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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 295.2 km/sec
density: 2.7 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A3
2014 UT Nov17
24-hr: A5
1057 UT Nov17
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 17 Nov 18
Sunspot AR2727 is very small and poses no threat for solar flares--a typical solar minimum sunspot. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 14
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 17 Nov 2018

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2018 total: 190 days (59%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
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%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)

Updated 17 Nov 2018


Thermosphere Climate Index
today: 3.99
x1010 W Cold
Max: 49.4
x1010 W Hot (10/1957)
Min: 2.05
x1010 W Cold (02/2009)
explanation | more data
Updated 17 Nov 2018

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 67 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 17 Nov 2018

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 1.7 nT
Bz: -1.0 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
Coronal Holes: 15 Nov 18

Solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Nov. 18-19. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds The season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in the northern hemisphere has come to an end. Images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show no NLCs around the north pole.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 09-03-2018 14:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2018 Nov 17 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: 2018 Nov 17 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
20 %
MINOR
01 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
25 %
25 %
SEVERE
20 %
30 %
 
Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over Lapland has a brand-new website full of exciting adventures in Abisko National Park, Sweden! Take a look at our aurora activities and book your once-in-a-lifetime trip with us today!

 

THIS WEEKEND--THE LEONID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering a stream of debris from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, source of the annual Leonid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on Nov. 17th and 18th with rates as high as 15 meteors per hour. The best time to look is during the dark hours before sunrise on Saturday and Sunday. [sky map] [full story] [live counts]

Leonids are famous for fireballs--that is, exploding meteors brighter than Venus. An epic outburst of Leonid fireballs in 1998 cemented the shower's repupation. This year's fireball count is lower, but not zero. Hermann Koberger photographed one this morning over Fornach, Austria:

"After the fireball exploded, its smokey debris was photographically visible for 30 minutes," says Koberger. "This sequence of 1 minute exposures shows the evolution of the smoke."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

SOUTHERN LIGHTS: Last weekend, Nov. 10th, a stream of fast-moving solar wind hit Earth's magnetic field, igniting a ring of auroras around the South Pole. Minoru Yoneto saw the red-purple glow all the way from Queenstown, New Zealand:

"We were lucky to catch another Southern Lights display during my stargazing tour," says Yoneta. "Our guests were excited to photograph them using their own cameras."

Queenstown is at 45 degrees south latitude--a considerable distance from the South Pole. That's why the auroras looked red. Auroras circling the South Pole must reach very high above Earth's surface to be visible half a hemisphere away. At altitudes greater than ~200 km, auroras turn red. The ruby glow occurs when high energy particles from space hit oxygen atoms at the top of the atmosphere. Ionized molecular nitrogen adds a dash of purple to the high-altitude palette.

More red Southern Lights are possible on Nov. 18th or 19th when a new stream of solar wind is expected to arrive. The gaseous material is flowing from a relatively small hole in the sun's atmosphere. Queenstown stargazers, charge your cameras! Free: Aurora Alerts

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery

A GIFT FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE: Don't just see the Northern Lights, wear them! To support their cosmic ray balloon program, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown a payload of Northern Light Pendants to the edge of space. This one reached an altitude 109,908 feet above Earth's surface:

You can have it for $79.95. The students are selling these pendants to pay their helium bill. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. All sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education



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 Nov. 17, 2018, the network reported 55 fireballs.
(30 sporadics, 15 Leonids, 9 Northern Taurids, 1 omicron Eridanid)

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 November 17, 2018 there were 1936 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2018 VY4
2018-Nov-11
5.5 LD
12.6
14
2018 VH5
2018-Nov-11
6 LD
6
13
2018 VA4
2018-Nov-11
3.1 LD
7.4
8
2018 VZ6
2018-Nov-12
9.5 LD
10.3
27
2018 VU8
2018-Nov-12
3.5 LD
5.4
10
2018 VN6
2018-Nov-12
1.9 LD
14.2
8
2018 VC7
2018-Nov-13
0.9 LD
4.5
12
2018 VR6
2018-Nov-13
8 LD
9.5
12
2018 VF5
2018-Nov-13
9.7 LD
6.8
11
2018 UQ1
2018-Nov-13
9.4 LD
12.3
146
2018 VU7
2018-Nov-13
6.4 LD
9.4
13
2018 VO3
2018-Nov-14
4.1 LD
7.7
15
2018 VX5
2018-Nov-14
3.6 LD
8.3
26
2018 VK1
2018-Nov-14
10.2 LD
2.3
12
2018 VW4
2018-Nov-14
9.8 LD
12.5
45
2018 VD7
2018-Nov-14
9.1 LD
11
26
2018 VR8
2018-Nov-14
18.9 LD
12.3
28
2018 VQ8
2018-Nov-14
17.9 LD
9.7
38
2007 UL12
2018-Nov-15
16.4 LD
25.8
235
2018 VV7
2018-Nov-15
12.2 LD
8.3
21
2018 VT8
2018-Nov-16
10.3 LD
6.2
60
2018 VS8
2018-Nov-17
2 LD
9.2
13
2018 VT4
2018-Nov-18
11.1 LD
4.4
18
2018 VQ6
2018-Nov-20
11.4 LD
7.9
22
2018 VP7
2018-Nov-20
7.7 LD
5.7
16
2009 WB105
2018-Nov-25
15.2 LD
18.9
71
2018 VT7
2018-Nov-25
8.2 LD
2.3
10
2008 WD14
2018-Nov-27
7.4 LD
9.3
93
2001 WO15
2018-Nov-28
13.6 LD
11.7
107
2018 VE4
2018-Nov-30
15 LD
4.8
29
2018 TG6
2018-Dec-02
3.9 LD
1.4
13
2013 VX4
2018-Dec-09
4.1 LD
6.6
65
2018 VX6
2018-Dec-10
16.6 LD
11.2
69
2015 XX169
2018-Dec-13
17 LD
5.8
12
2018 VO9
2018-Dec-15
2.6 LD
2.9
16
2017 XQ60
2018-Dec-21
11.3 LD
15.6
47
163899
2018-Dec-22
7.4 LD
6.2
1232
418849
2018-Dec-23
16.6 LD
17.6
269
2014 AD16
2019-Jan-04
12.9 LD
9.4
12
2016 AZ8
2019-Jan-07
11.6 LD
9.1
224
2013 YM2
2019-Jan-09
7.3 LD
4.3
20
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

SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.

To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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 18% since 2015:

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.

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

In this plot, 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.

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.

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.

  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
NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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