You are viewing the page for May. 5, 2013
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids Internet Shopping Sites high quality binoculars excellent weather stations all-metal reflector telescopes rotatable microscopes
 
Solar wind
speed: 436.7 km/sec
density: 4.6 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M1
1756 UT May05
24-hr: M1
1756 UT May05
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 05 May 13
Three sunspots have beta-gamma magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares: AR1731, AR1734, and AR1739. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 156
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 04 May 2013

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
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%)
Since 2004: 821 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days

Update
04 May 2013

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 148 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 04 May 2013

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.7 nT
Bz: 2.9 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
Coronal Holes: 05 May 13
Solar wind flowing from this minor coronal hole should reach Earth on ~May 6-8. Credit: SDO/AIA.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2013 May 05 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
45 %
45 %
CLASS X
05 %
05 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2013 May 05 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
20 %
MINOR
25 %
20 %
SEVERE
20 %
10 %
 
Sunday, May. 5, 2013
What's up in space
 

A "ring of fire" solar eclipse is coming to Australia on May 9th. Tune into the live webcast sponsored by the Coca-Cola Space Science Center.

 
Live Eclipse Webcast

ETA AQUARID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on May 5th and 6th with as many as 55 meteors per hour in the southern hemisphere and half that number in the north. The best time to look is during the dark hours before local sunrise. [photo gallery]

M5 SOLAR TORNADO: Sunspot group AR1739, just now emerging over the sun's northeastern limb, erupted on May 3rd, producing an M5-class solar flare and a "solar tornado." Click on the image and watch the plasma twist:

The explosion also hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space: movie. Traveling almost 1300 km/s, the electrified cloud is expected to sweep past a couple of NASA spacecraft (EPOXI and Spitzer) on May 7th. No planets, however, were in the line of fire. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters estimate a 45% chance of M-flares today. The question is, where will the eruptions come from? There are at least three choices: Sunspots AR1731, AR1734, and AR1739 all have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong eruptions. The largest of the three, AR1734, is directly facing Earth:

Amateur astronomer Pepe Manteca took the picture yesterday from Barcelona, Spain. The large dark core on the right is more than 3 times wider than Earth--dimensions that made the spot an easy target for Manteca's backyard solar telescope. "It is a stunning sunspot!" he says.

It could be even more stunning if it flares. Stay tuned! Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

MOOOO-VING UP--EDGE OF SPACE ADVERTISING: To fund space weather experiments in the stratosphere, science students in Bishop, California, have started a new business: Edge of Space Advertising. For a fee, they'll fly ad banners, shoes, US presidents--you name it!--to the edge of space. On April 22nd (Earth Day), they launched a cow:

This is EVA, the mascot of New Zealand Internet service provider EOL. Last month, she traveled from Tauranga, New Zealand, to an Edge-of-Space Port in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. There, students attached EVA to the payload of a helium balloon and launched her to the stratosphere 120,000 feet above Earth's surface. Along the way she experienced temperatures as low as -65o C and air pressures only 1% of sea level--much like conditions on the planet Mars. At the end of the 3-hour flight, the balloon popped and EVA parachuted back to Earth, touching down in a remote corner of Death Valley. GPS signals led the students to the landing site, where they recovered EVA covered with desert dust but still smiling.

The name of the student group is "Earth to Sky Calculus." Mentored by Dr. Tony Phillips of spaceweather.com, they are actively exploring the stratosphere--measuring the effect of solar flares on the ozone layer, capturing high-altitude bacteria, and photographing meteor showers. The profits are going to a good cause.

EVA's flight to the stratosphere and the student's recovery expedition through Death Valley has generated a flurry of news coverage for EOL in New Zealand. In short, Edge of Space Advertising really works. Interested? Contact Dr. Tony Phillips for rates and details.


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Comet Photo Gallery


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011]

  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 May 5, 2013 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2001 DQ8
Apr 30
74.3 LD
1.1 km
2004 BV102
May 25
69.9 LD
1.4 km
1998 QE2
May 31
15.2 LD
2.1 km
2000 FM10
Jun 5
50.3 LD
1.3 km
2002 KL3
Jun 6
66.4 LD
1.1 km
1999 WC2
Jun 12
39.2 LD
1.9 km
2006 RO36
Jun 18
70.9 LD
1.2 km
2001 PJ9
Jul 17
29.2 LD
1.1 km
2006 BL8
Jul 26
9.3 LD
48 m
2003 DZ15
Jul 29
7.6 LD
153 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 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
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
©2010 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.