AI writing is everywhere -- except here. This website is written by Dr. Tony Phillips, a carbon-based lifeform with 30 yrs of forecasting experience. Our guarantee: If you find a mistake, it was made by a real human being.
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THE STORM IS OVER: The Halloween Storm of 2026 is over. A solar wind stream hit Earth on Oct. 31st, sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm with bright auroras around the Arctic Circle and some nice breadcrumbs in New York. Earth is exiting the stream now, and no further storming is expected this weekend. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
RE-ENTRY FIREBALL ALERT: NASA's Swift observatory is about to fall out of the sky. The 1.5-ton spacecraft spent nearly 22 years observing gamma-ray bursts. Now it is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere within days, creating a fireball that could even be visible in daylight (magnitude -8 to -10).
NASA's Space Weather Operational Readiness Development Center predicts reentry on Nov. 3rd at 16:18 UTC +/- 12 hours. The Aerospace Corporation says Nov. 4th at 09:30 UTC +/- 26 hours. Uncontrolled reentries are hard to pin down, and the orbit is decaying fast. Only in the final hours will we know for sure when and where it will re-enter.
Above: Reentry ground tracks from the Aerospace Corporation. [more]
Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and southern Mexico are in the potential re-entry zone. Swift’s orbit is tilted 21 degrees to the equator, so debris can only come down between latitudes 21N and 21S. That band is mostly ocean, so the odds still favor a harmless splashdown.
Most of Swift will burn up in the fireball. But according to chief scientist Brad Cenko, some tungsten pieces and the observatory’s mirrors could survive.
NASA tried to save Swift. In July, Katalyst Space launched a robotic spacecraft named LINK to rendezvous with Swift and boost it higher. The mission failed. Meanwhile, solar activity puffed up Earth’s upper atmosphere, dragging Swift down faster than expected.
Now it is in its final days, and the Swift team is asking for your help.
“It would be wonderful to have a few final ground-based portraits of Swift,” says Aaron Tohuvavohu, a member of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory team. He wants photos and video of Swift’s remaining sunlit passes, along with magnitude estimates and timed sightings. His observing planner shows passes for your location.
Stay tuned for updates as the end approaches.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
EARTHGRAZING METEORITE RING: The iron in this meteorite ring has an interesting history. Thousands of years ago, an asteroid skipped across the top of Earth's atmosphere, creating a field of debris in China almost 500 km long. This ring was fashioned from one of the earthgrazing fragments:
On Aug. 3, 2026, we sent it back. The ring flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon, above 99.4% of the atmosphere.
You can have it for $279.95. The iron fragment comes from the Altai Mountains in China, and is known as an "Aletai meteorite." Widmanstätten patterns on the ring confirm its celestial origin, and an accompanying full-color greeting card shows the ring in flight.
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Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Space Weather 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 October 29, 2026, the network reported 8 fireballs.
