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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 325.6 km/sec
density: 1.0 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2232 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B6
2002 UT Aug28
24-hr: B9
1540 UT Aug28
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 28 Aug 17
Sunspot AR2672 has a stable magnetic field that poses little threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 22
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 28 Aug 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2017 total: 56 days (24%)
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 Aug 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 78 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 28 Aug 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 7.5 nT
Bz: -7.4 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2234 UT
Coronal Holes: 28 Aug 17

Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could reach Earth on Sept. 1st. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds They're back! Images of noctilucent clouds from NASA's AIM spacecraft are available again. The spacecraft's orbit had recently changed, requiring a new way to point AIM's science instruments. This problem has now been solved, and "daily daisies" have returned to Spaceweather.com.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 08-23-2017 16:55:04
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 Aug 28 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
10 %
10 %
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: 2017 Aug 28 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
30 %
MINOR
01 %
10 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
20 %
SEVERE
10 %
20 %
 
Monday, Aug. 28, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

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HERE COMES THE SOLAR WIND: Solar wind flowing from a hole in the sun's atmosphere is approaching Earth. Estimated time of arrival: Sept. 1st. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras later this week when the gaseous material buffets Earth's magnetic field. Free: Aurora Alerts

THE END OF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE: One week ago today, the Moon passed in front of the sun producing a total eclipse visible from coast to coast in the USA. Here is how the magical minutes of totality ended, as recorded by Kenneth Edwards in Casper, Wyoming:

Pink hydrogen-filled prominences are visible along the edge of the sun just before the Moon moves away to reveal the glaring inferno below. Rays of sunshine lance through gaps in the Moon's mountainous terrain, creating "Baily's Beads" and the "Diamond Ring" effect. Not a bad way to wrap up a total eclipse.

Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery

AURORA SEASON IS BEGINNING: For reasons researchers do not fully understand, the weeks around equinoxes have more geomagnetic disturbances than any other time of year. In other words, auroras love equinoxes. We are now just weeks away from the northern autumnal equinox and, right on cue, the auroras have appeared:

Danilo Roncato and Paolo Bardelli took this picture on Aug. 25th from the window seat of a plane flying 38,000 feet over Greenland. "The auroras were very far away, but clearly visible through the windows," say Roncato and Bardelli, who captured the green glow using a 1 second exposure at 6400 ISO."

In addition to the equinox effect, it also helps that Arctic skies are darkening as the midnight sun sets after a long summer. Midnight is once again becoming a velvety-dark canvas where solar wind can paint the Northern Lights.  Browse the aurora gallery for recent sightings --and stay tuned for more.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

SPRITE-Y NIGHT IN SLOVAKIA: It was a dark and stormy night. After sunset on Friday, Aug. 18th, photographer Ondrej Kralik was hiking through the Low Tatras, a mountain range in central Slovakia. He could see stars overhead, but the horizon was flashing with the impulsive glow of lightning.  "I thought a storm was coming," says  Kralik, who trained his camera in the direction of the flashes. Instead of capturing the downward strike of lightning, however, he saw sprites:

"I quickly realized that the storm was far away, and I could see over the top of the thunderheads. Sprites were dancing along the cloudtops," says Kralik. "I saw this bright cluster of sprites with the naked eye and my camera captured it as well. Its brightness is approximately -6.7 mag, and it was located about 510 km far above southeast Germany."

"In the foreground under the sprites you can see the main ridge of Low Tatras, (Chabenec 1995 m) and Kotliska (1937 m) on the left," he says. "I was lucky to witness one of the brightest sprites, but as they say, fortune favors the prepared."

Sometimes called "space lightning," sprites are a true space weather phenomenon. They inhabit the upper atmosphere alongside auroras, meteors and noctilucent clouds. Some researchers believe they are linked to cosmic rays: subatomic particles from deep space striking the top of Earth's atmosphere produce secondary electrons that, in turn, kickstart sprites in the highly-charged environment above thunderstorms.

The link to cosmic rays is particularly interesting at this time. For the past two years, space weather balloons have observed a steady increase in cosmic rays penetrating our atmosphere. This increase is largely due to the decline of the solar cycle. Flagging solar wind pressure and weakening sunspot magnetic fields allow more cosmic rays into the inner solar system--a trend which is expected to continue for years to come. So stay tuned for more sprites.

Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery

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Realtime Space Weather 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 Aug. 28, 2017, the network reported 10 fireballs.
(8 sporadics, 1 Northern delta Aquariid, 1 Southern delta Aquariid)

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 August 28, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2017 QF3
2017-Aug-23
1.4 LD
12.7
9
2017 PE
2017-Aug-24
19.4 LD
7.1
47
2017 QJ2
2017-Aug-25
9.1 LD
20.2
22
2017 QQ17
2017-Aug-26
1 LD
21.2
8
2017 QX1
2017-Aug-26
12.9 LD
7
38
2017 QU1
2017-Aug-27
16.2 LD
10.1
37
2017 PL26
2017-Aug-28
14.2 LD
8.4
126
2017 QN1
2017-Aug-30
5.5 LD
10.5
17
2017 QP2
2017-Aug-30
10.1 LD
7.5
33
2017 QQ1
2017-Aug-31
4.8 LD
10.2
39
3122
2017-Sep-01
18.5 LD
13.5
5376
2017 QT17
2017-Sep-01
17.3 LD
10
55
2017 QG18
2017-Sep-01
4.4 LD
6.6
13
2017 OP68
2017-Sep-10
20 LD
11.7
296
2017 QK18
2017-Sep-11
14.8 LD
7.8
47
2014 RC
2017-Sep-11
15.1 LD
8.9
16
2017 PR25
2017-Sep-23
17.9 LD
13.5
224
1989 VB
2017-Sep-29
7.9 LD
6.3
408
2012 TC4
2017-Oct-12
0.1 LD
7.6
16
2005 TE49
2017-Oct-13
8.5 LD
11.2
16
2013 UM9
2017-Oct-15
17 LD
7.8
39
2006 TU7
2017-Oct-18
18.7 LD
13.3
148
171576
2017-Oct-22
5.8 LD
21.2
677
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
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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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