AI writing is everywhere -- except here. This website is written by Dr. Tony Phillips, a carbon-based lifeform with 30 yrs of forecasting experience. Our guarantee: If you find a mistake, it was made by a real human being.
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A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: Big sunspot 4551 has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any explosions today will be geoeffective because the sunspot is directly facing Earth. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
SPACE MIRROR DRESS REHEARSAL: This week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported an unusual event in the Eastern Sierra foothills near Lone Pine, California. After sunset on Saturday, Oct. 10th, two incredibly bright beams of light lanced down from the mountains near Mt. Whitney, flooding the desert floor with light.
Above: Reflect Orbital lit up the desert to simulate how sunlight-reflecting satellite mirrors might aid with nighttime search and rescue.
"They were blinding," Lone Pine resident Cayden Thompson told the Chronicle. "It was pretty evident that this [was] not headlights or anything like that."
When Thompson and a friend drove up Horseshoe Meadows Road to investigate, they found a pair of spotlights parked in a dirt pullout. A technician warned them to keep back. The lamps were hot enough to burn.
It turns out, the blistering spotlights belonged to Reflect Orbital, an L.A.-based company that calls itself "the Sunlight Company." By launching huge mirrors to orbit, it plans to direct beams of sunlight onto the nightside of Earth.
An outlandishly bad idea, you say? The FCC approved their first satellite, Eärendil-1, in July, with launch tentatively scheduled for the second quarter of 2027.
Oct. 10th was a test run, with lamps standing in for space mirrors. The company wanted to show how lights could help search and rescue (SAR) teams during nighttime emergencies. (Fun fact: Modern elastic-strap headlamps widely used by SAR were invented in 1973.)
Volunteers from the China Lake Mountain Rescue Group participated. "There was definitely an awe factor," group leader Phillip Cash told the Chronicle. "There’s no light and then suddenly you can see 3 miles around you in every direction."
According to Cash, the light was a little brighter than a full Moon. It helped, he said, but rescuers are “pretty good at working at night already.”
Eärendil-1 won’t work like a spotlight. From 625 km up, a single mirror can light a target for only about 5 minutes per pass. An all-night search would need a relay of satellites. This is one reason the company wants 50,000 of them by 2035.
Astronomers should finish their work before then.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Space Weather Newsletter
THE EASTER ISLAND CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT: You can't buy this on Amazon. Only the Earth to Sky Store has the Easter Island Christmas Ornament from space. Here it is floating at the top of Earth's atmosphere on July 16, 2026:
You can have it for $98.95. Modeled after the iconic stone heads of Easter Island, known as Moai, this ornament adds an element of mystery to any Christmas Tree. For 3 hours, it floated through the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon, then parachuted back to Earth, landing near Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Park.
The ornament comes with a full-color gift card showing the Moai in flight. The interior of the card tells 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
Realtime Aurora 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 October 14, 2026, the network reported 26 fireballs.
(23 sporadics, 1 Southern Taurids, 1 epsilon Geminids, 1 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 October 16, 2026 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
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Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
| 2026 TN4 |
2026-Oct-10 |
8.2 LD |
9.7 |
12 |
| 2026 TG69 |
2026-Oct-10 |
8.8 LD |
16.4 |
26 |
| 2019 SD8 |
2026-Oct-10 |
18.7 LD |
9.5 |
12 |
| 2026 TL6 |
2026-Oct-10 |
0.7 LD |
11.8 |
4 |
| 2026 TB6 |
2026-Oct-10 |
5.4 LD |
11.9 |
11 |
| 2026 TO8 |
2026-Oct-11 |
3.5 LD |
9 |
10 |
| 2026 TM77 |
2026-Oct-11 |
9.8 LD |
9.1 |
24 |
| 2026 TL35 |
2026-Oct-11 |