(6 sporadics, 1 chi Taurid, 1 Orionid)
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 November 1, 2026 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
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Recent
& Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT) |
Miss Distance |
Velocity (km/s) |
Diameter (m) |
| 2026 UP3 |
2026-Oct-26 |
5.7 LD |
7.6 |
27 |
| 2026 TB94 |
2026-Oct-27 |
5.1 LD |
11.6 |
26 |
| 2026 UN3 |
2026-Oct-27 |
1 LD |
21.8 |
11 |
| 2026 UD2 |
2026-Oct-27 |
2.9 LD |
10.8 |
12 |
| 2026 UO3 |
2026-Oct-27 |
11.3 LD |
9.3 |
18 |
| 2026 UQ3 |
2026-Oct-27 |
1.8 LD |
12 |
15 |
| 2026 UF2 |
2026-Oct-28 |
5.3 LD |
16 |
59 |
| 2018 GS1 |
2026-Oct-28 |
11.1 LD |
9.3 |
108 |
| 2026 UB1 |
2026-Oct-28 |
9.6 LD |
18.7 |
40 |
| 2026 UE2 |
2026-Oct-29 |
0.3 LD |
7.7 |
5 |
| 2022 UV21 |
2026-Oct-29 |
14.8 LD |
9.6 |
13 |
| 2026 UC2 |
2026-Oct-29 |
2.7 LD |
13.9 |
23 |
| 2026 UB2 |
2026-Oct-29 |
1.2 LD |
7.5 |
15 |
| 2026 UD |
2026-Oct-30 |
11.6 LD |
7.7 |
25 |
| 2025 UK9 |
2026-Oct-31 |
0.8 LD |
7.8 |
4 |
| 524522 |
2026-Nov-02 |
15.7 LD |
8.7 |
277 |
| 2021 VC4 |
2026-Nov-03 |
6 LD |
11.2 |
15 |
| 2017 WJ2 |
2026-Nov-05 |
14.7 LD |
12 |
118 |
| 2016 VZ1 |
2026-Nov-05 |
20 LD |
13.5 |
21 |
| 2001 KF54 |
2026-Nov-06 |
18.9 LD |
16.4 |
391 |
| 2026 UX |
2026-Nov-07 |
19.6 LD |
9.7 |
38 |
| 2025 UF5 |
2026-Nov-09 |
18.9 LD |
1.9 |
10 |
| 2015 VH65 |
2026-Nov-10 |
9.7 LD |
8 |
10 |
| 2012 YD7 |
2026-Nov-10 |
18.6 LD |
7.5 |
49 |
| 2023 VF3 |
2026-Nov-11 |
8.5 LD |
8.8 |
19 |
| 2022 MP2 |
2026-Nov-13 |
19.8 LD |
3.8 |
23 |
| 2025 VG5 |
2026-Nov-13 |
18.2 LD |
4.9 |
16 |
| 2026 UY |
2026-Nov-14 |
19.7 LD |
4.3 |
64 |
| 2023 VE6 |
2026-Nov-17 |
18.4 LD |
10.1 |
13 |
| 2019 WT1 |
2026-Nov-18 |
19.7 LD |
9.7 |
16 |
| 2018 NE1 |
2026-Nov-19 |
16.7 LD |
13.3 |
74 |
| 2026 TB84 |
2026-Nov-19 |
12.1 LD |
9.9 |
68 |
| 2025 CP1 |
2026-Nov-30 |
12.9 LD |
10.8 |
6 |
| 2019 XF2 |
2026-Dec-04 |
3.1 LD |
10.2 |
14 |
| 2023 XH3 |
2026-Dec-06 |
18.7 LD |
16.5 |
14 |
| 2020 XC3 |
2026-Dec-08 |
14.5 LD |
14.3 |
110 |
| 2016 NV |
2026-Dec-08 |
14.3 LD |
10.4 |
379 |
| 2010 VQ |
2026-Dec-12 |
4.6 LD |
4.3 |
10 |
| 2025 XN6 |
2026-Dec-12 |
6.9 LD |
12.2 |
5 |
| 2026 QQ8 |
2026-Dec-13 |
3.5 LD |
0.8 |
2 |
| 2026 LZ1 |
2026-Dec-14 |
14.4 LD |
11.2 |
36 |
| 2025 YN |
2026-Dec-18 |
18.3 LD |
13.1 |
21 |
| 2018 FQ4 |
2026-Dec-19 |
16.7 LD |
10.4 |
14 |
| 2021 PF7 |
2026-Dec-26 |
15.5 LD |
7.7 |
10 |
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
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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 10 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (Nov. 2024): Atmospheric radiation is sharply decreasing in 2024. Our latest measurements in November registered a 10-year low:
What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, 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. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking 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 graph labeled "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.
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The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
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Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
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3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
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Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
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information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
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current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page. See also, all satellite statistics. |
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Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
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from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
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from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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the
underlying science of space weather |
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Got a chipped or cracked windshield that prevents you from seeing space weather events while driving? Get windshield replacement from SR Windows & Glass with free mobile auto glass service anywhere in the Phoenix area. |
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