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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 356.7 km/sec
density: 7.2 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2245 UT Aug03
24-hr: A0
2245 UT Aug03
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 03 Aug 08
A new-cycle sunspot is trying to emerge. A magnetic dipole is present inside the circle, but it has not yet coalesced into a dark sunspot core. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 01 Aug. 2008
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
What is the auroral oval?
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.4 nT
Bz: 0.4 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2247 UT
Coronal Holes:
There are no coronal holes on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2008 Aug 03 2203 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: 2008 Aug 03 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
August 3, 2008
AURORA ALERTS: Did you miss the Northern Lights of July 12th? Next time get a wake-up call from Space Weather PHONE.  

NANOSAIL-D LOST: Sadly, NASA's NanoSail-D solar sail never reached Earth orbit. A SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket launched last night with the sail on board, but minutes after liftoff a stage-separation failure occurred; the mission was lost. Condolences to the mission team, and better luck next time!

PERSEID METEORS: The August arc of Earth's orbit is littered with debris from comets, especially Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Already, a few Perseids per hour are streaking across the night sky in advance of the shower's peak on August 11th-12th. August is Perseid-month.

But not every meteor is a Perseid. Consider the following:

"I've been out every clear night looking for meteors," says photographer Krzysztof Polakowski of Gniewowo, Poland. "On August 1st, I recorded this fireball of magnitude -7 (more than fifteen times brighter than Venus). Fantastic! Unfortunately, it was not a Perseid."

The fireball did not fly out of the constellation Perseus as a Perseid would do. Instead, it was probably a sporadic, i.e., a random piece of comet or asteroid littering Earth's orbit, not part of any organized debris stream. Every hour of every night, a few sporadic meteors can be seen from any location on Earth. There are also several minor showers active in early August, especially the delta Aquariids, which produce 2 to 5 meteors per hour from an unknown comet. Adding these to the Perseids and sporadics makes the night sky pretty lively, and the Perseid peak is still more than a week away.

Says Polakowski, "maybe in a few days I'll catch some Perseids." He probably will.

MAGNIFICENT CORONA: The sun's wispy, dancing, mysteriously-hot outer atmosphere is one of the prettiest sights in the heavens. The trick is seeing it. Under normal circumstances, blinding sunlight hides the corona from sensitive human eyes. Last Friday, however, was not normal:

Hartwig Luethen took the picture on August 1st when the Moon passed directly in front of the sun, briefly revealing the corona for all to see. To photograph the eclipse, Luethen stationed himself in Kochenovo, west of Novosibirsk, Russia, deep inside the path of totality. "I used a Canon 350D to make 24 exposures varying in length from 1/500 to 2 seconds." The resulting composite shows the ghostly corona, a magnetic prominence surging over the lunar limb, and the Earthlit surface of the Moon itself. Browse the gallery for more corona shots:

UPDATED: Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
[interactive eclipse map]

 

       
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 3, 2008 , there were 968 potentially hazardous asteroids.
July 2008 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2003 YE45
July 13
16.5 LD
15
1.4 km
2008 BT18
July 14
5.9 LD
13
1.0 km
2003 LC5
July 15
62 LD
16
1.4 km
2008 NP3
July 17
6.8 LD
18
85 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.
Essential Links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  From the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
  more links...
 
©2008, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
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