5.1 LD |
5.3 |
10 |
| 2026 TP35 |
2026-Oct-11 |
0.6 LD |
14.6 |
6 |
| 2026 TY85 |
2026-Oct-11 |
2.2 LD |
17.1 |
28 |
| 2026 TL77 |
2026-Oct-12 |
5.4 LD |
14.9 |
64 |
| 2026 TC6 |
2026-Oct-12 |
9.8 LD |
10.3 |
22 |
| 2026 TX3 |
2026-Oct-12 |
18.9 LD |
8.7 |
27 |
| 2026 TN77 |
2026-Oct-12 |
0.1 LD |
15.3 |
13 |
| 2026 TF59 |
2026-Oct-12 |
1 LD |
7 |
6 |
| 2026 TV3 |
2026-Oct-12 |
9.2 LD |
9 |
21 |
| 2026 TQ8 |
2026-Oct-12 |
11 LD |
23 |
42 |
| 2026 TS3 |
2026-Oct-12 |
12.1 LD |
9.4 |
29 |
| 2026 TC1 |
2026-Oct-13 |
16.1 LD |
13.2 |
31 |
| 2026 TJ |
2026-Oct-13 |
19.7 LD |
7.3 |
117 |
| 2026 TK35 |
2026-Oct-13 |
19.2 LD |
12.9 |
71 |
| 2026 TR8 |
2026-Oct-13 |
8.9 LD |
9.1 |
18 |
| 2026 TG6 |
2026-Oct-13 |
12.6 LD |
15.4 |
29 |
| 2026 TM35 |
2026-Oct-13 |
3.9 LD |
10.3 |
10 |
| 2026 TG9 |
2026-Oct-14 |
0.6 LD |
11.7 |
12 |
| 2026 TO69 |
2026-Oct-14 |
4.5 LD |
12.1 |
23 |
| 2026 TP6 |
2026-Oct-15 |
0.6 LD |
10.3 |
13 |
| 2026 TF4 |
2026-Oct-15 |
7.1 LD |
4.9 |
12 |
| 2022 UP6 |
2026-Oct-15 |
2.6 LD |
9 |
8 |
| 2000 SZ162 |
2026-Oct-16 |
19.9 LD |
5.7 |
12 |
| 2026 TE2 |
2026-Oct-16 |
6 LD |
14.7 |
22 |
| 2026 TB2 |
2026-Oct-16 |
5 LD |
8.8 |
32 |
| 2026 TS |
2026-Oct-18 |
2.4 LD |
10.3 |
55 |
| 2026 TN67 |
2026-Oct-18 |
16.6 LD |
6.9 |
28 |
| 2026 TD2 |
2026-Oct-20 |
7.3 LD |
12.3 |
43 |
| 2026 TP |
2026-Oct-20 |
12.1 LD |
9.9 |
51 |
| 2020 FN3 |
2026-Oct-20 |
12.4 LD |
5.8 |
45 |
| 2026 TM67 |
2026-Oct-20 |
11.7 LD |
14.3 |
64 |
| 2026 TV8 |
2026-Oct-21 |
4.8 LD |
9.2 |
25 |
| 2026 TU1 |
2026-Oct-22 |
12.8 LD |
7.9 |
25 |
| 2026 TX84 |
2026-Oct-22 |
10.6 LD |
7.4 |
23 |
| 2026 TK77 |
2026-Oct-22 |
9.7 LD |
6.2 |
15 |
| 2017 UX7 |
2026-Oct-22 |
17 LD |
10.3 |
27 |
| 2026 TV86 |
2026-Oct-23 |
5.7 LD |
5.7 |
19 |
| 2026 TR35 |
2026-Oct-23 |
15 LD |
20.9 |
50 |
| 2026 TT3 |
2026-Oct-24 |
12.8 LD |
12.8 |
48 |
| 2026 TB8 |
2026-Oct-25 |
7.1 LD |
7.8 |
58 |
| 2018 GS1 |
2026-Oct-28 |
11.1 LD |
9.3 |
108 |
| 2022 UV21 |
2026-Oct-29 |
14.8 LD |
9.6 |
13 |
| 2025 UK9 |
2026-Oct-31 |
0.8 LD |
7.8 |
4 |
| 524522 |
2026-Nov-02 |
15.7 LD |
8.7 |
277 |
| 2021 VC4 |
2026-Nov-03 |
6 LD |
11.2 |
15 |
| 2017 WJ2 |
2026-Nov-05 |
15.6 LD |
11.8 |
118 |
| 2016 VZ1 |
2026-Nov-05 |
20 LD |
13.5 |
21 |
| 2001 KF54 |
2026-Nov-06 |
18.9 LD |
16.4 |
391 |
| 2025 UF5 |
2026-Nov-09 |
18.9 LD |
1.9 |
10 |
| 2015 VH65 |
2026-Nov-10 |
9.7 LD |
8 |
10 |
| 2012 YD7 |
2026-Nov-10 |
18.6 LD |
7.5 |
49 |
| 2023 VF3 |
2026-Nov-11 |
8.5 LD |
8.8 |
19 |
| 2022 MP2 |
2026-Nov-13 |
19.8 LD |
3.8 |
23 |
| 2025 VG5 |
2026-Nov-13 |
18.2 LD |
4.9 |
16 |
| 2023 VE6 |
2026-Nov-17 |
18.4 LD |
10.1 |
13 |
| 2019 WT1 |
2026-Nov-18 |
19.7 LD |
9.7 |
16 |
| 2018 NE1 |
2026-Nov-19 |
16.7 LD |
13.3 |
74 |
| 2026 TB84 |
2026-Nov-20 |
12.2 LD |
9.8 |
67 |
| 2025 CP1 |
2026-Nov-30 |
12.9 LD |
10.8 |
6 |
| 2019 XF2 |
2026-Dec-04 |
3.1 LD |
10.2 |
14 |
| 2023 XH3 |
2026-Dec-06 |
18.7 LD |
16.5 |
14 |
| 2020 XC3 |
2026-Dec-08 |
14.5 LD |
14.3 |
110 |
| 2016 NV |
2026-Dec-08 |
14.3 LD |
10.4 |
379 |
| 2010 VQ |
2026-Dec-12 |
4.6 LD |
4.3 |
10 |
| 2025 XN6 |
2026-Dec-12 |
6.9 LD |
12.2 |
5 |
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 sharply 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.
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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. |
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3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
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Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
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information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
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current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. |
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Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
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from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
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from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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the
underlying science of space weather |
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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. |
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