| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= quiet 24-hr max: Kp= quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 4.4 nT Bz: 1.6 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2347 UT Coronal Holes: 27 Jul 18 Earth is exiting a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds in he northern hemisphere is underway. Check here daily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 07-27-2018 14:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2018 Jul 27 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 Jul 27 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 05 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 20 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 20 % | 20 % | | | | | | | | | | | | All-inclusive Northern Lights trips in Tromsø, Norway. Small groups, big experiences! Highly qualified guides ensure unique and unforgettable adventures with a personal touch. Visit Explore the Arctic | | | THE ECLIPSE IS UNDERWAY Realtime Lunar Eclipse Photo Gallery LUNAR ECLIPSE AND MARTIAN CONJUNCTION: Tonight's the night. The Moon and Mars are converging for a midnight conjunction in the constellation Capricornus. This is no ordinary meeting of heavenly bodies. Mars is making a 15-year close approach to Earth, giving the Red Planet a luminosity that pierces the glare of the full Moon with ease. During the conjunction, something strange and wonderful will happen to the Moon. It is going to pass through the shadow of our planet, turning the lunar disk as red as Mars. Astronomers call this a "total lunar eclipse." On every continent except North America, people can see Earth's shadow swallow the Moon for as much as 1 hour 43 minutes, making it the longest lunar eclipse in a century. [eclipse visibility map] This animation, created by graphic artist Larry Koehn, shows how the eclipse will unfold: Got a backyard telescope? Tonight is a good time to use it. Swing your optics between the Moon and Mars in quick succession to reveal the dusty-red martian disk alongside lunar mountains and craters. It's a special night. Enjoy the show! Live webcasts: from Israel, from Belgium, from Israel. Realtime Mars Photo Gallery FAR-OUT GIFT: Nothing says "I Love You" like a heart-shaped pendant from the edge of space. On March 17, 2018, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew an array of cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere onboard a giant helium balloon. This pendant went along for the ride: You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these pendants as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray monitoring program. Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Realtime Space Weather 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 Jul. 27, 2018, the network reported 51 fireballs. (46 sporadics, 3 Southern delta Aquariids, 1 Perseid, 1 alpha Capricornid) 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 July 27, 2018 there were 1912 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2018 OL | 2018-Jul-22 | 11.5 LD | 16.1 | 57 | 2018 NR1 | 2018-Jul-27 | 17.1 LD | 5.1 | 35 | 2018 OZ | 2018-Aug-06 | 7 LD | 9.6 | 34 | 2018 LQ2 | 2018-Aug-27 | 9.4 LD | 1.5 | 39 | 2016 GK135 | 2018-Aug-28 | 16.8 LD | 2.8 | 9 | 2016 NF23 | 2018-Aug-29 | 13.3 LD | 9 | 93 | 1998 SD9 | 2018-Aug-29 | 4.2 LD | 10.7 | 51 | 2018 DE1 | 2018-Aug-30 | 15.2 LD | 6.5 | 28 | 2001 RQ17 | 2018-Sep-02 | 19.3 LD | 8.3 | 107 | 2015 FP118 | 2018-Sep-03 | 12.3 LD | 9.8 | 490 | 2017 SL16 | 2018-Sep-20 | 8.5 LD | 6.4 | 25 | 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. | 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! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |