You are viewing the page for Jul. 13, 2015
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids Internet Shopping Sites high quality binoculars excellent weather stations all-metal reflector telescopes rotatable microscopes
 
Solar wind
speed: 484.6 km/sec
density: 4.8 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B5
2022 UT Jul13
24-hr: B6
0933 UT Jul13
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 13 Jul 15
None of these sunspots has the type of unstable magnetic field that poses a threat for strong solar flares. Solar activity is low. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 59
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 13 Jul 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 13 Jul 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 116 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 13 Jul 2015

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 5 storm
24-hr max: Kp= 5
storm
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.9 nT
Bz: 3.1 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 13 Jul 15

There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA.
Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for NLCs is underway. NASA's AIM spacecraft spotted the first noctilucent clouds over the Arctic Circle on May 19th.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 07-13-2015 15:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 Jul 13 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
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: 2015 Jul 13 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
35 %
25 %
MINOR
20 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
30 %
SEVERE
50 %
30 %
 
Monday, Jul. 13, 2015
What's up in space
 

Come to Tromsø and share Marianne's passion for rural photography: Chasethelighttours.co.uk invites you to experience "Heaven on Earth" with an aurora, fjord, fishing, whale watching, photography or sightseeing tour.

 
Chase the Light Tours

GEOMAGNETIC STORMS ON JULY 13TH: A stream of high-speed solar wind is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and this is causing G1-class geomagnetic storms on July 13th. Sky watchers in several northern-tier US states saw auroras before sunrise on Monday. Philip Granrud sends this picture from the Salish Mountains of Montana:

"The Northern Lights came out outta the blue as they often do," says Granrud. "This was one of the most colorful and visible-to-the-eye displays I have seen in the last year in Montana. A large chunk of NW Montana can be seen below. Urban lights in the foreground come from the cities of Kalispell, Whitefish, Evergreen, and Columbia Falls."

High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms as the solar wind continues to blow. Aurora alerts: text or voice.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

THE FARSIDE OF PLUTO: Pluto has two sides: the nearside that New Horizons will see when it buzzes the dwarf planet on July 14th, and the farside that it won't. New Horizons just took the best picture it will ever take of Pluto's farside from a distance of 2.5 million miles:

Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, describes this image as "the last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto's farside for decades to come."

Of particular interest on the farside are four dark spots connected to a dark belt that circles Pluto's equatorial region. What continues to pique the interest of scientists is their similar size and even spacing. "It's weird that they're spaced so regularly," says New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur at NASA Headquarters.  Jeff Moore of NASA's Ames Research Center is equally intrigued: "We can't tell whether they're plateaus or plains, or whether they're brightness variations on a completely smooth surface." The spots appear on the side of Pluto that always faces its largest moon, Charon.

No one knows what these spots are, but there is hope for a solution to the mystery: "When we combine images like this of the farside with composition and color data the spacecraft has already acquired but not yet sent to Earth, we expect to be able to read the history of this face of Pluto," says Moore.

When New Horizons makes its closest approach to Pluto in just two days, it will focus on the nearside of the dwarf planet. On the morning of July 14, New Horizons will pass about 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) from the face with a large heart-shaped feature that's captured the imagination of people around the world.

Realtime Pluto Photo Gallery

SPACE WEATHER FORECAST FOR PLUTO: Forcasting space weather in the immediate vicinity of Earth is challenging. Forecasting space weather 3 billion miles away at the edge of the known solar system is almost impossible. Nevertheless, researchers at the Goddard Space Flight Center may have done it. Using a supercomputer model named "Enlil", they have tracked the motions of solar storms since January 2015 to predict conditions around Pluto in mid-July. Watch the movie, then read more about their predictions below:

"We set the simulation to start in January of 2015, because the particles passing Pluto in July 2015 took some six months to make the journey from the sun," says Dusan Odstricil of Goddard, who created the Enlil computer code in the 1990s. "During that time there were 120 separate CMEs."

"Our simulation estimates that during the New Horizon approach, Pluto might be immersed in a region with very low solar wind densities, lasting for about one month," says Odstricil. "This will be followed by a large merged region, which could significantly compress Pluto's atmosphere."

This is one of the first space weather forecasts ever attempted so far from Earth. Needless to say, it is unlikely to be a perfect reflection of reality. Odstricil says his model could be off by two to three weeks. However, comparing the models with actual measurements from New Horizons will help make far-out space weather forecasts more accurate in the future.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime NLC 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 Jul. 13, 2015, the network reported 88 fireballs.
(85 sporadics, 1 , 1 Northern June Aquilid, 1 alpha Capricornid)

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 July 13, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
2015 HM10
Jul 7
1.1 LD
81 m
2015 NR2
Jul 9
10.7 LD
28 m
1994 AW1
Jul 15
25.3 LD
1.3 km
2011 UW158
Jul 19
6.4 LD
540 m
2013 BQ18
Jul 20
7.9 LD
38 m
1999 JD6
Jul 25
18.8 LD
1.6 km
2005 NZ6
Aug 6
76.5 LD
1.4 km
2005 JF21
Aug 16
20.1 LD
1.6 km
2004 BO41
Aug 31
57.3 LD
1.2 km
1991 CS
Sep 4
62.1 LD
1.4 km
2014 KS76
Sep 14
8.7 LD
22 m
2004 TR12
Sep 15
58.8 LD
1.0 km
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
Columbia Northern High School
  Web-based high school science course with free enrollment
  more links...
©2015 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.