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ASTEROID TO MISS EARTH: Last month, NASA reported that near-Earth asteroid 2013 TX68 might come very close to Earth on March 5th--as little as 11,000 miles away. Since then, researchers have collected more data and refined their calculations of the asteroid's orbit. Now it appears that the 30-meter space rock won't reach Earth until March 8th, and when it does, it will miss our planet by a wide margin of 3 million miles. There is no danger of a collision: full story.
CME TO MISS EARTH, TOO: Earlier today, March 1st, a magnetic filament near the sun's northeastern limb rose up and erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast:
Debris from the explosion gathered material as it flew away from the sun, forming a bright CME. The emerging storm cloud will not hit Earth. No geomagnetic activity will result from this event.
After the eruption, solar activity quickly returned to low levels. There are only a few small sunspots on the solar disk, and not one of them has the type of unstable magnetic field that poses a threat for strong explosions. NOAA forcasters estimate a slight 5% chance of M-class flares on March 1-2. Solar flare alerts: text or voice
Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery
NORTH KOREAN SATELLITE: When North Korea launched a rocket on Feb. 7th, purportedly carrying an Earth observing satellite to orbit, observers were skeptical. Some dismissed the launch as a ruse for testing an ICBM. It turns out, however, there really is a satellite. On Feb. 28th, veteran satellite tracker Marco Langbroek saw it flying over Leiden, the Netherlands:
"North Korea's new satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 (KMS-4) is starting to make visible evening passes over Europe," says Langbroek.
Shortly after the launch, some experts wondered if the satellite might have failed to deploy properly and started tumbling around Earth. However, that's not what Langbroek saw: "As far as I can tell over the short imaging arc (~6 seconds) there was no brightness variation. So the satellite is stable, or if it is tumbling it must be a very slow tumble," he says.
Readers who wish to see Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 for themselves may find tracking data here.
(UPDATED!) SPHERICAL CAMERA AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: On Feb. 27th, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a helium balloon to the stratosphere to monitor increasing levels of cosmic rays. In addition to radiation sensors, the payload carried something special: a spherical camera. Click and drag on the image below to explore California's Sierra Nevada from an altitude of 115,300 feet--and don't forget to look up at the balloon!
On Feb. 27th, for the first time, we flew a spherical camera onboard one of our helium balloons. This is what the Sierra Nevada looks like from the edge of space. Click to view and navigate the interactive 3D image! #theta360 - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA
The camera, a Ricoh Theta S, will probably become a regular part of our cosmic ray payload. Imagery should improve in future flights as the students learn to lower the profile of the camera's thermal pack--the strange-looking black object in the center of the 3D image. During its flight to the stratosphere, the camera experienced temperatures as low as -65 C. The thermal pack helps keep the camera's batteries warm in these harsh conditions.
more spherical images: the students preparing to launch the balloon, the balloon ascending through clouds, the balloon exploding in the stratosphere.
Next week, the camera will take another trip--to Indonesia. The students will be using it to record a total eclipse of the sun on March 9th. Stay tuned for that!
Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery
MAGNETIC CANYON ON THE SUN: Magnetic fields in the sun's atmosphere have split apart, forming a 'magnetic canyon' more than 500,000 miles long. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring the structure, shown here in an extreme ultraviolet image taken on Feb. 28th:
The canyon is the dark linear feature vertically bisecting the solar disk. White arrows indicate solar wind spewing out into space. Such an opening is also called a "coronal hole." A stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole is expected to reach Earth on or about March 1st. NOAA forecasters say there is a 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the stream arrives. Aurora alerts: text or voice
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
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 Mar. 1, 2016, the network reported 23 fireballs.
(23 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 March 1, 2016 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.
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 |
Situation Report -- Oct. 30, 2015 | Stratospheric Radiation (+37o N) |
Cosmic ray levels are elevated (+6.1% above the Space Age median). The trend is flat. Cosmic ray levels have increased +0% in the past month. |
Sept. 06: 4.14 uSv/hr (414 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 12: 4.09 uSv/hr (409 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 23: 4.12 uSv/hr (412 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 25: 4.16 uSv/hr (416 uRad/hr) |
Sept. 27: 4.13 uSv/hr (413 uRad/hr) |
Oct. 11: 4.02 uSv/hr (402 uRad/hr) |
Oct. 22: 4.11 uSv/hr (411 uRad/hr) |
These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more. Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015:
Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the "Pfotzer Maximum." This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.
Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray's worth of radiation in about 5 hours.
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.
| 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. |
| from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| the underlying science of space weather |