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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

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Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 297.2 km/s
density: 3.8 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1 1850 UT Aug14
24-hr: B2 0855 UT Aug14
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 14 Aug '06

Sunspot 904 poses a threat for M-class solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 26
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 13 Aug 2006

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
B_total: 1.6 nT
B_z: 0.8 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

Coronal Holes:

There are no deep coronal holes on the Earth-facing side of the sun today. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV telescope.

SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts
Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2006 Aug 14 2203 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 2006 Aug 14 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	15 %	15 %
MINOR	05 %	05 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	15 %	15 %
MINOR	10 %	10 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

What's Up in Space -- 14 Aug 2006
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Did you miss the aurora surprise of August 7th? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

PERSEID METEORS: Over the weekend, Earth passed through the dusty tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Innumerable bits of comet dust traveling 130,000 mph hit Earth's atmosphere and became Perseid meteors. It was a good show in spite of much bright moonight: photo gallery.

SUNSPOT 904: There's a giant magnet on the sun today: Bipolar sunspot 904. Sunspots are made of pure magnetism. The two ragged components of sunspot 904 are actually magnetic poles, north (N) on the left and south (S) on the right: (continued below)

Sunspot 904 photographed by Eric Roel of Valle de Bravo, México.

Solar flares occur when opposite magnetic polarities clash together. Perhaps sunspot 904 has been so quiet lately because its poles are far apart. Almost 100,000 kilometers separate N from S. If the two ends of this sunspot group should begin to converge... stay tuned for fireworks.

more images: from Rogerio Marcon of São Paulo, Brazil; from Mike Salway of Central Coast, NSW, Australia; from Andreas Murner of Lake Chiemsee, Germany; from Robert Arnold on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.

RAINBOW MYSTERY: July 29th was a long, rainy day in Statesville, North Carolina. When the evening clouds finally parted, photographer Charles Tilley saw something wonderous: "The southern sky was filled with multiple rainbows. A complete arc was never seen, but parts of five different rainbows appeared at the same time."

What could cause such a strange, fragmented rainbow? Answering that question became a "nice little exercise in atmospheric optics detective work" for rainbow-expert Les Cowley.

In short, it took several localized showers drizzling extra-tiny raindrops to produce the display. The full solution is a lengthy, but interesting read for serious rainbow-philes. Says Cowley, "You will not see something like that again for a very long time!"

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 14 Aug 2006 there were 800 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

July 2006 Earth-asteroid encounters

ASTEROID	DATE (UT)	MISS DISTANCE	MAG.	SIZE
2004 XP14	Jul 3	1.1 LD	12	600 m
2006 BQ6	Jul 29	14 LD	16	500 m

Notes: LD is a "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 Web Links

NOAA Space Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. See also Snow Crystals.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

SOHO Farside Images of the Sun from SWAN and MDI.

The Latest SOHO Coronagraph Images -- from the Naval Research Lab

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; Jan-Mar 2006;

Space Audio Streams: (University of Florida) 20 MHz radio emissions from Jupiter: #1, #2, #3, #4; (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

Recent International Astronomical Union Circulars

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email