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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 560.6 km/sec
density: 8.6 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2350 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B2
2111 UT Jul10
24-hr: C1
0031 UT Jul10
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 10 Jul 17
Sunspot AR2665 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares.. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 31
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 10 Jul 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2017 total: 44 days (23%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
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%)

Updated 10 Jul 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 91 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 10 Jul 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 4
unsettled
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 9.9 nT
Bz: 6.4 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2350 UT
Coronal Holes: 10 Jul 17

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds NASA's AIM spacecraft, which monitors NLCs from space, recent moved into a new orbit around Earth. Daily data are currently unavailable while the spacecraft's pointing settles.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 02-24-2017 17:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 Jul 10 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
25 %
25 %
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: 2017 Jul 10 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
30 %
30 %
MINOR
10 %
15 %
SEVERE
01 %
05 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
10 %
MINOR
30 %
25 %
SEVERE
40 %
50 %
 
Monday, Jul. 10, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over lapland is excited to announce that Autumn Aurora Adventures are available for immediate booking! Reserve your adventure of a lifetime in Abisko National Park, Sweden today!

 

JUNO PLUNGES TOWARD THE GREAT RED SPOT: Later today, July 10th at 6:55 pm PDT, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over the biggest storm in the solar system: Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Wide enough to swallow Earth twice, the swirling anticylone is at least 150 years old and Juno will come closer to it than any spacecraft in history. Scientists aren't sure what Juno's high resolution cameras and cloud-piercing sensors will see when they swoop just 9,000 km above the cloudtops. Stay tuned for something new!

RECTANGULAR MOON: When the full Moon rose over Casco Bay in Maine on July 9th, longtime skywatcher John Stetson expected to see the usual lunar disk.  Instead, he photographed a strange lunar rectangle. "The rising Moon looked like an iceberg ... faint and shaped like a giant block of ice," he says.

What happened? Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains:

"John says '..the Moon looked like an iceberg.' That's appropriate because this mirage is a result of cold water. The cold sea offshore of Maine cooled the air above it. Above that was warmer air – a temperature inversion and the stuff of mock-mirages. The Moon's rays passing through it bend and twist into several moon images, some upright some inverted. They combine together into the rectangular 'iceberg.'"

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

SOLAR ECLIPSE SPACE PENDANTS: Would you like to support our Solar Eclipse Balloon Network? Here's one way: Buy a space pendant. This solar eclipse-themed necklace flew to the stratosphere on July 2, 2017, attached to the payload of an Earth to Sky Calculus space weather balloon:


The payload contained more just like it. If you buy one now for $79.95, we will fly it back to the stratosphere during the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017, where it will be enveloped by the Moon's cool shadow above our launch site in Oregon. No additional charge! Just make a note in the COMMENTS BOX of the shopping cart: "Please fly my pendant into the eclipse!" 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.

More items from the edge of space may be found in the Earth to Sky Store. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation monitoring and hands-on STEM education.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education

 

SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Sunspot AR2665 has grown into a behemoth almost as wide as the planet Jupiter: movie. Stretching more than 125,000 km from end to end and containing dozens of dark cores, the active region is an now easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Amateur astronomer Peter Desypris sends this July 9th photo from Syros island, Greece:

"This is the biggest sunspot of 2017 so far," says Desypris. "I photographed it using an 8'inch LX200 telescope and a safe solar filter."

On July 9th at 0318 UT the big sunspot erupted, producing an M1.3-class solar flare. Telescopes onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash:

A pulse of UV and X-radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, altered the normal propagation of shortwave radio transmissions on the dayside of our planet. A map from NOAA shows the geographical regions affected: mostly Australia and east Asia. People who might have noticed blackouts, fades, and other transmission irregularities include aviators, mariners, and ham radio operators.

Considering its extreme size, AR2665 has been relatively calm so far. Stronger flares and CMEs could be in the offing, however, as the sunspot continues to grow and turns toward Earth. Stay tuned for updates. Free: Solar Flare Alerts

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


  All Sky Fireball Network
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 Jul. 10, 2017, the network reported 5 fireballs.
(4 sporadics, 1 July Pegasid)

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]

  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 July 10, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2017 MB5
2017-Jul-05
19 LD
9.5
113
2017 MQ7
2017-Jul-06
17.6 LD
10.9
84
2017 MA5
2017-Jul-06
14.9 LD
7.9
28
2017 MP7
2017-Jul-08
11 LD
8.2
29
2017 MC4
2017-Jul-11
7.6 LD
20.7
143
2017 NH
2017-Jul-12
16.6 LD
7.8
173
2017 MR8
2017-Jul-15
3.3 LD
6.9
36
2007 MB4
2017-Jul-16
14.5 LD
9.6
107
2017 BS5
2017-Jul-23
3.1 LD
5.8
54
2014 OA339
2017-Aug-13
12.3 LD
10
47
3122
2017-Sep-01
18.5 LD
13.5
5376
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.

  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
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NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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