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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

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Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 336.2 km/s
density: 5.4 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2255 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0 2030 UT Oct24
24-hr: A0 0600 UT Oct24
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 24 Oct '05

The sun is blank today--no sunspots. Solar activity should remain very low. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 11
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 23 Oct 2005

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
Btotal: 9.7 nT
Bz: 1.5 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2256 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could buffet our planet's magnetic field today or tomorrow. Image credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope.

SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts
Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2005 Oct 23 2204 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 2005 Oct 23 2204 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 30 % 30 %
MINOR 15 % 15 %
SEVERE 05 % 05 %

High latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 35 % 35 %
MINOR 20 % 20 %
SEVERE 10 % 10 %

What's Up in Space -- 24 Oct 2005
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Want to know what's up on Halloween? Simple. Just answer your phone: SpaceWeather PHONE.

HERE COMES MARS: Mars is about to make its closest approach to Earth for the next 13 years. Date: Oct. 30th. Distance: 69 million km. That's close. The view of Mars through backyard telescopes is already spectacular and getting better. See for yourself: sky map.

MARTIAN DUST STORM: A huge martian dust storm, in progress, is "re-writing the map of Mars," says amateur astronomer Alan Friedman of Buffalo, New York. To prove his point, he arranged two images of Mars taken 48 hours apart side-by-side for comparison:

It's the same planet, but the markings look different. Note, for example, the sinuous bright feature in the Oct 19th image (left); that's dust blowing down the canyons of Valles Marineris. On Oct 21st (right), the dust has spread far and wide, creating the vast mustard-colored region south of the canyon. (South is up.)

more images: from Joel Warren of Amarillo, Texas; from Ed Lomeli of Sacramento, CA; from Mark Schmidt of Racine County, Wisconsin;

Dust storms are an important and dynamic form of Martian weather. Sometimes they grow to encircle the whole planet. What will this storm do next? Stay tuned.

QUIET SUN: Solar activity is extremely low. X-rays from the sun have dimmed to their lowest levels since 1997. On the alphabet soup scale of X-ray intensity, the whole disk of the sun has dropped below A1.

The ongoing quiet follows a furious outburst of flares and coronal mass ejections just last month, highlighting the unpredictability of the sun on month-to-month time scales. The 11-year solar cycle seems to be on track, however. The current spate of quiet is consistent with the approach of solar minimum expected in 2006.



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 are on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

On 24 Oct 2005 there were 710 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

August 2005 Earth-asteroid encounters
ASTEROID

 DATE (UT)

 MISS DISTANCE

 MAG.
1992 UY4

August 8

16 LD

 12
Notes: LD is a "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 Web Links

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. See also Snow Crystals.

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.

SOHO Farside Images of the Sun from SWAN and MDI.

The Latest SOHO Coronagraph Images -- from the Naval Research Lab

The Sun from Earth -- daily images of our star from the Big Bear Solar Observatory

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.

Aurora Forecast --from the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute

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; Jan-Mar 2005; Apr-Jun 2005; Jul-Sep 2005; Oct-Dec 2005;

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;

Recent International Astronomical Union Circulars

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email

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