| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 4 unsettled 24-hr max: Kp= 5 storm explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 5.98 nT Bz: -2.47 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1143 UT Coronal Holes: 26 Jun 22 There are no significant coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: NOAA/GOES-16 Noctilucent Clouds Noctilucent cloud season is underway. The clouds are currently spreading as far south as +47N. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated Jun26 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 Jun 26 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 10 % | 05 % | 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: 2022 Jun 26 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 40 % | 35 % | MINOR | 15 % | 15 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 10 % | MINOR | 30 % | 30 % | SEVERE | 55 % | 50 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora your guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too! | | | BIG, BRIGHT CME: Today, June 26th, a big, bright CME billowed away from the sun's southern hemisphere. Take a look. The strange thing is, analysts aren't certain which side of the sun it came from. Equal numbers of clues suggest farside and Earthside. If it is an Earthside event, it could reach us late on June 28th or June 29th. Aurora alerts: SMS Text SURPRISE GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A G1-class geomagnetic storm broke out around midnight (UT) on June 25-26. At first it was a surprise; now the reason seems clear. A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit Earth's magnetic field, opening a crack in our planet's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in to spark a rare solstice display of auroras: "Wow, talk about surprises!" says photographer Harlan Thomas of Calgary, Alberta. "I went out before sunrise to shoot Comet C/2017 K2 Panstarrs and the Moon-Venus conjunction when the auroras appeared. The display lasted all of 5 minutes, and what a 5 min show it was as the aurora became naked eye with beautiful pillars." CIRs are transition zones between slow- and fast-moving streams of solar wind. Often, they contain enhanced magnetic fields and shock waves that do a good job sparking auroras. After this CIR arrived, the solar wind speed ramped up to 700 km/s, confirming that a CIR transition had taken place. Aurora alerts: SMS Text. more images: from Philip Granrud of Kalispell, Montana Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter MOON-VENUS CONJUNCTION: Today, the crescent Moon is passing close to Venus. Jeff Dai photographed the converging pair at daybreak over Hami, Xinjiang, China: "The Pleiades were there, too," says Dai. "It was a beautiful conjunction." Today's conjunction marks the apex of this month's rare morning sky show. All 5 naked-eye planets are lined up in the dawn sky in order of their distance from the sun--with the Moon snuggled up to Venus on June 26th. If it is dawn where you live, go outside and take a look. Sky maps: June 25, 26. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter GOOD-BYE, BIG SUNSPOT: Big sunspot AR3038 is about to rotate over the northwestern limb of the sun. Pepe Manteca sends this parting shot from Barcelona, Spain: "I inserted an image of Earth for scale," says Manteca. The sunspot's primary core is big enough to swallow our entire planet. As the sunspot rotates over the sun's limb this weekend, it will become magnetically connected to Earth via the Parker Spiral. Energetic particles accelerated by flares will be funneled in our direction despite the fact the sunspot is facing almost directly away from us--strange, but true! "I LOVE YOU FOREVER" MOONSTONE PENDANT: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider the "I Love You Forever" Moonstone. This one hitched a ride to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon on May 13, 2022: You can have it for $162.95. The moonstone's sterling silver infinity wrap is inscribed with the words "I love you forever." It makes a great anniversary or birthday gift. The moonstone comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight, telling the story of its trip to the edge of space and back again. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 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 June 26, 2022, the network reported 2 fireballs. (2 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 June 26, 2022 there were 2279 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2022 MM | 2022-Jun-21 | 1.2 LD | 21.3 | 29 | 2022 LX | 2022-Jun-22 | 10.4 LD | 10.1 | 35 | 2022 MO1 | 2022-Jun-22 | 9.2 LD | 9.9 | 31 | 2022 LS1 | 2022-Jun-23 | 18.9 LD | 9.9 | 35 | 2022 MP1 | 2022-Jun-23 | 10.2 LD | 8.8 | 29 | 2022 MR | 2022-Jun-24 | 13.3 LD | 9.4 | 44 | 2022 LB2 | 2022-Jun-25 | 5 LD | 8.3 | 22 | 2022 LV | 2022-Jun-25 | 2 LD | 3.6 | 22 | 2015 WP2 | 2022-Jun-26 | 18.5 LD | 11.4 | 3 | 2022 MD | 2022-Jun-26 | 14 LD | 8.3 | 53 | 2022 MQ | 2022-Jun-27 | 7.5 LD | 12.1 | 98 | 2022 MP | 2022-Jun-27 | 6.6 LD | 7.7 | 57 | 2022 ML | 2022-Jun-27 | 12.9 LD | 9.1 | 31 | 2022 MJ | 2022-Jun-27 | 14 LD | 12.2 | 54 | 2022 MN1 | 2022-Jun-28 | 0.9 LD | 9.9 | 13 | 2022 MS | 2022-Jul-01 | 8.3 LD | 6 | 28 | 2022 MF | 2022-Jul-02 | 14.8 LD | 12.1 | 37 | 2022 MB1 | 2022-Jul-02 | 19.1 LD | 6.3 | 17 | 2022 JE1 | 2022-Jul-03 | 8.6 LD | 5.6 | 74 | 2022 MY | 2022-Jul-05 | 13 LD | 7.2 | 25 | 2021 EL4 | 2022-Jul-05 | 19.8 LD | 9.5 | 25 | 2015 OQ21 | 2022-Jul-12 | 18.3 LD | 6.6 | 9 | 2022 LR1 | 2022-Jul-16 | 9.3 LD | 4.7 | 42 | 2022 KY4 | 2022-Jul-17 | 15.9 LD | 7.6 | 91 | 2021 OT | 2022-Jul-17 | 16.5 LD | 11.2 | 20 | 349068 | 2022-Jul-19 | 17.6 LD | 22.9 | 756 | 2017 RX2 | 2022-Jul-24 | 17.2 LD | 14.2 | 17 | 2016 CZ31 | 2022-Jul-29 | 7 LD | 15.6 | 129 | 531944 | 2022-Jul-30 | 18.2 LD | 5.9 | 192 | 2020 PP1 | 2022-Aug-01 | 13.1 LD | 3.7 | 17 | 2020 PN1 | 2022-Aug-03 | 9.7 LD | 4.6 | 29 | 2015 FF | 2022-Aug-12 | 11.2 LD | 9.2 | 17 | 2019 AV13 | 2022-Aug-22 | 19.1 LD | 8.8 | 135 | 2020 QW3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 14.1 LD | 18.1 | 30 | 2015 QH3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 5.6 LD | 7 | 14 | 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 | SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost 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 sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth's surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements. Latest results (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data: This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out. We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere: The dose rates shown above are expressed 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 higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. .Technical notes: 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. Data points in the first graph ("Stratospheric Radiation") correspond to the peak of the Regener-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 Regener 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. | | information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary | | 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 | | Going above and beyond to provide the best homes listings in the Comox real estate market to keep you up to date and informed | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. 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