You are viewing the page for Mar. 23, 2008
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 469.1 km/sec
density: 1.7 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A7
1850 UT Mar23
24-hr: A7
1850 UT Mar23
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 23 Mar 08
A new sunspot is emerging near the sun's eastern limb in the vicinity of the '?'. This close-up photo comes from Howard Eskildsen of Ocala, Florida. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 21 Mar 2008
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= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
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: 2.5 nT
Bz: 0.3 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on or about March 29th. Credit:SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2008 Mar 23 2203 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: 2008 Mar 23 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
15 %
MINOR
05 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
05 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
25 %
MINOR
05 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
10 %
What's up in Space
March 23, 2008
Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade.   mySKY

NEW SUNSPOT: A new sunspot is emerging near the east limb of the Sun. In a matter of hours it has grown from near invisibility to a dark core the size of Earth. On the scale of the Sun, this is still small, but readers with solar telescopes may wish to monitor its rapid development.

more images: from Howard Eskildsen of Ocala, Florida; from Scott McCormick of Berks County, Pennsylvania; from Stephen Ames of Hodgenville, Kentucky

EARLY EASTER: Why is Easter so early this year? Blame it on the Moon:


The full Moon of March 21, 2008. Credit: Ehsan Rostamizadeh, Kerman, Iran

Simply put, Easter falls on the Sunday after the first full Moon of Spring. This year, Spring arrived on March 20th, the full Moon followed on March 21st, and viola!--we have Easter on March 23rd. (Actually, it's not quite so simple because the church has its own table of full Moons that differs from the table astronomers use. But that's another story.)

Because of its dependence on Moon phases, the date of Easter shifts around from year to year. The earliest it can be is March 22nd, the latest is April 25th. The last time Easter occurred as early as March 23rd was 1913, an Easter remembered in Ohio for the Great Dayton Flood. On that fateful Sunday, a month's worth of rain fell in a single day.

So keep your umbrella handy and have a Happy Easter!

JULES VERNE AND THE ISS: "Now that the European Space Agency's Jules Verne cargo carrier is parked 2000 km in front of the International Space Station, observers have a good opportunity to see both spacecraft in the evening sky," says amateur astronomer Till Credner. On March 19th he photographed the pair streaking over Hohenzollern Castle in southern Germany:


Click to play a 2.5 MB movie

"The Jules Verne appears about four and a half minutes before the ISS and they follow the same track across the sky," he says. "Jules Verne vanishes in the east just as the ISS appears in the west."

These double-flybys will continue for at least another week. Jules Verne won't dock with the ISS (merging the two points of light) until after space shuttle Endeavour leaves the station on March 25th. Get your flyby alerts from Spaceweather PHONE.

more images: from Robert Jeffers of Virginia Beach, VA; from Nikolas Gull of Herndon, VA;

NEW--SIMPLE FLYBYS: Spaceweather.com has a new tool for US and Canadian readers: Simple Satellite Flybys. Just enter your zip code and it tells you about satellites due to fly over your area in the nights ahead. There are hundreds of spacecraft in Earth orbit; we cut through the confusion by narrowing the list to a half-dozen or so of the most interesting. At the moment we're monitoring Jules Verne, the International Space Station, space shuttle Endeavour and the Hubble Space Telescope. Please try it and, remember, it's a new tool with room for improvement. Feedback is welcomed.

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. [comment]
On March 23, 2008 there were 943 potentially hazardous asteroids.
March 2008 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2008 DH5
Mar. 5
7.1 LD
18
60 m
2008 EZ7
Mar. 9
0.4 LD
18
18 m
2008 ED8
Mar. 10
1.4 LD
12
64 m
2008 EF32
Mar. 10
0.2 LD
18
6 m
2008 EM68
Mar. 10
0.6 LD
18
12 m
1620 Geographos
Mar. 17
49 LD
13
3 km
2003 FY6
Mar. 21
6.3 LD
15
145 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 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.
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  From the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
  more links...
©2008, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.