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Solar wind
speed: 280.8 km/sec
density: 3.9 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B5
1946 UT Jul19
24-hr: C2
1041 UT Jul19
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 19 Jul 15
None of these sunspots has the type of unstable magnetic field that poses a threat for strong solar flares. Solar activity is very low. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 52
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 19 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 19 Jul 2015


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 96 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 19 Jul 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: 3.9 nT
Bz: 0.5 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2348 UT
Coronal Holes: 19 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: 07-19-2015 16:55:03
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2015 Jul 19 2200 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: 2015 Jul 19 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
25 %
10 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
20 %
15 %
MINOR
35 %
20 %
SEVERE
35 %
20 %
 
Sunday, Jul. 19, 2015
What's up in space
 

Learn to photograph Northern Lights like a pro. Sign up for Peter Rosen's Aurora Photo Courses in Abisko National Park, winner of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Award 2015.

 
Lapland tours

FLATLINING: Solar activity is so low, the sun's X-ray output barely has a pulse. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of M-class solar flares and a miniscule 1% of X-flares on July 19th. Solar flare alerts: text or voice.

MOON AND MINI-MOON: Like the Moon, Venus has phases, and today it is a 19% crescent. On July 19th in Timaru, New Zealand, photographer Paul Stewart caught Venus passing by the 8% crescent Moon. They looked very much alike:

"The Moon and Venus were so close together, they fit in the same field of view of my 80mm refracting telescope," says Stewart.

The crescent shape of Venus will become even more pronounced in the nights ahead as the planet moves toward "inferior conjunction"--that is, almost directly between Earth and the sun. By the end of July, Venus will be a 9% crescent, as whisper-thin as the crescent Moon Stewart photographed, and by mid-August, Venus will disappear altogether, a vanishingly-thin crescent overwhelmed by the glare of the sun.

Readers, even a cheap department store telescope can reveal the phases of Venus. Point your optics west after sunset and check out the "mini-Moon."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

NORTHERN SKY TURNS GREEN, NO AURORAS REQUIRED: There was no geomagnetic storm last night. The sky turned green anyway. Photographer Bryan Hansel recorded the phenomenon on July 18th:

The green glow was barely visible to the naked eye, but a deep-sky exposure with Hansel's Nikon D800 digital camera captured it easily.

This is called "airglow." Although it resembles the aurora borealis, the underlying physics is different. Airglow is caused by an assortment of chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere driven mainly by solar ultraviolet radiation; auroras, on the other hand, are ignited by gusts of solar wind. Green airglow is best photographed from extremely dark sites on nights when the Moon is new or below the horizon. It often shows up in long exposures of the Milky Way.

Indeed, the Milky Way was Hansel's actual target. "I run a Milky Way Photography Workshop," he explains."The figures on the dock are three of the photographers in my group and the light is from a camera's LCD screen."

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery


Realtime NLC 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. 19, 2015, the network reported 12 fireballs.
(12 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]

  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 19, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Size
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...
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