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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 370.9 km/sec
density: 9.4 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: C3
1714 UT May28
24-hr: C3
1714 UT May28
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 28 May 18
Sunspot AR2712 is quiet, but it might not remain so. The sunspot has quadrupled in size in the past 48 hours. INstabilities in its fast-changing magnetic field could lead to solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 27
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 28 May 2018

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2018 total: 80 days (54%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Updated 28 May 2018


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 75 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 28 May 2018

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 7.0 nT
Bz: 3.6 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2349 UT
Coronal Holes: 28 May 18

Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole will reach Earth on May 28th. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds The season for northern noctilucent clouds is about to begin. Check here dauily for the latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 05-28-2018 05:29:05
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2018 May 28 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 May 28 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
20 %
20 %
SEVERE
20 %
15 %
 
Monday, May. 28, 2018
What's up in space
       
 

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CHANCE OF STORMS ON JUNE 1ST: A solar wind stream is heading for Earth, flowing from an equatorial hole in the sun's atmosphere. Estimated time of arrival: June 1st. G1-class geomagnetic storms and high-latitude auroras are possible when the gaseous material arrives. Free: Aurora Alerts.

WAITING FOR NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: Every year in late May or early June, electric-blue noctilucent clouds (NLCs) begin to swirl around the Arctic Circle. Now is the time the clouds usually appear. So far, however, NASA's AIM spacecraft, which monitors NLCs, isn't seeing any. AIM's first polar image of the season (dated May 25th) shows no puffs of electric-blue:

"We expect to see NLCs appear any day now," says Cora Randall, AIM science team member at the University of Colorado. "Temperature and water vapor readings from NASA's MLS instrument suggest that conditions are right for the season to begin." Keep an eye out for the first clouds right here on Spaceweather.com.

Previous data from AIM have shown that NLCs are like a great "geophysical light bulb." They turn on every year in late spring, reaching almost full intensity over a period of 5 to 10 days. This means observers on the ground should soon begin to see them not long after AIM  does.

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet's surface. The clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor waft up and crystallize around specks of meteor smoke.

Early-season NLCs are always found at high-latitudes--e.g., Canada, the British isles, Siberia and Scandinavia. To people in those areas, we offer the following observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

RADAR ECHOES FROM THE NOCTILUCENT ZONE: Every summer since the late 1970s, radars probing Earth's upper atmosphere have detected strong echoes from altitudes between 80 km and 90 km. This is the "noctilucent zone," a thin layer of air near the edge of space where water vapor crystallizes around meteor smoke to form icy noctilucent clouds (NLCs). NASA's AIM spacecraft is still waiting to spot the first NLCS of the 2018 season, but the radar echoes have already begun.

Les Dean of the MST Radar Facility in Aberystwyth, Wales, reports: "We detected our first echoes of the summer season on May 27th."

Researchers call them "Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes" or "PMSEs." They occur over the Arctic during the months of May through August, and over the Antarctic during the months of November through February. These are the same months that NLCs appear.

The underlying physics of these echoes is still uncertain. A leading theory holds that the ice particles in noctilucent clouds are electrically charged, and this makes them good reflectors of HF radio waves. However, NLCs are not always visible when the radar echoes are observed and vice versa.

"They're not quite NLCs," says Dean, "but the first of this season's Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes indicate NLCs will be around very soon."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

A BASEBALL IN THE STRATOSPHERE: Some home runs begin with the loud crack of a bat. This one began with a countdown: "10, 9, 8, 7...." On May 17, 2018, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this Giants ball to the stratosphere on a cosmic ray balloon:

Riding alongside an array of radiation sensors, which the students use for atmospheric research, the commemorative baseball sailed 34.2 km (112,205 feet) above Earth's surface. Now that's a home run!

The students are selling these balls as a fundraiser. You can have one for $129.95. Each baseball comes with a greeting card showing the ball in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere. They make great Father's Day gifts.

Are you a fan of a different team? We also have "space balls" for the Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Padres. Coming soon: Royals, Cubs, Yankees, Astros. If your home team is not on the list, let us know and we will fly it for you on an upcoming flight.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

  All Sky Fireball Network
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 May. 28, 2018, the network reported 10 fireballs.
(10 sporadics)

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]

  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 May 28, 2018 there were 1912 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2018 KT2
2018-May-23
2.5 LD
8.6
15
2018 KW1
2018-May-23
0.4 LD
7.3
4
2018 KW2
2018-May-23
10.2 LD
12.4
47
2018 KP2
2018-May-24
11.8 LD
13.2
44
2018 JG2
2018-May-25
18.5 LD
6.9
62
2018 KY2
2018-May-26
0.8 LD
12.2
13
2018 JK3
2018-May-27
19.7 LD
21.8
165
2018 KR
2018-May-28
15.7 LD
4
19
68347
2018-May-29
9.5 LD
13.3
389
2018 KN2
2018-May-29
6.1 LD
8
28
2013 LE7
2018-May-31
17.8 LD
1.7
12
2018 KE1
2018-Jun-01
10.8 LD
16.2
33
2018 EJ4
2018-Jun-10
5.6 LD
6.2
195
2015 DP155
2018-Jun-11
9 LD
4.4
170
2017 YE5
2018-Jun-21
15.6 LD
15.5
513
467309
2018-Jun-23
17.9 LD
14
355
441987
2018-Jun-24
7.3 LD
12.6
178
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.

  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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