You are viewing the page for Aug. 1, 2014
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids Internet Shopping Sites high quality binoculars excellent weather stations all-metal reflector telescopes rotatable microscopes
 
Solar wind
speed: 444.4 km/sec
density: 3.4 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M1
1814 UT Aug01
24-hr: M2
1448 UT Aug01
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 01 Aug 14
Sunspots AR2127 and AR2130 have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 139
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 01 Aug 2014

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Update
01 Aug 2014

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 156 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 01 Aug 2014

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 3 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 7.7 nT
Bz: 0.6 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
Coronal Holes: 01 Aug 14
There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.

Spaceweather.com posts daily satellite images of noctilucent clouds (NLCs), which hover over Earth's poles at the edge of space. The data come from NASA's AIM spacecraft. The north polar "daisy" pictured below is a composite of near-realtime images from AIM assembled by researchers at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).
Noctilucent Clouds
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 08-01-2014 10:55:07
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2014 Aug 01 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
55 %
55 %
CLASS X
20 %
20 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2014 Aug 01 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
25 %
30 %
MINOR
05 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
30 %
30 %
SEVERE
30 %
40 %
 
Friday, Aug. 1, 2014
What's up in space
 

New from Spaceweather.com: Edge of Space Advertising. Send your product or message to the edge of space for a down-to-Earth fee.  Profits support student space weather research. Email Dr. Tony Phillips for more information.

 
Edge of Space Advertising

MINOR STORM WARNING: A CME is heading for Earth. The cloud was hurled into space on July 30th when a magnetic filament on the sun erupted, and it appears to be on course to sideswipe Earth's magnetic field. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Aug. 2nd when the CME arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice

RADIO BURSTS FROM THE SUN: The loudspeakers of shortwave radios are bursting with static today. The source of the noise is the sun. "I have been picking up solar bursts on my RadioJove receiver at 20.1 MHz," reports Kevin Palivec of Hawley, Texas. This chart recording displays 10 minutes of activity:

The bursts were triggered by an M2-class explosion in the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR2127. The explosion sent shock waves rippling through the sun's atmosphere. Those shock waves, in turn, excited plasma instabilities that emit static-y radio waves. Becase there are a whole variety of plasma instabilites, there is a corresponding variety of radio burst types. Palivec recorded a mix of two: Type II and Type IV.

More solar radio bursts could be in the offing as sunspot AR2127 and nearby sunspot AR2130 both crackle with M-class solar flares. Visit NASA's RadioJove website to find out how to build your own receiver--and listen up.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

FIVE DAYS TO THE ROSETTA COMET: ESA's Rosetta probe is now only five days away from a historic encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. If all goes as planned, Rosetta will become the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, follow it around the sun, and even drop a lander on its surface. Readers got a sneak preview yesterday when ESA released dramatic new images of the comet's core and atmosphere:

The comet's atmosphere or "coma" (left), is a mixture of gas and dust slowly evaporating away from the sun-warmed core (right). At the moment, the coma is diffuse and relatively calm. That's because the comet is still far from the sun, about 544 million kilometers away in the cold dark space between Mars and Jupiter. A year from now this could change, however, as the comet swings by the sun only 185 million kilometers away. Increased solar heating will liberate jets of dust and high-speed streamers of gas, swelling the coma into something larger and much more dangerous to the spacecraft.

Rosetta is meeting up with the comet now so that researchers can not only study how the comet warms up along its orbit and how activity develops, but also because it is much safer to learn how to operate in such a new environment when the activity is relatively low. Moreover, landing would be significantly more challenging next year when activity is expected to be much higher.

Only 5 days to rendezvous! Follow the action @ESA_Rosetta.

Realtime Comet Photo Gallery


Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime NLC Photo Gallery


  All Sky Fireball Network

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 Aug. 1, 2014, the network reported 16 fireballs.
(6 Perseids, 5 sporadics, 2 Southern delta Aquariids, 2 alpha Capricornids, 1 August Lyncid)

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]

  Near Earth Asteroids
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 August 1, 2014 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2014 OW3
Jul 29
9.6 LD
137 m
2002 JN97
Aug 2
61.4 LD
2.0 km
2014 OV299
Aug 6
9.5 LD
23 m
2014 OF300
Aug 7
3.8 LD
22 m
2001 RZ11
Aug 17
34.2 LD
2.2 km
2013 WT67
Aug 17
16.1 LD
1.1 km
2013 RZ53
Sep 9
1.9 LD
3 m
2002 CE26
Sep 9
47.9 LD
1.8 km
2009 RR
Sep 16
2 LD
34 m
2006 GQ2
Sep 19
65.9 LD
1.1 km
2009 FG19
Sep 26
34.6 LD
1.1 km
2014 NE52
Sep 30
61.2 LD
1.0 km
2001 EA16
Oct 7
35.5 LD
1.9 km
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.
  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
©2010 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.