.2 LD | 10.4 | 15 |
| 2005 YU128 | 2025-Jan-14 | 19.1 LD | 7 | 31 |
| 2025 AS | 2025-Jan-14 | 16.1 LD | 9.2 | 46 |
| 2024 YX5 | 2025-Jan-14 | 11.7 LD | 10.6 | 25 |
| 2023 OS | 2025-Jan-15 | 16.5 LD | 10.9 | 48 |
| 2022 CE2 | 2025-Jan-16 | 11.1 LD | 13.3 | 120 |
| 2024 YF2 | 2025-Jan-17 | 4.4 LD | 4.4 | 17 |
| 2025 AO2 | 2025-Jan-17 | 2 LD | 10.3 | 19 |
| 2025 AF | 2025-Jan-17 | 19.8 LD | 8.8 | 35 |
| 2022 OB5 | 2025-Jan-18 | 8.9 LD | 1.4 | 6 |
| 2024 YB10 | 2025-Jan-18 | 15.1 LD | 2.5 | 16 |
| 2024 WY70 | 2025-Jan-18 | 16.5 LD | 10.2 | 261 |
| 2024 YQ5 | 2025-Jan-19 | 17.6 LD | 5 | 29 |
| 2025 AY2 | 2025-Jan-20 | 17.7 LD | 23.3 | 71 |
| 2024 YY5 | 2025-Jan-26 | 12.5 LD | 2.4 | 14 |
| 2022 BX6 | 2025-Jan-28 | 19.7 LD | 14.3 | 24 |
| 2015 DJ155 | 2025-Jan-31 | 18.6 LD | 9.2 | 56 |
| 2018 RE3 | 2025-Feb-03 | 15.5 LD | 11.1 | 12 |
| 2022 AV4 | 2025-Feb-03 | 16.9 LD | 3.4 | 25 |
| 2002 CC14 | 2025-Feb-04 | 8.4 LD | 12.7 | 39 |
| 2016 CO248 | 2025-Feb-07 | 13.5 LD | 5.9 | 11 |
| 2020 GZ2 | 2025-Feb-07 | 17.7 LD | 8.9 | 9 |
| 2022 PK1 | 2025-Feb-07 | 15 LD | 11 | 33 |
| 2012 PB20 | 2025-Feb-09 | 3.5 LD | 4.3 | 37 |
| 2004 XG | 2025-Feb-16 | 15.6 LD | 9.1 | 54 |
| 2024 UD26 | 2025-Feb-16 | 16.8 LD | 9.3 | 250 |
| 2014 CE13 | 2025-Feb-18 | 15.2 LD | 18.4 | 55 |
| 2022 DG2 | 2025-Feb-19 | 11.5 LD | 10.4 | 7 |
| 2016 AX165 | 2025-Feb-20 | 14.9 LD | 9.2 | 89 |
| 2015 BK509 | 2025-Feb-25 | 9.4 LD | 14.6 | 119 |
| 2023 RW3 | 2025-Feb-25 | 7.4 LD | 5.1 | 18 |
| 535844 | 2025-Mar-05 | 9.6 LD | 7.9 | 149 |
| 2021 EU3 | 2025-Mar-10 | 10.7 LD | 4.4 | 13 |
| 2020 FO | 2025-Mar-15 | 13.4 LD | 20.6 | 23 |
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 10 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (Nov. 2024): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2024. Our latest measurements in November registered a 10-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 |
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