Marianne's Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to join them in their quest to find and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Experience the winter wonderland in the Tromsø Area. | | | QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is about to pass through a narrow stream of debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. According to the International Meteor Organization, the shower will peak on Monday morning, Jan. 4th, during the hours around 0800 UT (3 a.m. ET). The timing favors observers in North America who could see dozens of meteors per hour flowing from a radiant near the North Star. Too cold to go outside? Cozy up by the fire and listen to Quadrantid radar echoes on Space Weather Radio. UN-DEAD SUNSPOT EXPLODES AGAIN: Sunspot AR2473, the source of the New Year's geomagnetic storm, appears to be in a state of advanced decay. It's not dead yet, though. During the early hours of Jan. 2nd it unleashed a strong M2-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion: Now play the movie again and note the tornado of plasma that briefly rises up and falls back to the sun's surface. The twister was wider than our entire planet. This explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space: movie. It does not appear to be heading for Earth. Stay tuned, however, for analysis of the possibility that the CME might deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field in the days ahead. Solar flare alerts: text or voice Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery NEW YEAR'S GEOMAGNETIC STORM: 2016 began with an explosion--not only of fireworks, but also auroras. On Jan. 1st, a G2-class geomagnetic storm sparked bright lights around the poles as revelers around the world were ringing in the New Year. In Glenfarg, Scotland, fireworks crackled against a backdrop of green: "Our neighbours let off some fireworks for the New Year," says photographer Stuart Walker. "They were modest compared to the organized display in Edinburgh, but looked great alongside the ongoing aurora." The storm was the result of a CME strike on New Year's Eve (Dec. 31 @ 00:30 UT). At first the CME's impact had little effect. Indeed, we initially ruled it a "dud." But as Earth moved deeper into the CME's wake, solar wind conditions shifted to favor geomagnetic activity. The very first sighting of auroras in 2016 may have come from Taichi Nakamura, across the International Date Line in Dunedin, New Zealand: "It was a beautiful treat to see the auroras kick off the New Year," says Nakamura. "The display began after midnight and kept glowing with waves and beams until morning twilight painted light over the aurora. It is summer now in New Zealand and my four year old son was delighted to come with me as it is warm even at night." Aurora alerts: text or voice Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery GREEN COMET MEETS ORANGE STAR: On Jan. 1st, Comet Catalina had a close encounter with Arcturus in the early morning sky. Chris Schur of Payson AZ woke up before dawn to photograph the green comet beside the orange star: "A really nice photo-op this morning, with the 6th magnitude comet nearly on top of Arcturus," says Schur. "Fortunately, the comet's tail pointed away from the all too brilliant star, and made for a stunning portrait." Arcturus is an orange giant star 37 light years from Earth. Comet Catalina is much closer, only 0.00001 light years from Earth. The comet gets its green color from the gases in its atmosphere--especially diatomic carbon (C2), which glows green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space. Comet Catalina will remain in the neighborhood of Arcturus for the next couple of nights as it glides through the constellation Bootes. Observing tips and sky maps may be found in this article from Sky and Telescope. Realtime Comet Photo Gallery Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery Realtime PSC Photo Gallery 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. 2, 2016, the network reported 11 fireballs. (9 sporadics, 1 Quadrantid, 1 lambda Bootid) 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 2, 2016 there were potentially hazardous asteroids. 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 | Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 | Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N) | Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month. | Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr) | Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr) | Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr) | Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr) | Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr) | Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr) | Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr) | These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more. Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. Here is the data from our latest flight, Oct. 22nd: Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level. Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours. 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. | 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. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | the underlying science of space weather | | Web-based high school science course with free enrollment | |