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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 346.1 km/sec
density: 5.7 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M1
1752 UT Oct31
24-hr: M1
1752 UT Oct31
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 31 Oct 15
Growing sunspot AR2443 has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 88
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 31 Oct 2015

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
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 31 Oct 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 121 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 31 Oct 2015

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 8.1 nT
Bz: 3.7 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 31 Oct 15

High-speed solar wind flowing from this emerging coronal hole will reach Earth on Nov. 4-5. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for NLCs is finished. According to NASA's AIM spacecraft, the last clouds were observed over Greenland on Aug. 27th. Now the waiting begins for the southern season expected to begin in November.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 09-01-2015 09:00:00
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 Oct 31 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
55 %
55 %
CLASS X
15 %
15 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2015 Oct 31 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
20 %
MINOR
05 %
35 %
SEVERE
01 %
40 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
01 %
MINOR
30 %
10 %
SEVERE
20 %
90 %
 
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
What's up in space
 

Marianne's Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to join them in their quest to find and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Experience the winter wonderland in the Tromsø Area.

 
Chase the Light Tours

HALLOWEEN ASTEROID... NASA radars are swiveling to track 2015 TB145, an asteroid the size of a battleship that is passing by the Earth-Moon system today. There's no danger of a collision. At closest approach the space rock will be 300,000 miles away--too far for goosebumps, but close enough for a good view in backyard telescopes: image gallery. Update: There is growing evidence that the Halloween asteroid is actually a dead comet.

... AND HALLOWEEN FIREBALLS: The "Halloween asteroid" is going to miss Earth. The "Halloween fireballs" might not. If forecasters are correct, gravelly debris from Comet Encke could strike our planet's atmosphere this weekend, producing a display of fireballs like this one:

Marko Korosec took the picture last night in Artvize, Slovenia: "This spectacular meteor had two bright flashes," he says. "It caught me a bit unprepared as I was looking in other direction, saw first flash then looked up and--bam!--the second flash was so bright it lit up the ground."

Korosec says the fireball came from the constellation Taurus, which marks it as a meteoroid from Comet Encke. Most debris from Comet Encke is small, dusty and fragile, yielding meteors of ordinary brightness. Taurid fireballs come from a swarm of particles much larger than normal comet dust. They're about the size of pebbles or small stones. The rocky swarm moves within the greater Encke dust stream, sometimes hitting Earth, sometimes not. Will this Halloween be a hit? Korosec's fireball is an encouraging sign. Stay tuned.

Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery

CME MISSES EARTH, AURORAS APPEAR ANYWAY: A CME expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 30th did not. It missed. Sky watchers around the Arctic Circle saw auroras anyway. Anne Birgitte Fyhn sends this picture from Kvaløya island, Tromsø, Norway:

"The partly cloudy weather made this evening extra exciting," says Fyhn. "I was lucky to witness a beautiful show where the auroras and the appearing clouds competed covering the stars."

Tromsø is just above the Arctic Circle where even gentle gusts of solar wind can spark Northern Lights--no CME required. More lights could be in the offing. NOAA forecasters say Earth is going to cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet on Halloween (Oct. 31st), a crossing which could scare up some spooky auroras. Aurora alerts: text or voice

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery



Realtime Sprite 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 Oct. 31, 2015, the network reported 15 fireballs.
(6 Southern Taurids, 6 sporadics, 2 Northern Taurids, 1 Orionid)

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 October 31, 2015 there were 1631 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2015 TL238
Oct 27
13.3 LD
45 m
2015 UH
Oct 29
9.4 LD
36 m
2015 TB145
Oct 31
1.3 LD
450 m
2015 TD179
Nov 4
10.5 LD
52 m
2005 UL5
Nov 20
5.9 LD
390 m
2003 EB50
Nov 29
48.8 LD
2.2 km
2007 BG29
Dec 1
54.1 LD
1.1 km
1998 WT24
Dec 11
10.9 LD
1.1 km
2011 YD29
Dec 24
9.7 LD
24 m
2003 SD220
Dec 24
28.4 LD
1.8 km
2008 CM
Dec 29
22.8 LD
1.5 km
2004 MQ1
Jan 2
55.4 LD
1.1 km
1999 JV6
Jan 6
12.6 LD
410 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.
  Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere
Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N)
Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month.
Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr)
Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr)
Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr)
Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr)
Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr)
Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr)
Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr)
These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more.

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. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. Here is the data from our latest flight, Oct. 22nd:

Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.

Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours.

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.

  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
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
Columbia Northern High School
  Web-based high school science course with free enrollment
   
   
  more links...
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