Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days 2018 total: 121 days (56%) 2017 total: 104 days (28%) 2016 total: 32 days (9%) 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%) 2008 total: 268 days (73%) 2007 total: 152 days (42%) 2006 total: 70 days (19%) Updated 03 Aug 2018
Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 3 quiet explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 5.6 nT Bz: -1.9 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2345 UT
Coronal Holes: 03 Aug 18
A weak stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could reach Earth on August 3rd or 4th. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent CloudsThe season for noctilucent clouds in he northern hemisphere is underway. Check here daily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2018 Aug 03 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
25 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
30 %
SEVERE
25 %
30 %
Friday, Aug. 3, 2018
What's up in space
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A BRIGHT METEOR OVER GREENLAND: Today, some media outlets are reporting a meteor strike on July 25th near the USA's Thule Air Base in Greenland. Why hasn't the US Air Force said anything about it? Probably because the impactor was a fairly routine space rock--not a nuclear missile. "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait lays out the facts in this excellent article.
QUANTUM 'SUPER ATOMS' IN EARTH ORBIT: There's a new form of matter in Earth orbit. On July 27th, NASA announced that researchers have created Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs) onboard the International Space Station. These "super atoms" don't behave like particles of normal matter. They're more like matter waves, obeying the strange laws of quantum mechanics. Unlike other objects from the Quantum Realm, however, BECs are large enough to see with the unaided eye:
How weird are BECs? Consider the following: If you create two BECs and put them together, they don't mix like an ordinary gas. Instead, they can "interfere" like waves: thin, parallel layers of matter are separated by thin layers of empty space. An atom in one BEC can add itself to an atom in another BEC and produce – no atom at all.
First predicted by Indian physicist Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein in the 1920s, BECs are hard to study on Earth because the pull of gravity rips them apart in a fraction of a second. In the microgravity environment of the space station, however, BECs can hold their form for 5 to 10 seconds.
Researchers have been making BECs inside the space station's Cold Atom Lab, an atomic refrigerator that can cool rubidium vapors down to one ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Each BEC is assembled from a few million rubidium atoms.
Bose-Einstein condensates are quantum creatures big enough to see--and therein lies their promise. Many cutting-edge technologies such as smaller, faster computer chips, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and quantum computers lie in the twilight zone between the quantum world and the macroscopic world. Scientists hope that studying BECs will advance those technologies and create others.
FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On Jan 27th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a hand-crafted sterling silver Celtic love knot 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. All sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.
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. 3, 2018, the network reported 18 fireballs. (14 sporadics, 1 Northern delta Aquariid, 1 Perseid, 1 Southern delta Aquariid, 1 alpha Capricornid)
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 3, 2018 there were 1912 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
Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here:
This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California.
What is this all about? 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. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 13% since 2015:
Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.
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 data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
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