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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NO STORMS TODAY: Solar activity is low. The face of the sun is almost blank (only two tiny sunspots), and no CMEs are heading for Earth. The odds of a geomagnetic storm in the next 48 to 72 hours is very low. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
ARTEMIS II CREATED A GIANT 'PLASMA CONTRAIL': You've heard of contrails. But plasma contrails? NASA's Artemis II rocket created a giant one when it launched to the Moon on April 2, 2026.
A new paper accepted for publication in the Geophysical Research Letters shows the contrail stretching more than 5,000 km across North America:
Above: Red and yellow dots mark places where the ionosphere's electron content was disturbed upward; blue dots, mostly near the start of the trail, mark depletions.
"This is the first report of such elongated disturbances generated during a spacecraft launch," wrote the authors led by Jong-Min Choi of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.
The ionosphere is a layer of Earth's upper atmosphere ionized by solar radiation. It is made of plasma. The Artemis II upper stage fired its engine for 18 minutes inside the ionosphere. Pressure from the hot exhaust shoved the plasma aside as the rocket raced overhead at 18,300 mph, leaving a disturbed trail along its path.
Choi's team discovered it when they looked at data from 3,500 GPS stations across the Americas. These are public networks built for surveying and earthquake monitoring. The contrail disturbed GPS signals in hundreds of stations.
A day later, it happened again. When the Orion crew capsule fired its own engine to head for the Moon, a second streak, about half as long, appeared over the same region.
No harm done? The plasma contrails faded after about an hour, and the paper reports no problems with GPS. But Artemis II may be just a preview. When SpaceX begins frequent launches of its giant Starship rocket, plasma contrails could become bigger and more common. The experiment is about to begin...
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Space Weather Newsletter
ALIEN MIND CRYSTAL BALL--BIG THINK EDITION: The brains of octopuses are so different from ours, they're often called "alien minds." That makes the Alien Mind Crystal Ball more than a glass sculpture -- it’s a fascinating conversation piece inspired by one of nature’s strangest and smartest creatures. Bonus: It has been to space:
You can have it for $149.95. On Oct. 14, 2026, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this sculpture onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. For 3 hours, it floated more than 103,310 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California while cosmic ray sensors inside the payload gathered data for our radiation monitoring program.
This is a massive item. It weighs more than 2 lb. We had to use an unusually large 2000 gram balloon to launch it. The crystal ball comes with a full-color gift card showing the octopus floating at the top of Earth's atmosphere. The interior of the card tells the story of the flight and where it landed.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora 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 October 26, 2026, the network reported 7 fireballs.
(3 sporadics, 2 epsilon Geminids, 1 Orionid, 1 Southern Taurid)
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 October 27, 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 TV8 |
2026-Oct-21 |
4.8 LD |
9.2 |
25 |
| 2026 TU1 |
2026-Oct-22 |
12.9 LD |
7.9 |
25 |
| 2026 TX84 |
2026-Oct-22 |
10.6 LD |
7.4 |
23 |
| 2026 TK77 |
2026-Oct-22 |
9.7 LD |
6.2 |
15 |
| 2017 UX7 |
2026-Oct-22 |
17 LD |
10.3 |
27 |
| 2026 UJ1 |
2026-Oct-23 |
1 LD |
7.3 |
18 |
| 2026 TV86 |
2026-Oct-23 |
5.6 LD |
5.7 |
18 |
| 2026 TR35 |
2026-Oct-23 |
15 LD |
20.9 |
55 |
| 2026 UA1 |
2026-Oct-23 |
0.6 LD |
9.5 |
9 |
| 2026 TT3 |
2026-Oct-24 |
12.8 LD |
12.8 |
47 |
| 2026 UE |
2026-Oct-25 |
5.2 LD |
15.9 |
24 |
| 2026 TB8 |
2026-Oct-25 |
7.1 LD |
7.8 |
60 |
| 2026 SQ31 |
2026-Oct-25 |
6.1 LD |
7.8 |
63 |
| 2026 TB94 |
2026-Oct-27 |
5.1 LD |
11.6 |
26 |
| 2018 GS1 |
2026-Oct-28 |
11.1 LD |
9.3 |
108 |
| 2026 UB1 |
2026-Oct-28 |
9.6 LD |
18.7 |
40 |
| 2022 UV21 |
2026-Oct-29 |
14.8 LD |
9.6 |
13 |
| 2026 UD |
2026-Oct-30 |
11.7 LD |
7.7 |
26 |
| 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 |
15.6 LD |
11.8 |
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 |
19.8 LD |
9.7 |
33 |
| 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 |
65 |
| 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 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 |
Notes: LD means
"Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256
AU.
| |
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 |
| |
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 |
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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 |
| |
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 |
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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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These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! |
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