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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: 304.8 km/sec
density: 4.3 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2343 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2340 UT Feb07
24-hr: A0
2340 UT Feb07
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2340 UT
Daily Sun: 07 Feb 09
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI

more images: from Erika Rix of Zanesville, Ohio
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 06 Feb. 2009
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= 2
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: 2.5 nT
Bz: 0.3 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2343 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Feb. 13th or 14th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2009 Feb 07 2201 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: 2009 Feb 07 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
01 %
01 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
February 7, 2009

AURORA ALERT: Did you sleep through the Northern Lights? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

 

VALENTINE'S SHOW? Arctic sweethearts, take note. A solar wind stream is heading toward Earth and it might spark high-latitude auroras when it arrives on Feb. 14th. Valentine's Day could end with a sweet display of Northern Lights: gallery.

NAKED-EYE COMET: Comet Lulin is now visible to the naked eye from dark-sky sites. "This morning, I noticed a faint smudge above Zubenelgenubi," reports Jeff Barton from the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus in West Texas. "I then trained my 9x63 binoculars on the fuzzy patch. Yep, nailed it! I was thrilled to finally bag Comet Lulin without optical aid."

If optical aid is offered, however, don't refuse it. The view through a small telescope is dynamite:

"Wow, it was nice!" says photographer Mike Broussard of Maurice, Louisiana, who took this picture of Comet Lulin gliding by double star Zubenelgenubi on Feb. 6th.

Another report of naked-eye visibility comes from Martin McKenna of Maghera, Northern Ireland: "I went out for a look at Comet Lulin this morning before dawn with my telescope and binoculars. The Moon was very low, so I stood within the shadow of my house and tried to see the comet without optical aid. Using averted vision, I was able to glimpse the comet perhaps a dozen times! It looked like a large grey patch of light very close to Zubenelgenubi. The sight gave me a warm glow on such a frigid frosty night."

Comet Lulin rises in the east just a few hours before the sun. See for yourself: sky map.

UPDATED: Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope] [sky map] [ephemeris]

ICY CORONA: Colorful lunar coronas are formed by spherical droplets of water in clouds. Moonlight hits the liquid droplets and diffraction does the rest. At least, that's how it's supposed to work....

Last night, Prof. Joseph Shaw of Montana State University looked up and saw a lovely corona circling the Moon--but something was not quite right. The cloud that caused the display seemed too high and cold for water droplets. More likely, Shaw figured, it was a cloud of ice, and to test his hypothesis, he shined a laser into the heavens:

The timing and polarization of the laser's reflection revealed the cloud's altitude and composition. Just as Shaw suspected, it was high (7.5 - 10 km) and contained an abundance of ice crystals. Sharp-edged specks of ice, not spherical droplets of water, must have produced the corona.

"Ice crystals in clouds are usually much too large to produce visual diffraction patterns," says Shaw. "However, this was a special type of cloud--a 'wave cloud' created when air oscillates after flowing over mountains such as those that surround my town, Bozeman, Montana. Wave clouds have been found to sometimes contain little tiny ice particles created when liquid droplets freeze so quickly they have insufficient time to grow into large ice crystals."

The crystals in this particular wave cloud were 10 to 20 microns in diameter--perfect for making the corona Shaw observed.

"We are funded to measure clouds, aerosols and atmospheric radiation for climate studies," says Shaw. "Often I get to do studies like this when I recognize the opportunities that Mother Nature presents."


February 2009 Aurora Gallery
[Previous Februaries: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002]


Explore the Sunspot Cycle

       
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 February 7, 2009 there were 1024 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Feb. 2009 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2009 BK58
Feb. 2
1.7 LD
17
30 m
2009 BG81
Feb. 2
4.4 LD
19
12 m
2009 CC2
Feb. 2
0.5 LD
17
12 m
2009 BW2
Feb. 5
8.4 LD
20
40 m
2009 CP
Feb. 8
7.7 LD
19
20 m
2009 BE58
Feb. 10
8.6 LD
16
225 m
2006 AS2
Feb. 10
9.2 LD
15
370 m
2009 BL58
Feb. 11
4.8 LD
17
55 m
1999 AQ10
Feb. 18
4.4 LD
13
390 m
2009 CV
Feb. 23
4.8 LD
18
62 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
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STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
   
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