Lights Over Lapland is excited to announce that our aurora webcam will be up and running 365 days per year! You can now enjoy watching the Midnight Sun and all of the other drama in the sky above Abisko National Park, Sweden here. | | |
CHANCE OF STORMS TODAY: NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of minor G1-class geomagnetic storms on April 10th and 11th as a stream of solar wind gently buffets Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing from a wide hole in the sun's atmosphere. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras mixed with spring twilight. Free: Aurora Alerts.
APRIL SHOWERS: "It's amazing what a 4-second camera exposure will reveal on a good night--and last night was a good night, indeed!" reports aurora hunter Todd Salat, who snapped this picture on April 10th as Earth was entering a high-speed stream of solar wind:
"I was in the Knik River Valley in southcentral Alaska," says Salat. "The sky looked absolutely gorgeous reflecting in the water and had me oooooing & awwwwing."
"Did I really see it that brightly? Truthfully, no," he confesses. "The auroras were definitely fainter to the naked eye. Full disclosure: a camera is like Night Vision Goggles and picks up the subtle nuances of night light better than the human eye. But take a deep breath… inhale…. deeper…. and hear the murmur of the creek, fresh spring air on your face, and your eyes grow wide with wonder. That's how I felt anyway. Thank you Nikon D850 for all 45.7 megapixels, which allowed me to capture that feeling in an image."
More auroras are likely tonight as the same stream of solar wind continues to buffet Earth's magnetic field. Stay tuned for "April showers."
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
SPRINGTIME FIREBALL MYSTERY: The inner solar system is littered with dusty, gravelly debris from decaying comets and shattered asteroids. Every night Earth scoops up tons--literally tons--of this material, resulting in a slow drizzle of bright fireballs. Astronomers call them "sporadics." If you stay outside all night long, you might see as many as a dozen if the weather is clear.
On April 8th, a spectacular example split the sky over Veszprem, Hungary:
Photographer Monika Landy-Gyebnar reports: "I was out photographing the sunset, then waited until the International Space Station (ISS) and somewhat later the Progress MS-07 flew overhead. The fireball fell during the time between the two spacecraft. The flower in the foreground is a local pasque flower (Pulsatilla nigricans) which I wanted to include in my picture of the ISS."
Landy-Gyebnar says the magnitude of the fireball was about -10--in other words, more than 100 times brighter than the planet Venus.
Now for the mystery: Sporadic fireballs appear 10% to 30% more often during northern spring compared to other times of year--and no one knows why. "We've been aware of this phenomenon for more than 30 years," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "It's not only fireballs that are affected. Meteorite falls--space rocks that actually hit the ground--are more common in spring as well." Perhaps there is a diffuse swarm of meteoroids scattered in the April-May arc of Earth's orbit, giving rise to the extra fireballs. If so, its origin is unknown.
One thing is certain: Spring is fireball season, and a great time to catch unexpected meteors in photos of other things. Enjoy the show.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
MOTHER'S DAY IS ONLY 4 WEEKS AWAY: On March 5, 2018, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a cosmic ray balloon to the stratosphere, more than 94,000 feet above Earth's surface. This sterling silver Mother's Day pendant went along for the ride:
You can have it for $129.95. The students are selling these pendants as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray monitoring program. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation measurements and hands-on STEM education.
Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again. Mom-satisfaction guaranteed.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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 Apr. 10, 2018, the network reported 26 fireballs.
(26 sporadics)
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]
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 April 10, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2018 FW4 | 2018-Apr-05 | 9.8 LD | 11.6 | 35 |
2018 GN | 2018-Apr-09 | 1.1 LD | 21.1 | 20 |
2018 GG | 2018-Apr-11 | 4.7 LD | 13.9 | 44 |
363599 | 2018-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 224 |
2018 GP | 2018-Apr-13 | 4.4 LD | 8.8 | 14 |
2014 UR | 2018-Apr-14 | 9.3 LD | 4.4 | 17 |
2016 JP | 2018-Apr-20 | 12 LD | 12.7 | 214 |
2012 XL16 | 2018-Apr-23 | 15.8 LD | 6.1 | 28 |
2018 GH | 2018-Apr-25 | 14.6 LD | 10.7 | 92 |
2013 US3 | 2018-Apr-29 | 10.1 LD | 7.7 | 214 |
2018 FV4 | 2018-Apr-29 | 17.7 LD | 6.5 | 59 |
2002 JR100 | 2018-Apr-29 | 10.8 LD | 7.7 | 49 |
1999 FN19 | 2018-May-07 | 9.7 LD | 5.7 | 118 |
2016 JQ5 | 2018-May-08 | 6.3 LD | 10.4 | 9 |
388945 | 2018-May-09 | 6.5 LD | 9 | 295 |
1999 LK1 | 2018-May-15 | 13.3 LD | 10 | 141 |
68347 | 2018-May-29 | 9.5 LD | 13.3 | 389 |
2013 LE7 | 2018-May-31 | 17.8 LD | 1.7 | 12 |
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.
| The official U.S. government space weather bureau |
| The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
| Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
| 3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory |
| Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
| from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
| from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| the underlying science of space weather |
| Reviews here can help you to pick up best memory foam mattresses. |
| These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! |
| | | | | |