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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

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Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 298.1 km/s
density:
1.5 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT


X-ray Solar Flares

6-hr max:
C1 2115 UT Dec04
24-hr: C4 1435 UT Dec04
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 04 Dec '06

Sunspot 926 is breaking up and poses a declining threat for solar flares. Credit:
SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 46
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 03 Dec 2006

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals a large sunspot on the far side of the sun. It is probably old sunspot 923. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.5 nT
Bz:
0.9 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth as early as Dec. 6th. Credit: NOAA GOES-13.


SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts

Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2006 Dec 04 2204 UTC
FLARE 0-24 hr 24-48 hr
CLASS M 10 % 10 %
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 2006 Dec 04 2204 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 15 % 25 %
MINOR 05 % 10 %
SEVERE 01 % 01 %

High latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 15 % 25 %
MINOR 05 % 15 %
SEVERE 01 % 05 %

What's Up in Space -- 4 Dec 2006
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Did you sleep through the auroras of November? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

PROMINENCE ALERT: Grab your solar telescope. A large, flame-shaped prominence sprouted out of the sun's eastern limb during the weekend--and it's still there. Phil Jones of Frisco, Texas, took this picture using a Coronado MaxScope90.

LONG NIGHTS MOON: According to folklore, tonight's full moon is the Long Nights Moon. It gets its name from the long nights of December. There's something special about the Long Nights Moon: it travels extra-high in the sky, passing almost directly overhead at midnight. Go outside and take a look:


Photo details: Canon 10D, fisheye lens, 800 ASA, 6 sec. exp.

In this image from Peter Detterline of Douglassville, Pennsylvania, the Long Nights Moon is surrounded by a circular ice halo. Crystals of frozen water in high clouds catch the rays of the Moon and bend them as shown. When you see a Moon halo, be on the lookout for Moon pillars, 'dogs and other exotic arcs, too. They're all caused by ice in the sky.

more images: from P-M Heden of Vallentuna, Sweden; from Franck Vaissiere of Fronton, France.

FREQUENT FIREBALLS: Have you ever stepped outside after dinner to walk the dog--just in time to see a bright fireball streak across the sky? It makes you wonder, how often does that happen?

Pretty often, according to astronomer Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Using a computer model of Earth's meteoroid environment, he made this plot showing the global number of fireballs per day vs. the brightness of the fireball:

According to his calculations, fireballs as bright as Venus appear somewhere on Earth more than 100 times daily. Fireballs as bright as a quarter Moon occur once every ten days, and fireballs as bright as a full Moon once every five months.

The vast majority are never noticed. About 70% of all fireballs streak over uninhabited ocean. Half appear during the day, invisible in sunny skies. Many are missed, however, simply because no one bothers to look up. So grab a leash and a dog (optional), and head outside. The chance of a fireball is better than you think.

BONUS FIREBALL: This morning, Dec. 4th, photographer Jarek Olejnik caught a spectacular fireball over Nysa, Polska: image.



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 4 Dec 2006 there were 836 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

Dec 2006 Earth-asteroid encounters
ASTEROID

 DATE
(UT)

MISS DISTANCE

MAG.

 SIZE
2006 WQ127

Dec. 2

7.9 LD

19

~94 m
2006 WB

Dec. 5

7.0 LD

17

~130 m
2004 XL14

Dec. 20

10.1 LD

15

~225 m
Notes: LD is a "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 Environment 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. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; Jan-Mar 2006;

Space Audio Streams: (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email


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