You are viewing the page for Jul. 18, 2018
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 387.8 km/sec
density: 4.2 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A3
1750 UT Jul18
24-hr: A3
0354 UT Jul18
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 18 July 18
The sun is blank-- no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 18 Jul 2018

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 21 days
2018 total: 108 days (55%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
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%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)

Updated 18 Jul 2018


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 71 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 18 Jul 2018

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.4 nT
Bz: -1.0 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
Coronal Holes: 18 Jul 18

Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on July 20-21. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds in he northern hemisphere is underway. Check here daily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 07-18-2018 19:57:31
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2018 Jul 18 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: 2018 Jul 18 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
30 %
MINOR
01 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
20 %
30 %
SEVERE
15 %
40 %
 
Wednesday, Jul. 18, 2018
What's up in space
       
 

All-inclusive Northern Lights trips in Tromsø, Norway. Small groups, big experiences! Highly qualified guides ensure unique and unforgettable adventures with a personal touch. Visit Explore the Arctic

 

A HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: HIgh-latitude auroras are possible on July 20-21 when a stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing from a hole in the sun's atmosphere. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of minor geomagnetic storms. Free: Aurora Alerts.

THREE WEEKS WITHOUT SUNSPOTS: The sun has been blank for 21 days--3 whole weeks without sunspots. To find an equal number of consecutive spotless days in the historical record, you have to go back to July-August 2009 when the sun was emerging from an unusually deep solar minimum. Solar minimum, welcome back!


Above: The spotless sun photographed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Solar minimum is a normal part of the solar cycle. Every 11 years, sunspot production sputters. Dark cores that produce solar flares and CMEs vanish from the solar disk, leaving the sun blank for long stretches of time. These quiet spells have been coming with regularity since the sunspot cycle was discovered in 1843.

However, not all solar minima are alike. The last one in 2008-2009 surprised observers with its depth and side-effects. Sunspot counts dropped to a 100-year low; the sun dimmed by 0.1%; Earth's upper atmosphere collapsed, allowing space junk to accumulate; and the pressure of the solar wind flagged while cosmic rays (normally repelled by solar wind) surged to Space Age highs. These events upended the orthodox picture of solar minimum as "uneventful."

Space weather forecasters have long wondered, will the next solar minimum (2018-2020) be as deep as the previous one (2008-2009)? Twenty-one days without sunspots is not enough to answer that question. During the solar minimum of 2008-2009, the longest unbroken interval of spotlessness was ~52 days, adding to a total of 813 intermittent spotless days observed throughout the multi-year minimum. The corresponding totals now are only 21 days and 244 days, respectively. If this solar minimum is like the last one, we still have a long way to go.

How does this affect us on Earth? Contrary to popular belief, auroras do not vanish during solar minimum. Instead, they retreat to polar regions and may change color. Arctic sky watchers can still count on good displays this autumn and winter as streams of solar wind buffet Earth's magnetic field. The biggest change brought by solar minimum may be cosmic rays. High energy particles from deep space penetrate the inner solar system with greater ease during periods of low solar activity. NASA spacecraft and space weather balloons are already detecting an increase in radiation. Cosmic rays alter the flow of electricity through Earth's atmosphere, trigger lightning, potentially alter cloud cover, and dose commercial air travelers with extra "rads on a plane."

At the moment there are no nascent sunspots on the solar disk, so the spotless days counter is likely to keep ticking. Stay tuned for more blank suns.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On June 12th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a sterling silver Celtic love knot 34.1 km (111,877 feet) above Earth's surface:

You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.

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

SPOTLESS SUN SPARKS AURORAS: No sunspots? No problem. On July 16th a disturbance in the solar wind rattled Earth's magnetic field, sparking auroras over Canada and some northern-tier US states. Alan Dyer photographed the display from Bow Lake in Banff, Canada:

"What a surprise," says Dyer. "Although the K-index was barely above 2, we saw not only a normal auroral arc, but also STEVE."

Short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement," STEVE is a cousin of the aurora borealis. To the naked eye it looks like a pale pink or mauve ribbon of light cutting across the sky. Underlying the luminous ribbon is a hot (3000 degrees C) stream of ionized gas slicing through Earth's upper atmosphere some 300 km above the ground. It appears unpredictably during some, but not all, geomagnetic storms.

"During the STEVE show, the ISS made a pass, flying to the east toward STEVE," notes Dyer. "One wonders if anyone was looking down and might have seen STEVE from above?!"

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Noctilucent Cloud 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. 18, 2018, the network reported 58 fireballs.
(57 sporadics, 1 Northern June Aquilid)

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 18, 2018 there were 1912 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2018 NW1
2018-Jul-14
9.9 LD
9.2
30
2018 ND4
2018-Jul-14
12.7 LD
11.9
35
2018 NV2
2018-Jul-15
10.1 LD
15.1
41
2018 NM
2018-Jul-17
1.4 LD
6.7
19
2018 NL4
2018-Jul-18
10.4 LD
12.7
53
2018 NQ1
2018-Jul-19
16.4 LD
6
32
2018 OF
2018-Jul-19
14.7 LD
14
51
2018 NE1
2018-Jul-21
10.1 LD
14.2
79
2018 NF4
2018-Jul-21
18.8 LD
12.8
114
2018 NR1
2018-Jul-27
17.1 LD
5.1
37
2018 LQ2
2018-Aug-27
9.4 LD
1.5
39
2016 GK135
2018-Aug-28
16.8 LD
2.8
9
2016 NF23
2018-Aug-29
13.3 LD
9
93
1998 SD9
2018-Aug-29
4.2 LD
10.7
51
2018 DE1
2018-Aug-30
15.2 LD
6.5
28
2001 RQ17
2018-Sep-02
19.3 LD
8.3
107
2015 FP118
2018-Sep-03
12.3 LD
9.8
490
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
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
Spaceweather.com welcomes two supporters of science communication: SEO Phoenix AZ and CRAS, the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences. Only the best social media jobs in the United States
   
Look no further to find the best Comox Valley Real Estate listings and homes for sale
   
Okanagan Real Estate
   
Buy real active Instagram followers
NASA Near Earth Asteroid Home Page
   
Chicago SEO Expert
   
Search Kelowna Real Estate Listings & Homes for Sale easily.
Find help on all Calgary Homes For Sale and Real Estate Listings. Great source for Edmonton Real Estate Listings & Homes For Sale
   
Science videos from NASA!
   
To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings.
  These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters!
  more links...
       
©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.