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Solar wind
speed: 361.6 km/sec
density: 4.3 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: X2
2211 UT May05
24-hr: X2
2211 UT May05
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 05 May 15
Sunspot AR2335 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 85
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 05 May 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 05 May 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 125 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 05 May 2015

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.3 nT
Bz: 0.2 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2349 UT
Coronal Holes: 05 May 15

There are no large coronal holes on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for NLCs has come to an end. The last clouds were observed by NASA's AIM spacecraft on Feb. 20, 2015. Now attention shifts to the northern hemisphere, where the first clouds of 2015 should appear in mid-May.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Penninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 05-05-2015 01:55:08
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 May 05 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
50 %
50 %
CLASS X
05 %
05 %
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 May 05 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
35 %
25 %
MINOR
10 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
30 %
25 %
SEVERE
45 %
30 %
 
Tuesday, May. 5, 2015
What's up in space
 

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Chase the Light Tours

MINOR STORM WARNING: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hurled into space by a solar filament eruption on May 2nd is heading for Earth. ETA: May 6th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 45% chance of minor geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice

X-FLARE! The sun is no longer quiet. Emerging sunspot AR2339 unleashed an intense X2-class solar flare on May 5th at 22:15 UT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the extreme ultraviolet flash:

A pulse of X-rays from the flare caused a strong radio blackout over western parts of North America and the entirety of the Pacific Ocean. This map shows the extent of the blackout, which affected frequencies mainly below 10 MHz. This is the type of event that mariners, aviators, and ham radio operators might have noticed.

The explosion probably hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space, but coronagraph data are not yet available to confirm. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: text, voice

METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) is detecting a "hot spot" in the sky today. Note the circled region labeled "ETA" in the May 5th radar map below. This is a sign that the eta Aquariid meteor shower is underway.

Eta Aquariid meteors come from Halley's Comet. Although the comet itself is more than 5 billion km from Earth, bits of dust from Halley are in the neighborhood. Every year, Earth crosses the debris zone in early May, and we see a meteor shower. The 2015 eta Aquariid display is expected to peak on May 5-6 with 10 to 50 meteors per hour.

The best time to look is during the hours before local dawn on May 6th. Patient sky watchers could see dozens of meteors despite glare from the waning full Moon. Live radar echoes may be heard on Space Weather Radio.

Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery

INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: Solar activity is picking up. After a period of quiet last week in which the face of the sun became nearly blank, four significant sunspot groups are emerging. Their dark cores are circled in this Cinco de Mayo image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

Two of the sunspot groups, AR2335 and AR2339, are crackling with M-class solar flares. This is causing minor radio blackouts across the dayside of Earth. So far the effects have been restricted to frequencies below ~5 MHz.

More flares are in the offing as these active regions turn toward Earth. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: text, voice

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

THE NEPAL EARTHQUAKE AND SPACE WEATHER: High above Earth, more than 60 km above sea level, there is a layer of our planet's atmosphere called "the ionosphere." It is where UV radiation from the sun strips electrons away from the atoms of normal air, creating a zone of charged gas that envelopes the globe.

The ionosphere is very sensitive to solar storms. Turns out, it can be sensitive to earthquakes, too. NASA is reporting that the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal on April 25th created waves of energy that penetrated the ionosphere and disturbed the distribution of electrons. Note the wave pattern, circled, in the upper panel of this ionospheric electron density plot:

Basically, these are waves of electron density rippling from a point in the ionosphere above the epicenter of the quake. The waves were measured by a science-quality GPS receiver in Lhasa, Tibet. It took about 21 minutes for the waves to travel 400 miles between the epicenter and the GPS receiving station.

The bottom panel of the plot is a "dynamic spectrum." Note the hot spots outlined in black. They show that the ionosphere was ringing with periods of ~2 and ~8 minutes. Presumably, these "tones" are related to atmospheric pressure waves billowing up from the trembling Earth below.

The ionosphere is the stage upon which much of space weather plays out. Auroras, meteors, and noctilucent clouds all occur there. The "Ionosphere Natural Hazards Team" at JPL studies how Earth itself affects this stage via earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. You can read their report about the Nepal earthquake here.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Comet 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 May. 5, 2015, the network reported 25 fireballs.
(18 sporadics, 7 eta Aquariids)

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 May 5, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2015 HS11
May 1
7.1 LD
16 m
2015 HQ171
May 2
1.2 LD
18 m
2015 HL171
May 2
8.8 LD
60 m
5381 Sekhmet
May 17
62.8 LD
2.1 km
2015 HT9
May 25
12.2 LD
24 m
2005 XL80
Jun 4
38.1 LD
1.0 km
2012 XB112
Jun 11
10.1 LD
2 m
2015 HM10
Jul 7
1.4 LD
65 m
2005 VN5
Jul 7
12.6 LD
18 m
1994 AW1
Jul 15
25.3 LD
1.4 km
2011 UW158
Jul 19
6.4 LD
565 m
2013 BQ18
Jul 20
7.9 LD
38 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.
  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
Space Weather Alerts
   
  more links...
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