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Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp=
2.33 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2.33 quiet
explanation | more
data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 7.35 nT
Bz: 0.53 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 0916 UT
Coronal Holes: 17 Jun 25
Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from this large southern coronal hole. Credit: NASA/SDO | more data
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 Jun 16, 2025, the Arctic stratosphere is much too hot for polar stratospheric clouds. | more data.
Noctilucent Clouds
The northern season for noctilucent clouds has begin. First reports of the electric-blue clouds came from Russia on May 28, 2025. Since then, the clouds have spread to lower latitudes with one possible sighting in southern Italy on June 3, 2025.
Above: June 9, 2025 in Alberta, Canada
"There's nothing quite like seeing the aurora borealis and noctilucent clouds," says photographer Harlan Thomas on June 9, 2025. "This was my first sighting of the year for NLC's and it couldn't have come at a better time the aurora was out as well, making for the perfect combination. The show was almost spoiled by wildfire smoke that had drifted from the North but the NLC's and the aurora overcame that obstacle."
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts |
|
Updated at: 2025 Jun 16 2200 UTC
FLARE |
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
CLASS M |
75
% |
75
% |
CLASS X |
30
% |
30
% |
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant
disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor
storm, severe
storm
Updated at: 2025 Jun 16 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
|
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
ACTIVE |
30
% |
30
% |
MINOR |
15
% |
15
% |
SEVERE |
01
% |
05
% |
High latitudes
|
0-24
hr |
24-48
hr |
ACTIVE |
15
% |
15
% |
MINOR |
30
% |
30
% |
SEVERE |
40
% |
50
% |
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This is an AI Free Zone: AI isn't all bad. Large language models are good writers with access to vast stores of data. There's still no substitute for a human being with decades of space weather forecasting experience. This website is 100% human.
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DON'T BE SURPRISED IF THERE'S AN X-FLARE TODAY: Potentially dangerous sunspot 4114 is directly facing Earth. It has an unstable delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for strong explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class flares and a 30% chance of X-flares on June 17th. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
MARS-REGULUS CONJUNCTION: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. Mars and Regulus are in conjunction, less than one degree apart in the evening twilight sky. "The beauty of their colors is mind-blowing," says Gianluca Masi, who sends this picture from the Virtual Telescope Project facility in Manciano, Italy:
Regulus is a blue-white star in the constellation Leo while Mars, equally bright, is a rusty-red planet passing by for a few nights. Their mis-matched colors are visible to the unaided eye and look great in the eyepiece of any backyard telescope.
Masi notes that they are not alone. "Look between between the two bright gems," he says. "There is a pale spot, a bit shifted closer to Regulus. That phantom is the Leo I dwarf galaxy, about 820,000 light-years away. Capturing it in the same frame as Mars and Regulus is something rare and deeply evocative."
more images: from Mike Olason of SaddleBrooke, Arizona
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
STARLINKS + MARS AND REGULUS: SpaceX launched 26 more Starlink satellites from California on Monday evening, June 16th (8:36 p.m. PDT). The twilight liftoff Vandenberg Space Force Base was visible all the way from Arizona:
"We're getting more Starlinks to streak through our astrophotos, but the launch sure was pretty!" says photographer Scott Tucker of Tucson, AZ. "The current close conjunction of Regulus and Mars is just above the cactus."
more images: from David Blanchard of Flagstaff, Arizona; from Paul D. Maley of Carefree, Arizona
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
CONSTELLATION CAT NIGHT LIGHT (CRYSTAL BALL): It's the most far-out feline night light ever--the Constellation Cat Crystal Ball. On April 23, 2025, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a giant helium balloon.
You can have it for $139.95. Outlined by stars in the style of an astronomical constellation, the laser-etched cat comes with an LED stand that produces a soothing glow for your bedside table. Also included: A unique greeting card shows the crystal ball in flight and tells the story of its journey to the edge of space.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud 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 Jun 16, 2025, the network reported 7 fireballs.
(7 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 June 17, 2025 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
| 2015 XR1 |
2025-Jun-12 |
18.1 LD |
12.6 |
81 |
| 2022 KQ5 |
2025-Jun-12 |
13.6 LD |
5.1 |
5 |
| 2025 KV4 |
2025-Jun-12 |
4.1 LD |
8 |
26 |
| 2025 KF1 |
2025-Jun-12 |
8.1 LD |
9.7 |
38 |
| 2025 LV |
2025-Jun-13 |
4.7 LD |
16.2 |
38 |
| 2023 XO15 |
2025-Jun-15 |
17.8 LD |
3.4 |
24 |
| 2025 HN6 |
2025-Jun-16 |
6.4 LD |
2.3 |
23 |
| 2000 LF3 |
2025-Jun-17 |
18.9 LD |
14.5 |
169 |
| 2023 XU2 |
2025-Jun-18 |
11.1 LD |
15.6 |
32 |
| 2025 KT6 |
2025-Jun-19 |
7.1 LD |
9.2 |
70 |
| 2003 AY2 |
2025-Jun-22 |
14.2 LD |
15.9 |
386 |
| 2025 LT |
2025-Jun-23 |
3.4 LD |
14.5 |
52 |
| 2014 DH |
2025-Jun-28 |
17.1 LD |
12.1 |
17 |
| 2019 JM |
2025-Jul-09 |
16.6 LD |
6.9 |
14 |
| 2019 NW5 |
2025-Jul-09 |
15.2 LD |
16.5 |
65 |
| 2005 VO5 |
2025-Jul-11 |
15.9 LD |
14.4 |
382 |
| 2022 YS5 |
2025-Jul-17 |
17.4 LD |
6.1 |
38 |
| 2018 BY6 |
2025-Jul-19 |
13.7 LD |
7.4 |
69 |
| 2019 CO1 |
2025-Aug-08 |
17.8 LD |
10.5 |
65 |
| 2022 QB1 |
2025-Aug-10 |
8.9 LD |
3.9 |
6 |
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
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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. |
| |
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. |
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from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| |
the
underlying science of space weather |
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