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COMET LANDER FALLS ASLEEP: With its batteries running low and not enough sunlight to recharge them, ESA's Philae lander has gone into 'idle mode.' In this mode, all instruments and most systems on board are shut down. "Prior to falling silent, the lander was able to transmit all science data gathered during the First Science Sequence," says DLR's Stephan Ulamec, Lander Manager, who was in the Main Control Room when the data came in. The reason for this development is that Philae landed on Comet 67P in an unexpected place: the shadow of a tall cliff. From now on, no contact will be possible unless sufficient sunlight falls on the lander's solar panels, generating enough power to wake it up. Stay tuned for updates from ESA.
NORTHERN LIGHTS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 55% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Nov. 16th when a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. CIRs are transition zones between fast and slow solar wind streams. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, producing density gradients and shock waves that do a good job of sparking auroras. Aurora alerts: text, voice
Last night in Steinsvik, Norway, Tommy Richardsen witnessed a preview of the display to come:
"I was not expecting a strong display on Nov. 14th, but like the waves crashing on the beach, the auroras kept flaring up then calming down only to fire up again," says Richardsen. Monitor the realtime gallery for more lights as the CIR approaches.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
RADS ON A PLANE: On Nov. 11th, Tony Phillips of spaceweather.com flew from California across the USA to attend a science communications meeting in Washington DC. As an experiment, he decided to take a radiation sensor onboard the plane. The results were eye-opening. During the apex of his flight to DC, cruising 39,000 feet above the desert between Reno and Phoenix, he recorded a dose rate almost 30 times higher than on the ground below:
There was no solar storm in progress. The extra radiation was just a regular drizzle of cosmic rays reaching down to aviation altitudes. This radiation is ever-present and comes from supernovas, black holes, and other sources across the galaxy.
In a single hour flying between Reno and Phoenix, the passengers on Phillips's flight were exposed to a whole day's worth of ground-level radiation--or about what a person would absorb from an X-ray at the dentist's office. That's not a big deal for an occasional flyer, but as NASA points out, frequent fliers of 100,000 miles or more can accumulate doses equal to 20 chest X-rays or about 100 dental X-rays. Lead aprons, anyone?
The radiation sensor is the same one that Earth to Sky Calculus routinely flies to the stratosphere to measure cosmic rays. It detects 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. Indeed, when the sensor passed through TSA security at the Reno airport, it began to buzz loudly, signaling a heavy dose of X-rays in the carry-on baggage scanner. TSA agents gathered around the instrument to investigate and they were quite interested when Phillips explained its function. Several wanted to know if they themselves were exposed to radiation in the vicinity of the luggage scanner; a quick survey of the area revealed no leaks.
After boarding the plane, Phillips monitored radiation levels closely. Dose rates tripled within 10 minutes of take-off and remained high for the duration of the flight. This simple experiment shows that space weather can touch us even when the sun is quiet. Imagine what an actual solar storm could do.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Realtime Eclipse 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 Nov. 15, 2014, the network reported 25 fireballs.
(16 sporadics, 6 Leonids, 2 Northern Taurids, 1 November omega Orionid)
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 November 15, 2014 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Size |
2014 UD192 | Nov 9 | 3.1 LD | 29 m |
2004 JN13 | Nov 18 | 52.4 LD | 4.1 km |
1998 SS49 | Nov 18 | 73.9 LD | 3.1 km |
2005 UH3 | Nov 22 | 44.4 LD | 1.3 km |
2007 EJ | Jan 12 | 68.9 LD | 1.1 km |
1991 VE | Jan 17 | 40.6 LD | 1.0 km |
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. | 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 |
| the underlying science of space weather |