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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 452.8 km/sec
density: 4.0 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2352 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1
1925 UT Jul03
24-hr: B1
0958 UT Jul03
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 03 Jul 16
The sun is blank--no sunspots. This means solar activity is very low. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 03 Jul 2016

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 9 days
2016 total: 13 days (7%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

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%)

Updated 03 Jul 2016


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 71 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 03 Jul 2016

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.6 nT
Bz: 4.4 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2352 UT
Coronal Holes: 03 Jul 16

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds Images from NASA's AIM spacecraft are once again appearing on Spaceweather.com. Check back daily for space-based sightings of noctilucent clouds.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 07-03-2016 16:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2016 Jul 03 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
CLASS X
01 %
01 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2016 Jul 03 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
05 %
MINOR
05 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
15 %
SEVERE
20 %
05 %
 
Sunday, Jul. 3, 2016
What's up in space
       
 

It's waiting for you: The most successful Aurora Photo Tour on Earth! 100% success rate 4 years in a row and winner of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Award. Join LapplandMedia's aurora tours in Abisko, Swedish Lapland!

 

POLAR AURORAS ARE POSSIBLE TODAY: NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on July 3rd as Earth enters a stream of solar wind. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, especially in the southern hemisphere where dark winter skies favor visibility. Aurora alerts: text or voice

GRAND CANYON 'BOW: To see a rainbow, all you need are sunlight and falling rain. Correction: that's all you need to see half a rainbow. Typical rainbows are at least 50% hidden below the horizon. To boost the fraction, add a canyon. David Blanchard saw almost 75% on July 1st:

"Late afternoon thunderstorms gave way to sunlight just moments before sunset, resulting in this three-quarter circle rainbow," says Blanchard, who was standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon when he took the picture.

His photo shows that rainbows are not just arcs, but actually circles. Moreover, they are double circles. The interior or "primary rainbow" is caused by one reflection inside raindrops. The exterior or "secondary rainbow" is caused by two reflections. Turns out, you can learn a lot about rainbows by standing on a precipice.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

WHAT SUNSPOTS LEAVE BEHIND: With the sunspot number dropping to zero, the face of the sun is blank. Or is it? A closer look at the stellar surface reveals what the vanishing sunspots have left behind: solar granulation. Bernard Durand sends this picture from the French Alps:

What are these granules? The sun is so hot, it literally boils. Granules are bumps on the boiling surface, much like the bumpy surface of water boiling on a hot stove. One difference: While the granules on your stove are only a few centimeters across, granules on the sun are as wide as Texas. If you have a solar telescope, take a look.

:Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: In the northern hemisphere, July is usually the best month for noctilucent clouds (NLCs). The electric-blue ripples are bright and widespread, sometimes sighted as far south as Colorado and Kansas. Right on cue, July 1st brought a magnificant display. Ruslan Merzlyakov sends this picture from  Nykøbing Mors, Denmark:


"We witnessed an absolutely amazing apparition of noctilucent clouds in the first hours of July 1st," says Merzlyakov. "The whole horizon from west to east was filled with silver light and it was very bright!"

"I recorded short a video to give you a sense of what it looked like in real time," he adds. Play it!

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. They float more than 80km above Earth's surface where diaphanous wisps of water vapor from the planet below wrap themselves around the ashy remains of meteoroids. The resulting ice crystals glow electric blue in the night sky when they are illuminated by sunlight at the edge of space. There is growing evidence that NLCs are spreading as a result of climate change.

Ready to see for yourself? Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped ~10 degrees below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery


Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora 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 Jul. 3, 2016, the network reported 13 fireballs.
(12 sporadics, 1 July Pegasid)

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 July 3, 2016 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2016 NA
Jul 1
1.3 LD
18 m
2016 MO
Jul 7
6.6 LD
47 m
2002 KL6
Jul 22
26.6 LD
1.4 km
2011 BX18
Jul 25
52.7 LD
1.1 km
2005 OH3
Aug 3
5.8 LD
28 m
2000 DP107
Aug 12
66.5 LD
1.0 km
2004 BO41
Sep 7
38.9 LD
1.1 km
2015 KE
Sep 10
14.9 LD
23 m
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. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015:

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.

  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
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