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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 388.1 km/sec
density: 14.9 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: C2
1751 UT Jun10
24-hr: C2
1751 UT Jun10
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 10 Jun 11
New sunspot complex 1234 is growing but does not yet pose a threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI
Sunspot number: 46
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 09 Jun 2011

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2011 total: 1 day (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 820 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days

Updated 09 Jun 2011


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 90 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 09 Jun 2011

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: 7.0 nT
Bz: 4.1 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 10 Jun 11
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about June 14th. Credit: SDO/AIA.
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2011 Jun 10 2200 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: 2011 Jun 10 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
10 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
25 %
20 %
MINOR
15 %
15 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
 
Friday, Jun. 10, 2011
What's up in space
 

Turn your cell phone into a field-tested satellite tracker. Works for Android and iPhone.

 
Satellite flybys

VOYAGER DISCOVERS MAGNETIC FROTH: NASA's Voyager probes have reached the edge of the solar system and found something surprising there--a froth of magnetic bubbles separating us from the rest of the galaxy. Get the full story from Science@NASA.

WAITING FOR IMPACT: The CME from Tuesday's magnificent flare still hasn't reached Earth. NOAA forecasters haven't given up, though. They estimate a 20% to 30% chance that the cloud may yet deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field and spark geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours. High latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: voice, text.

While you're waiting, watch the eruption one more time:


Credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

"It looks like someone kicked a clod of dirt in the air," says solar physicist C. Alex Young of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in a Youtube video. "I've never seen material released in this way before--an amazing, amazing event."

Much of the plasma thrown up by the blast simply fell back to the sun--indeed, that's what makes the footage so dramatic. In the movies you can see blobs of hot gas as large as Earth making bright splashes where they hit the stellar surface. Some plasma, however, reached escape velocity and left the sun in the form of a coronal mass ejection: movie.

June 2011 Aurora Gallery
[Aurora alerts: text, voice] [previous Junes: 2010, 2008, 2001]

DROOPY DISH: Drivers traveling down Highway 395 in California's Eastern Sierra are accustomed to seeing a large white dish looming in front of the sandy-brown mountains. It's the 40-meter antenna at Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory. On June 6th local resident Andrew Kirk was passing by the observatory when an extraordinary sight made him stop for a closer look. The antenna was apparently drooping and melting into the ground like a Dali watch:

"I realized I had seen a mirage image of the big dish," says Kirk, "so I went back to document it. Sadly, I had only a pocket camera with limited zoom. I improvised, though, and photographed the 'drooping dish' through one barrel of my binoculars. Amazingly, as I watched, the dish began to tilt upwards and within a few minutes it was pointing straight up. Had I passed a bit later I would have missed it."

According to atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley, the phenomenon was caused by "an abnormally warm air layer close to the ground that had a non-linear temperature gradient. The conditions were akin to stages of an Etruscan vase sunset mirage or the inferior mirages seen over sun-heated roads. Strictly speaking, however, this one was a distortion rather than a mirage because the latter is technically reserved for when there is more than one image of the distant object." A full discussion of the drooping dish may be found at Cowley's excellent Optics Picture of the Day website.

Kirk drives by the dish frequently and he's looking forward to a whole summer of warm air and temperature gradients. "I hope to see this again...with my better camera in tow."


Midnight Solar Eclipse Gallery
[NASA: A Rare Eclipse of the Midnight Sun]

  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 June 10, 2011 there were 1224 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2002 JC
Jun 1
57.5 LD
--
1.6 km
2009 BD
Jun 2
0.9 LD
--
10 m
2011 KE15
Jun 3
3.7 LD
--
16 m
2011 KV15
Jun 5
8.3 LD
--
25 m
2002 JB9
Jun 11
71.5 LD
--
3.2 km
2001 VH75
Jun 12
42.2 LD
--
1.1 km
2004 LO2
Jun 15
9.9 LD
--
48 m
2011 GA55
Jul 6
64.1 LD
--
1.0 km
2011 EZ78
Jul 10
37.3 LD
--
1.5 km
2003 YS117
Jul 14
73.9 LD
--
1.0 km
2007 DD
Jul 23
9.3 LD
--
31 m
2009 AV
Aug 22
49.7 LD
--
1.1 km
2003 QC10
Sep 18
50 LD
--
1.2 km
2004 SV55
Sep 19
67.5 LD
--
1.2 km
2007 TD
Sep 23
3.8 LD
--
58 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
Science Central
 
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