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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: 320.7 km/sec
density: 0.8 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2344 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2340 UT Aug28
24-hr: A0
2340 UT Aug28
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2340 UT
Daily Sun: 28 Aug 09
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Photo credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 27 Aug 2009

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 48 days
2009 total: 190 days (79%)
Since 2004: 701 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
explanation | more info
Updated 27 Aug 2009

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= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 3.3 nT
Bz: 1.3 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on August 28th or 29th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2009 Aug 28 2201 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: 2009 Aug 28 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
August 28, 2009

AURORA ALERT: Did you miss the Northern Lights? In July they descended as far south as Nebraska. Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

 

NIGHT LAUNCH: Space shuttle Discovery is set to lift off tonight, Friday, Aug. 28th at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The minute-before-midnight launch will propel the shuttle and its comedic cargo across the starry Florida sky on a two-week supply mission to the International Space Station. Check the launch blog for updates.

BLANK SUNS: Inspect the image below. It is a photo of the sun taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Can you guess what day it was taken? Scroll down for the answer.

August 28th, today. But it could have been taken on any day of the past seven weeks. For all that time, the face of the sun has looked exactly the same--utterly blank.

According to NOAA sunspot counts, the longest string of blank suns during the current solar minimum was 52 days back in July, Aug. and Sept. of 2008. If the current trend continues for only four more days, the record will shift to 2009. It's likely to happen; the sun remains eerily quiet and there are no sunspots in the offing. Solar minimum is shaping up to be a big event indeed.

BLUE-SKY OCCULTATION: Yesterday in the blue afternoon skies of New England, the quarter Moon had a close encounter with Antares. "The first-magnitude star was only 15 arcseconds from the Moon," says John Stetson, who photographed the event from Portland, Maine:

Assisted by students D. Booth and T. Emerson, Stetson turned the photo-shoot into a teachable moment. "The encounter put Antares in the company of some interesting Greek philosophers," he points out.

A schedule of future lunar occultations may be found here.

more images: from Dr. Fritz Helmut Hemmerich of Tenerife, Canary Islands; from Valmir Martins de Morais of Estação Astronômica PieGise Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, Brazil; from Francisco A. Rodriguez of Cabreja Mountain, Vega de San Mateo, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands; from Michael Boschat of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


August 2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Augusts: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001]


Explore the Sunspot Cycle

       
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 August 28, 2009 there were 1068 potentially hazardous asteroids.
August 2009 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2009 MC9
Aug. 7
70.3 LD
16
1.2 km
2009 OF
Aug. 8
15.4 LD
18
220 m
2007 RQ17
Aug. 9
8.4 LD
17
130 m
2000 LC16
Aug. 17
75.6 LD
14
2.0 km
2006 SV19
Aug. 21
59.2 LD
16
1.3 km
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 space weather bureau
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.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
   
  more links...
   
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