 | | |  SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2026 Jul 05 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 75 % | 60 % | CLASS X | 20 % | 10 % |  Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2026 Jul 05 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 30 % | 15 % | MINOR | 10 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 30 % | 10 % | SEVERE | 35 % | 25 % | | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | This is an AI Free Zone: AI is everywhere -- except here. Spaceweather.com is written by Dr. Tony Phillips, a carbon-based lifeform with 30 yrs of forecasting experience. If you find a mistake, rest assured it was made by a real human being. | | | SOMETHING FLARE-Y THIS WAY COMES: A new and active sunspot is emerging over the sun's eastern limb. It announced itself on July 4th with an X1.3-class solar flare: 
Ionizing radiation from the flare caused a shortwave radio blackout over North America. Ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 20 MHz around 2041 UTC. The flare also produced a fast CME, but it will miss Earth. We won't be in this sunspot's strike zone for a few more days. Stay tuned. Solar flare Alerts: SMS Text MIDSUMMER GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Midsummer auroras are rare, but on the night of July 3/4 they blanketed the USA. The display was caused by a CME strike, which sparked a strong G3-class geomagnetic storm. "The auroras were visible with the naked eye alone, a really strong and active display," reports Aaron Watson, who photographed dancing curtains of red above the West Elk Mountains of Colorado: 
"I set up this timelapse on my camera and watched with just my eyes," he adds. "I loved watching the pillars of diffuse light grow and drift over the horizon with some nice moments of jaw dropping awe... wow!" We've received aurora reports from New Mexico, Nebraska, Texas, Kentucky, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Idaho, Virginia, Wyoming, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, California, Arizona--and almost every northern-tier state near the US-Canadian border. It is unusual to have such a strong display so close to the summer solstice. Two reasons: (1) Short summer nights narrow the observing window. (2) Auroras dislike solstices. The same Russell-McPherron Effect that boosts auroras around equinoxes also suppresses auroras around solstices. Yin-yang. It took an "X-class CME" to overcome these obstacles.The storm cloud that hit us on July 3rd was launched by an X1-class solar flare three days earlier. Did you miss the show? Next time get a heads-up from our new Backyard Astronomy Alert Service. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter NEW! BACKYARD ASTRONOMY ALERTS: We're proud to announce a new service from Spaceweather.com: Backyard Astronomy Alerts. We love this product. Subscribers receive real-time alerts about space station flybys, significant aurora outbursts, planetary conjunctions, meteor showers and more -- all easy to see with the naked eye. 
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Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Space Weather Newsletter 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 July 5, 2026, the network reported 20 fireballs.
(20 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] 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 5, 2026 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | | 2026 MJ1 | 2026-Jun-30 | 1.5 LD | 4.3 | 12 | | 2026 MD | 2026-Jun-30 | 7.8 LD | 11 | 45 | | 2026 MW2 | 2026-Jun-30 | 5.1 LD | 9.7 | 23 | | 523808 | 2026-Jul-04 | 9.1 LD | 16.8 | 479 | | 2026 MP3 | 2026-Jul-05 | 10.9 LD | 18.1 | 46 | | 2023 YO1 | 2026-Jul-05 | 6.5 LD | 2.7 | 23 | | 2026 NA | 2026-Jul-07 | 9.8 LD | 9.8 | 38 | | 2026 MO1 | 2026-Jul-08 | 5.9 LD | 9.4 | 34 | | 2026 MQ1 | 2026-Jul-10 | 11.8 LD | 10.4 | 45 | | 2007 AA2 | 2026-Jul-11 | 17.8 LD | 7.2 | 43 | | 2026 MQ3 | 2026-Jul-16 | 12.4 LD | 8.6 | 147 | | 2025 PN7 | 2026-Jul-17 | 11.6 LD | 2.6 | 19 | | 2025 MB90 | 2026-Jul-19 | 5 LD | 9.6 | 54 | | 2020 OM | 2026-Jul-21 | 9.1 LD | 9.5 | 15 | | 2026 KU3 | 2026-Jul-24 | 7.7 LD | 8.6 | 80 | | 2020 UR1 | 2026-Jul-25 | 18.8 LD | 7.6 | 28 | | 2015 BF | 2026-Jul-26 | 17.3 LD | 12.5 | 17 | | 2025 OW | 2026-Jul-30 | 16.1 LD | 20.1 | 70 | | 2024 RM10 | 2026-Aug-05 | 13.6 LD | 7.5 | 24 | | 173561 | 2026-Aug-09 | 13.1 LD | 16.2 | 756 | | 2019 NY2 | 2026-Aug-10 | 6.6 LD | 9.6 | 195 | | 2016 BV14 | 2026-Aug-10 | 19.1 LD | 21.1 | 162 | | 2013 QC11 | 2026-Aug-13 | 14.5 LD | 19 | 172 | | 2025 AL2 | 2026-Aug-16 | 2.8 LD | 12.5 | 100 | | 2025 DU7 | 2026-Aug-19 | 8.7 LD | 2.9 | 5 | | 2025 FY11 | 2026-Aug-20 | 19.2 LD | 3.5 | 6 | | 2023 RL | 2026-Aug-25 | 12.9 LD | 4.8 | 7 | | 523609 | 2026-Aug-27 | 18.5 LD | 22.7 | 441 | | 2025 QM9 | 2026-Aug-28 | 15.2 LD | 11.1 | 20 | | 221455 | 2026-Aug-28 | 9.4 LD | 19 | 443 | | 2017 BP31 | 2026-Aug-28 | 11.2 LD | 20.5 | 382 | | 2007 EK | 2026-Aug-30 | 10.9 LD | 9.1 | 5 | | 2017 RH16 | 2026-Aug-31 | 8.7 LD | 12.1 | 21 | | 2025 CL3 | 2026-Sep-01 | 9.6 LD | 13.5 | 30 | | 2018 RD2 | 2026-Sep-01 | 19.5 LD | 9.6 | 14 | | 2025 QV5 | 2026-Sep-02 | 14.2 LD | 7.3 | 12 | Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. | | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere | SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost 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 sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth's surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 10 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements. Latest results (Nov. 2024): Atmospheric radiation is sharply decreasing in 2024. Our latest measurements in November registered a 10-year low: 
What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Technical notes: 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. Data points in the graph labeled "Stratospheric Radiation" correspond to the peak of the Regener-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 Regener 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. | | | information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary | | | current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. | | | Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries | | | 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 |  | Got a chipped or cracked windshield that prevents you from seeing space weather events while driving? Get windshield replacement from SR Windows & Glass with free mobile auto glass service anywhere in the Phoenix area. | | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | |  | | |  | ©2021 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. |
