SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 323.6 km/s
density: 8.0 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B5 2140 UT Sep21
24-hr: B5 2140 UT Sep21
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 21 Sep '06

Tiny sunspot 910 poses no threat for solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 11
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 20 Sep 2006

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
B_total: 2.3 nT
B_z: -0.0 nT
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2247 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from ths indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about Sept. 23rd or 24th. Credit: NOAA GOES-13.

What's Up in Space -- 21 Sep 2006 Subscribe to Space Weather News Autumn is almost here, and it's a wonderful time for stargazing. Find out what's up from Spaceweather PHONE. EQUAL NIGHT: On Saturday, Sept. 23rd (0403 UT), the sun crosses the celestial equator, marking the autumnal equinox--the first day of northern autumn. Equinox means equal night. With the sun on the celestial equator, Earthlings will experience 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. It's also the beginning of aurora season! SOLAR ECLIPSE: There's an annular solar eclipse tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 22nd. It begins at 0930 UT when the sun, not an orb but a ring, rises over Surinam and Guyana: Image credit: Larry Koehn. Annular eclipses occur when the Moon passes straight in front of the sun but fails to cover the entire solar disk. A sliver of sun pokes out in all directions producing a ring of fire. Unfortunately, almost all of Friday's eclipse takes place over uninhabited ocean. The narrow red line in this map traces the "path of annularity." After leaving French Guiana, it touches nothing solid for thousands of miles. Only in the tiniest countries of South America will the ring of fire be visible from land. Elsewhere, the sun will appear as a crescent, a result of the Moon crossing off-center. In Brazil and Argentina, people will experience a crescent sunrise. Later in the day, crescent sunbeams will dapple the ground in Africa. None of the eclipse will be visible from North America, Europe or Asia. More information: Maps and Timetables | Safe Solar Filters DAYLIGHT ISS: On Sept. 19th, the International Space Station passed over Wirral, England. John Locker photographed it in broad daylight: actual photo: more computer model At the time of the flyby, the station was a trifle brighter than a first-magnitude star--invisible to the naked eye at mid-day, but a relatively easy target for Locker's 8-inch telescope. The blue-sky photo shows the station's new solar wings just installed by the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis. The new wings are vertical; the older ones are horizontal. They're all working together now to power the ISS.

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.

NOAA Space Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.

Recommended: Earth & Sky

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; Jan-Mar 2006;

Space Audio Streams: (University of Florida) 20 MHz radio emissions from Jupiter: #1, #2, #3, #4; (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL