| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 3 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 3.0 nT Bz: -2.6 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2345 UT Coronal Holes: 22 Oct 18 Solar wind flowing from this large coronal hole could reach Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 24th. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in the northern hemisphere has come to an end. Images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show no NLCs around the north pole. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2018 14:55:02 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Oct 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 Oct 22 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 25 % | MINOR | 01 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 20 % | 15 % | MINOR | 20 % | 30 % | SEVERE | 10 % | 30 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Lights Over Lapland has a brand-new website full of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Take a look at our aurora activities and book your once-in-a-lifetime trip with us today! | | | ARCTIC AURORAS LIKELY THIS WEEK: An irregular hole in the sun's atmosphere is spewing a stream of solar wind toward Earth. Estimated time of arrival: Oct. 24th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the gaseous material arrives. A bright full Moon on Oct. 24th will add its luminosity to that of any geomagnetic storm, creating some nice landscape photo-ops around the Arctic Circle. Free: Aurora Alerts. INFERIOR CONJUNCTION OF VENUS: On Oct. 26th, Venus will pass almost directly between Earth and the sun--an event astronomers call "inferior solar conjunction." As Venus approaches the sun, the planet is turning its night side toward Earth, reducing its luminous glow to a thin sliver. Shahrin Ahmad of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, took this picture on Oct. 20th: "I took this picture in broad daylight," says Ahmad. "Venus was really big in the eyepiece of my telescope--almost a full arcminute in diameter. And the crescent shape was easily visible in the 8x50 finder scope." In the days ahead, the crescent of Venus will become increasingly thin and circular. The horns of the crescent might actually touch when the Venus-sun angle is least (~6 degrees) on Oct. 26th. This is arguably the most beautiful time to observe Venus, but also the most perilous. The glare of the nearby sun magnified by a telescope can damage the eyes of anyone looking through the eyepiece. Anthony J. Cook of the Griffith Observatory has some advice for observers: "I have observed Venus at conjunction, but only from within the shadow of a building, or by adding a mask to the front end of the telescope to fully shadow the optics from direct sunlight. This is tricky with a refractor or a catadioptric, because the optics start at the front end of the tube. Here at Griffith Observatory, I rotate the telescope dome to make sure the lens of the telescope is shaded from direct sunlight, even through it means that the lens will be partially blocked when aimed at Venus. With our Newtonian telescope, I add a curved cardboard mask at the front end of the tube to shadow the primary mirror." Earlier today, Richard Nugent of Framingham, Massachusetts, used a 10-inch telescope (masked down to 60 mm) and an iPhone 8Plus to photograph Venus in broad daylight: "Venus is 1.3% illuminated and only 9°20' from the sun!" says Nugent. Realtime Venus Photo Gallery RED SOX IN THE STRATOSPHERE: The Red Sox are in the World Series! Boston fans, why not celebrate by getting a ball that's out of this world? On Oct. 20th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this authentic Major League ball to the stratosphere, more than 112,530 feet above Earth's surface: You can have it for $149.95. The students are selling Red Sox space baseballs to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Not an Astros fan? No problem. You can also purchase space baseballs for the Dodgers, Brewers, Astros, Braves, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Angels, Padres, Giants or any other team. Each baseball comes with a greeting card showing the ball in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere. Plus, you'll receive a UV-resistant cubical display case with decorating stickers depicting the ball at the edge of space. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Realtime Aurora 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 Oct. 22, 2018, the network reported 45 fireballs. (23 sporadics, 16 Orionids, 3 Southern Taurids, 2 epsilon Geminids, 1 Leonis Minorid) 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 October 22, 2018 there were 1936 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2018 UL | 2018-Oct-17 | 0.6 LD | 5.8 | 5 | 2014 US7 | 2018-Oct-17 | 3.4 LD | 8.7 | 19 | 2013 UG1 | 2018-Oct-18 | 10.5 LD | 13.4 | 123 | 2018 UO1 | 2018-Oct-18 | 1.7 LD | 20 | 12 | 2016 GC221 | 2018-Oct-18 | 8.7 LD | 14.4 | 39 | 2018 UA | 2018-Oct-19 | 0 LD | 14.1 | 3 | 2018 US1 | 2018-Oct-21 | 2.3 LD | 7.1 | 14 | 2018 UH1 | 2018-Oct-24 | 5.3 LD | 13 | 35 | 2018 TT5 | 2018-Oct-24 | 15.9 LD | 10.2 | 29 | 2018 UE | 2018-Oct-25 | 17.3 LD | 16.1 | 44 | 475534 | 2018-Oct-29 | 7.5 LD | 18.1 | 204 | 2018 UC | 2018-Oct-30 | 5.4 LD | 9.3 | 22 | 2002 VE68 | 2018-Nov-04 | 14.7 LD | 8.6 | 282 | 2018 TF3 | 2018-Nov-05 | 7.8 LD | 20.6 | 302 | 2010 VQ | 2018-Nov-07 | 15.6 LD | 3.8 | 10 | 2018 UQ1 | 2018-Nov-14 | 9.5 LD | 12.3 | 153 | 2009 WB105 | 2018-Nov-25 | 15.2 LD | 18.9 | 71 | 2008 WD14 | 2018-Nov-27 | 7.4 LD | 9.3 | 93 | 2001 WO15 | 2018-Nov-28 | 13.6 LD | 11.7 | 107 | 2018 TG6 | 2018-Dec-02 | 3.9 LD | 1.4 | 13 | 2013 VX4 | 2018-Dec-09 | 4.1 LD | 6.6 | 65 | 2015 XX169 | 2018-Dec-13 | 17 LD | 5.8 | 12 | 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 | SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%. E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight. The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level. To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners. Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight. SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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 18% since 2015: 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. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes: In this plot, 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. 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. 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 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 | | fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | the underlying science of space weather | | If you are a Youtuber and want to buy real Youtube views than try out Buyrealsocial.com for the best results possible! | | 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! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2018 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |