| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 2 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 2.9 nT Bz: 0.0 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2351 UT Coronal Holes: 14 Aug 17 A large northern coronal hole is turning toward Earth. Credit: NASA/SDO. Noctilucent Clouds They're back! Images of noctilucent clouds from NASA's AIM spacecraft are available again. The spacecraft's orbit had recently changed, requiring a new way to point AIM's science instruments. This problem has now been solved, and "daily daisies" have returned to Spaceweather.com. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 08-14-2017 16:55:05 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2017 Aug 14 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: 2017 Aug 14 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 30 % | MINOR | 01 % | 15 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 05 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 20 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 15 % | 55 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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! | | | T MINUS ONE WEEK: The Great American Solar Eclipse is one week away. On Aug. 21, 2017, the Moon will pass directly in front of the sun, revealing a Diamond Ring, Bailey's Beads, and the sun's ghostly corona. It's a magical experience. The narrow path of totality stretches across the USA from Oregon to South Carolina. What will you see? These animated eclipse maps cover all 50 states. WEEKEND METEOR SHOWER: The Perseid meteor shower peaked over the weekend, Aug. 12-13, while a stream of solar wind gently buffeted our planet's magnetic field. Alan Dyer captured both phenomena from the Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada: This is a composite of 14 bright meteors accumulated over 3 hours of time," says Dyer, who explains his photo processing techniques here. "One bright meteor obligingly appeared at center and left a long-lasting 'smoke' train. A faint aurora is on the northern horizon at left." The shower is subsiding now as Earth exits the debris zone of parent Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Sky watchers may see some straggling Perseids in the nights ahead. The best time to look is during the hours before local sunrise when shower's radiant in Perseus is high in the sky. Free: Aurora Alerts Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery SOLAR FLARE ACTIVITY: Suddenly, the eastern limb of the sun is crackling with minor solar flares, heralding the approach of a new sunspot. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this C1-class explosion during the early hours of Aug. 14th: During Solar Maximum, such a solar flare would be considered too minor to report. Now, however, the sun is close to Solar Minimum, so even a C-flare is noteworthy. In fact, it is noteworthy. A typical C-class solar flare releases as much energy as 1 billion WWII atomic bombs. Only on the sun, which is itself a 1027 ton self-contained nuclear explosion, would such a blast be considered puny. Amateur astronomers with safely-filtered solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor the eastern limb for further developments. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery THESE PENDANTS HAVE TOUCHED SPACE: On April 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of heart-shaped Venus pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one, 111,550 feet above the Sierras of central California: These blue jewels make great birthday and Christmas gifts--and you have have one for $129.95. Each glittering 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 our Solar Eclipse Balloon Network and hands-on STEM education. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All proceeds support hands-on STEM education Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery 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 Aug. 14, 2017, the network reported 35 fireballs. (23 Perseids, 12 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 August 14, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2017 OF7 | 2017-Aug-10 | 19.2 LD | 8.2 | 85 | 2014 OA339 | 2017-Aug-13 | 12.3 LD | 10 | 47 | 2017 PK25 | 2017-Aug-14 | 2.2 LD | 16 | 31 | 2017 PD25 | 2017-Aug-16 | 9.7 LD | 7.9 | 30 | 2017 PE | 2017-Aug-24 | 19.4 LD | 7.1 | 45 | 3122 | 2017-Sep-01 | 18.5 LD | 13.5 | 5376 | 2014 RC | 2017-Sep-11 | 15.1 LD | 8.9 | 16 | 1989 VB | 2017-Sep-29 | 7.9 LD | 6.3 | 408 | 2012 TC4 | 2017-Oct-12 | 0.1 LD | 7.6 | 16 | 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 | | a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com | | 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 | | Beautyz for top beauty products reviews and their buying guides | | Reviews here can help you to pick up best memory foam mattresses. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |