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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 284.5 km/sec
density: 0.4 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2340 UT Mar19
24-hr: A0
2340 UT Mar19
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2340 UT
Daily Sun: 19 Mar 09
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI

more images: from Les Cowley of the United Kingdom; from Oldfield So of Hong Kong; from Monty Leventhal of Sydney Australia
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 18 Mar. 2009
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
What is the auroral oval?
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.6 nT
Bz: 0.8 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about March 20th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2009 Mar 19 2201 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: 2009 Mar 19 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
March 19, 2009

AURORA ALERT: Did you sleep through the Northern Lights? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

 

SUN-EARTH DAY: March 20th is the vernal equinox--the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. To celebrate the change of seasons, NASA is hosting a special Sun-Earth Day webcast. Tune in on Friday at 1 pm EDT to hear a panel of solar physicists discuss recent discoveries and teach students how to make their own space weather forecasts.

SPACESHIP SIGHTINGS: For the next 7 days, space shuttle Discovery will be docked to the International Space Station (ISS). Together, the two spacecraft are so bright "they shine through clouds and pine trees," says Jamie Jones who witnessed a flyby over Cheney, Washington, last night:

"It was a great opportunity to test out my new Kodak ZD8612 IS," he says. "The streak shows how far the ISS moved during the 16-second exposure."

When Jones took the picture, Discovery astronauts Steve Swanson and Ricky Arnold were asleep inside the space station's Quest airlock. Spending the night in reduced air pressure prepares their bodies for spacewalking. On Thursday, March 19th, they will step outside for 6.5 hours to install the space station's new 32,000-lb S6 truss segment, the final piece of the station's massive exoskeleton.

Space station construction is such a big deal, you can actually see it happen through backyard telescopes. Click here for viewing times.

more images: from Abe Megahed of Madison, Wisconsin; from Ken Scott of Suttons Bay, Michigan; from Clair Perry of Charlottetown - Prince Edward Island, Canada; from Jacob Kuiper of Steenwijk, the Netherlands;

RAINBOW PLANET: Something special is happening to Venus. The brightest of all planets is hanging low in the western sky at sunset, and if you look at it with a backyard telescope, you'll see that it is a slender 3% crescent. But that's not the special part.

What's special is, Venus looks like a rainbow:

Make that a "living rainbow," says photographer Peter von Bagh, who noted a vigorous shimmering of Venus' rainbow colors when viewed through the turbulent atmosphere of Porvoo, Finland. He took the picture above using an 8-inch telescope and a Canon EOS 400D.

Venus resembles a rainbow because Earth's atmosphere acts like a prism. When Venus is near the horizon, refraction separates the red crescent from the blue. The crescent is so thin, the splitting of colors is obvious. Later this month, Venus will disappear into the glare of the spring sun--so catch the rainbow planet while you can!

more images: from Mark D. Marquette of Boones Creek, Tennessee; from Lecleire Jean-Marc of Torcy, France; from P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from Eugene Miller of Brooklyn, New York; from Sam Cole of Austin, Texas; from Matteo Marzo of Rome, Italy; from Maurice Gavin of Worcester Park SW London UK; from Zlatko Pasko of Stara Pazova, Serbia; from Radek Karwacki of Ostrzeszów, Poland; from Sadegh Ghomizadeh of Tehran, Iran; from Joe Ricci of Rochester, New York; from Elias Chasiotis of Markopoulo, Greece; from Lorenzo Comolli of Tradate (VA), Italy; from Paul Kinzer of Galesville, Wisconsin; from Alan Simpson of Renfrew, Scotland; from Frederic Caron of Victoriaville, Qc, Canada; from Paul Schneider of Wilton, Connecticut;


March 2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Marches: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002]


Comet Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet Hunter Telescope: review] [Comet Lulin finder chart]


Explore the Sunspot Cycle

       
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 March 19, 2009 there were 1043 potentially hazardous asteroids.
March 2009 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2009 DS43
Mar. 1
6.9 LD
18
32 m
2009 DD45
Mar. 2
0.2 LD
11
35 m
2009 DN4
Mar. 3
8.1 LD
21
27 m
2009 EA
Mar. 4
7.4 LD
19
24 m
2009 EW
Mar. 6
0.9 LD
16
23 m
161989 Cacus
Mar. 7
70.5 LD
16
1.7 km
2009 EH1
Mar. 8
1.6 LD
18
12 m
2009 ET
Mar. 9
9.5 LD
21
15 m
2009 DV43
Mar. 10
8.5 LD
18
80 m
2009 EU
Mar. 11
3.5 LD
18
21 m
1998 OR2
Mar. 12
69.8 LD
14
3.3 km
2009 DR3
Mar. 14
7.2 LD
16
225 m
2009 FH
Mar. 18
0.2 LD
14
21 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 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 and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
   
  more links...
   
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