You are viewing the page for Aug. 30, 2009
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 464.5 km/sec
density: 5.6 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2340 UT Aug30
24-hr: A0
0915 UT Aug30
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2340 UT
Daily Sun: 30 Aug 09
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Photo credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 29 Aug 2009

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 50 days
2009 total: 192 days (80%)
Since 2004: 703 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
explanation | more info
Updated 29 Aug 2009

Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals no sunspots on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 4 unsettled
24-hr max: Kp= 6
storm
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 4.5 nT
Bz: 1.6 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on or about Sept. 3rd. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2009 Aug 30 2201 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: 2009 Aug 30 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
August 30, 2009

AURORA ALERT: Did you miss the Northern Lights? In July they descended as far south as Nebraska. Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.

 

MT. WILSON IN PERIL: An out-of-control wildfire in California's Angeles National Forest is approaching the Mt. Wilson Observatory. A webcam atop the observatory's 150-foot solar tower is tracking the flames and smoke. Click here for a live view.

SOLAR SURPRISE: Even during the deepest solar minimum in a century, the sun has the capacity for surprise. Larry Alvarez got one yesterday when he bent over the eyepiece of his solar telescope in Flower Mound, Texas. "I thought it would be just another day with a vanilla-wafer solar disk, but I was in for a blazing shock when I checked out the edge of the sun," he says. "There was a huge worm popping out of the apple--a prominence of magnificent proportions!" Here is what he saw:


View a video of the prom in action!

"What a doozy," he says. "I watched the prominence for more than two hours and captured many good images." The video he made is a must-see (DivX required).

Realtime images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory indicate that the prominence remains active. Readers with solar telescopes should take a look. It's no longer a surprise, but still a doozy.

images: from Michael Borman of Evansville, Indiana; from Matt Wastell of Brisbane, Australia; from Pavol Rapavy of Observatory Romavska Sobota, Slovakia; from Mark Townley of Brierley Hill, West Midlands, UK; from Stephen Ames of Hodgenville, KY; from Fabio Mariuzza of Biauzzo-Codroipo, Italy; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Emiel Veldhuis of Zwolle, the Netherlands; from Francisco A. Rodriguez of Cabreja Mountain Observatory, Vega de San Mateo, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands; from Gianfranco Meregalli of Milano, Italy;

NIGHT LAUNCH: In Earth orbit, a game of tag is underway. It began at 11:59 pm EDT on Friday, Aug. 28th, when space shuttle Discovery roared into the midnight sky above the Kennedy Space Center:

"It was a powerful bone-shaking launch," says Mark Staples, who took the picture from the lawn in front of KSC's giant Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

Now, some 350 km above Earth, Discovery is about to tag-up with the International Space Station. The two spacecraft will dock at 9:03 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 30th. Discovery is delivering equipment to outfit the space station's laboratories. The payload includes new tools for fluid physics research, a -80 degree laboratory freezer, and equipment to study materials such as semiconductors, ceramics, alloys and crystals in low gravity.

The mission marks the start of the transition from assembling the
space station to using it for continuous scientific research.
Until now, assembly and maintenance activities have kept the station's crew almost fully occupied, but as completion of the ISS nears, time is being freed up for science experiments. The ISS will soon realize its potential as a world-class low gravity research laboratory.

Check the Simple Satellite Tracker for flybys of Discovery and the ISS over your home town.

more images: from Mike Deep of Banana Creek VIP Site, KSC, FL; from Andrew Boyle of Orlando, Florida; from Bobby Lacey of Jekyll Island, Georgia; from Pete Lardizabal of St Johns, Florida; from Joseph Daly of Cocoa Beach, Florida; from Andrew Boyle of Orlando, FL; from Victor van Wulfen of Space View Park, Titusville, Florida; from Ron Netzley of Palm Bay Florida; from George Fleenor of Titusville, FL;


August 2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Augusts: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001]


Explore the Sunspot Cycle

       
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 August 30, 2009 there were 1068 potentially hazardous asteroids.
August 2009 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2009 MC9
Aug. 7
70.3 LD
16
1.2 km
2009 OF
Aug. 8
15.4 LD
18
220 m
2007 RQ17
Aug. 9
8.4 LD
17
130 m
2000 LC16
Aug. 17
75.6 LD
14
2.0 km
2006 SV19
Aug. 21
59.2 LD
16
1.3 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 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 and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
   
  more links...
   
©2008, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.