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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 521.0 km/sec
density: 5.5 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A3
2054 UT Jan22
24-hr: B9
0257 UT Jan22
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 22 Jan 18
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 22 Jan 2018

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 2 days
2018 total: 9 days (41%)
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%)

Updated 22 Jan 2018


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 68 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 22 Jan 2018

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 3 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 4.1 nT
Bz: -0.6 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2351 UT
Coronal Holes: 22 Jan 18

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds Our connection with NASA's AIM spacecraft has been restored! New images from AIM show that the southern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is underway. Come back to this spot every day to see AIM's "daily daisy," which reveals the dance of electric-blue NLCs around the Antarctic Circle..
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 01-22-2018 15:55:03
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2018 Jan 22 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 Jan 22 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
20 %
SEVERE
20 %
10 %
 
Monday, Jan. 22, 2018
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over Lapland is excited to announce that we now have TWO aurora webcams covering nearly a 200° view of Abisko National Park in Sweden! Watch the auroras dance live, all season long here.

 

SOLAR FLARE AND CME: Magnetic fields threading the remains of decaying sunspot AR2696 erupted on Jan. 22nd at approximately 0300 UT: movie. The explosion produced a minor B9-class solar flare and hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. Because of the blast site's location near the sun's western limb, the CME is unlikely to hit Earth. Nevertheless, NOAA analysts are modeling the CME's trajectory to rule out an impact. Stay tuned. Free: Aurora Alerts.

SOLAR WIND SPARKS ARCTIC AURORAS: For the second day in a row, a stream of solar wind is blowing around Earth faster than 500 km/s (1.1 million mph), lighting up the night sky around the Arctic Circle. Last night in the Lofoten Islands of Norway, Alex Conu photographed the display reflected from the waters of Fredvang:

"As the solar wind blew around Earth, the absence of any terrestrial wind in Fredvang improved the quality of the reflection," says Conu. "Both Orion and the Northern Lights show up nicely in the still waters."

More Arctic auroras are possible on Jan. 22-23 as the solar wind continues to blow. Free: Aurora Alerts.

THE PACIFIC RADIATION BOWL: For years, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been flying balloons to the stratosphere to monitor cosmic rays penetrating Earth's atmosphere. Lately, we've been flying the same payloads onboard airplanes. We want to map Earth's radiation environment at aviation altitudes where millions of people are routinely exposed to elevated levels of cosmic rays.

Recently we encountered an interesting feature in data taken over the Pacific Ocean: a "radiation bowl." On Nov. 30th, 2017, Hervey Allen, a computer scientist at the University of Oregon, carried our radiation sensors onboard a commercial flight from San Francisco, California, to Auckland, New Zealand: map. As his plane cruised at a nearly constant altitude (35,000 ft) across the equator, radiation levels gracefully dipped, then recovered, in a bowl-shaped pattern:

In one way, this beautiful curve is no surprise. We expect dose rates to reach a low point near the equator, because that is where Earth's magnetic field provides the greatest shielding against cosmic rays. Interestingly, however, the low point is not directly above the equator. A parabolic curve fit to the data shows that the actual minimum occurred at 5.5 degrees N latitude.

Is Earth's "radiation equator" offset from the geographic equator? Very likely it is. Earth's magnetic field is tilted with respect to Earth's spin axis and, moreover, there are many inhomogeneities in our planetary magnetic field that may create radiation zones of interest in unexpected places.

We are now planning additional trips across the equator to map the band of least radiation girdling our planet. In fact, we are working on a dataset now that includes an equator-crossing between the USA and Chile. Stay tuned for updates.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

VALENTINE'S DAY IS COMING: Nothing says "I Love You" like a Valentine's pendant from the edge of space. On Dec. 31, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of these heart-shaped pendants to the stratosphere, 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface:

You can have one for $119.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Sales of this pendant support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.

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


Realtime Aurora 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 Jan. 22, 2018, the network reported 13 fireballs.
(13 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]

  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 January 22, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2018 BW1
2018-Jan-16
8.7 LD
6.3
14
2018 BR1
2018-Jan-16
0.3 LD
8.9
4
2018 AM2
2018-Jan-16
12.2 LD
13.5
23
2018 BB3
2018-Jan-17
4.8 LD
21.7
27
2018 AG4
2018-Jan-17
1.4 LD
9.2
23
2018 BA
2018-Jan-17
17.3 LD
12.9
37
2018 BD
2018-Jan-18
0.1 LD
10
3
2018 AF1
2018-Jan-18
12.4 LD
24.6
90
2018 BC
2018-Jan-19
0.7 LD
2.7
5
2018 BX
2018-Jan-19
0.7 LD
5.8
6
306383
2018-Jan-22
14.4 LD
17.4
178
2018 AK12
2018-Jan-23
7 LD
22.3
33
2018 BT1
2018-Jan-23
15.3 LD
16.7
90
2018 AV11
2018-Jan-23
11.1 LD
9.1
35
2018 AJ
2018-Jan-23
4.7 LD
5.5
41
2018 BG1
2018-Jan-24
10.9 LD
7.3
28
2018 BP1
2018-Jan-24
19.2 LD
8.2
48
2018 BA3
2018-Jan-24
3 LD
8
22
2018 AL12
2018-Jan-26
8 LD
19.4
36
2018 BU1
2018-Jan-27
3.1 LD
11.3
44
2018 BQ
2018-Jan-27
9.3 LD
3.4
27
2018 AQ2
2018-Feb-02
13.5 LD
17.4
128
2002 CB19
2018-Feb-02
10.5 LD
15.6
36
2018 AH12
2018-Feb-04
5.3 LD
5
15
276033
2018-Feb-04
11 LD
34
646
2018 BL1
2018-Feb-09
16.6 LD
20.4
77
2015 BN509
2018-Feb-09
12.9 LD
17.7
257
1991 VG
2018-Feb-11
18.4 LD
2.1
7
2014 WQ202
2018-Feb-11
15.1 LD
19.8
62
2016 CO246
2018-Feb-22
15.3 LD
5.4
21
2017 DR109
2018-Feb-24
3.7 LD
7.4
11
2016 FU12
2018-Feb-26
13.2 LD
4.5
15
2014 EY24
2018-Feb-27
14.8 LD
8
54
2015 BF511
2018-Feb-28
11.7 LD
5.7
39
2003 EM1
2018-Mar-07
16.6 LD
8
45
2017 VR12
2018-Mar-07
3.8 LD
6.3
284
2015 DK200
2018-Mar-10
6.9 LD
8
27
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
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