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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 343.4 km/sec
density: 1.6 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2235 UT Jun26
24-hr: A0
0035 UT Jun26
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 26 June 07
New sunspot 961 has a simple , stable magnetic field that poses no threat for strong solar flares. Solar activity remains low. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 11
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 25 June 2007
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no large sunspots on the farside of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Updated: 2007 Jun 26 2103 UT
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 4.1 nT
Bz: 1.7 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated:Today at 2246 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about June 29th. Credit: SOHO Extreme Ultraviolet Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2007 Jun 26 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: 2007 Jun 26 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
June 26, 2007
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.

PLANETS ALIGN: Venus and Saturn are converging for a close encounter on June 30th when the pair will be only 2/3o apart. You can watch the distance shrink in the nights ahead. Step outside after sundown and look west. Venus is the brightest object in the sky; Saturn is the yellow dot right beside it. Sky maps: June 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, July 1.

JUHANNUS: In case you missed it, last week in Scandinavia there was a holiday as big as Christmas: the summer solstice. Finns call it Juhannus, and "we celebrate by lighting huge bonfires (kokko) on the beach," says Graham Clements of Naantali, Finland. He took this picture shortly before midnight on June 22nd:

"It was a warm evening and the setting sun produced a nice sun pillar, seen to the right of the bonfire," he points out.

Sun pillars are created by crystals of ice fluttering down from high clouds. The crystals reflect light from their horizontal faces, spreading a single point of light into a luminous column. Ice in June? Believe it. Clouds 5 to 10 km high are always freezing cold----even on a midsummer night with bonfires blazing. Happy Juhannus!

more images: from Camilla Bacher Kiming of Esbjerg, Denmark.

MAMMATUS CLOUDS: Remarkably, it is a fact of Nature that the underbelly of an exhausted thunderstorm looks like the underbelly of a cow. These are called mammatus clouds:


Photo details: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, F5.6, 1/60s

"They were absolutely amazing; the 'pouches' were in constant motion," says Ian McDonald who took the above picture on June 22nd from the Birds Hill Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada. Not far away in Winnipeg, Kevin Black photographed a similar display: image.

It is often said that mammatus clouds signal the approach of bad weather, but new research shows the opposite is true. Mammatus clouds are more often seen when storms are breaking up. "The clouds we saw on June 22nd appeared just after an F4 tornado hit the town of Elie, Manitoba," notes Black.

What exactly causes mammatus clouds? It's a big undulating mystery. For details, see The Mysteries of Mammatus Clouds, D. M. Schultz et al, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 63, Issue 10 (October 2006).

more images: from Tony Wilder of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; from Mohsen Zadsaleh of Tehran, Iran;

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 June 26, 2007 there were 872 potentially hazardous asteroids.
June-July 2007 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2005 AD13
June 18
33 LD
16
1.2 km
2007 FV42
July 2
53 LD
15
1.2 km
2007 DT103
July 29
9.3 LD
15
550 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 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.
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...
©2007, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
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