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A HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: A wide gash in the sun's atmosphere is spewing solar wind toward Earth. Estimated time of arrival: April 9th. G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible when the gaseous material reaches our planet. Free: Aurora Alerts.
THE GREAT WALL OF PLASMA: Around the world, amateur astronomers are monitoring a wall of hot plasma rising up from the sun's southeastern limb. This shot comes from Barry Riu at the Deerlick Astronomy Village in Georgia:
The structure is more than 40,000 km high. In other words, you could balance three Earths, on one top of another, and the stack would still not reach over the top of this fiery barrier.
"These dimensions made it an easy target for my 4.5 inch refractor with a Daystar solar filter," says Riu. Images from other observatories show that the prominence is changing rapidly with time. Monitoring is encouraged!
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
THE DOG STAR AND ITS PUP: When the sun goes down at this time of year, the first star to pop out of the deepening twilight is Sirius. The Dog Star is almost twice as massive and 26 times more luminous than our sun. We've all seen it. But have you ever seen the Dog Star's pup? "I've been trying to find the pup for more than 6 years," says Peter Rosén of Stockholm, Sweden. "Finally, on March 28th, I did it!" It's circled red in this close-up image of Sirius (inset):
The pup is Sirius's white dwarf companion. Discovered in 1862, the extremely dense star packs the mass of our sun into a sphere about the size of Earth. It is 10,000 times fainter than Sirius and orbits the "big dog" at about the same distance as Uranus orbits the sun. No wonder it is so hard to find.
"I got a superb instrument on loan last week, a hand polished Maksutov OMC-200 from Orion Optics UK," says Rosén. "I adapted an ADC (atmospheric Dispersion Corrector) and successfully split the 2 stars at an altitude of only 8° above the horizon on my first attempt. In the illustration of the pup's orbit around Sirius, I put a red dot at the pup's measured position and was very pleased to confirm that it was almost spot on."
Now is a good time to see the pup as it travels around its elliptical orbit near maximum separation from Sirius for the next few years. With steady seeing and a clear atmosphere, it is possible to split the pair using telescopes as small as 6 inches. Rosén's video shows what to expect when you bend over the eyepiece.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
MOTHER'S DAY IS ONLY 5 WEEKS AWAY: Nothing says "I Love You" like a heart-shaped pendant from the edge of space. On March 17, 2018, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew an array of cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere onboard a giant helium balloon. This pendant went along for the ride:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these pendants as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray monitoring program--and they make great Mother's Day gifts. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation measurements and hands-on STEM education.
Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again. Mom-satisfaction guaranteed.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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 Apr. 5, 2018, the network reported 9 fireballs.
(9 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 April 5, 2018 there were 1882 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2010 GD35 | 2018-Mar-31 | 15.5 LD | 11.6 | 45 |
2018 EM4 | 2018-Apr-01 | 6.3 LD | 6.2 | 31 |
2004 FG29 | 2018-Apr-02 | 4 LD | 14.9 | 22 |
2018 ER1 | 2018-Apr-02 | 15.6 LD | 4 | 25 |
2018 EB | 2018-Apr-04 | 10.4 LD | 15.1 | 170 |
2018 FW4 | 2018-Apr-05 | 9.8 LD | 11.6 | 35 |
363599 | 2018-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 224 |
2014 UR | 2018-Apr-14 | 9.3 LD | 4.4 | 17 |
2016 JP | 2018-Apr-20 | 12 LD | 12.7 | 214 |
2012 XL16 | 2018-Apr-23 | 15.8 LD | 6.1 | 28 |
2013 US3 | 2018-Apr-29 | 10.1 LD | 7.7 | 214 |
2018 FV4 | 2018-Apr-29 | 17.7 LD | 6.5 | 61 |
2002 JR100 | 2018-Apr-29 | 10.8 LD | 7.7 | 49 |
1999 FN19 | 2018-May-07 | 9.7 LD | 5.7 | 118 |
2016 JQ5 | 2018-May-08 | 6.3 LD | 10.4 | 9 |
388945 | 2018-May-09 | 6.5 LD | 9 | 295 |
1999 LK1 | 2018-May-15 | 13.3 LD | 10 | 141 |
68347 | 2018-May-29 | 9.5 LD | 13.3 | 389 |
2013 LE7 | 2018-May-31 | 17.8 LD | 1.7 | 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. 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.
| 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. |
| 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 |
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