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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 364.1 km/sec
density: 4.5 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B3
2257 UT May05
24-hr: B4
0437 UT May05
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2300 UT
Daily Sun: 05 May 17
These sunspots pose no threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 29
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 05 May 2017

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2017 total: 30 days (25%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)

2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)

Updated 05 May 2017


The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 74 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 05 May 2017

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 3
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 6.5 nT
Bz: 6.4 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2347 UT
Coronal Holes: 05 May 17

There are no large coronal holes on the Earth side of the sun. Credit: NASA/SDO.
Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds began on Nov. 17, 2016. Come back to this spot every day to see the "daily daisy" from NASA's AIM spacecraft, which is monitoring the dance of electric-blue around the Antarctic Circle.
Switch view: Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar
Updated at: 02-24-2017 17:55:02
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2017 May 05 2200 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: 2017 May 05 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
30 %
20 %
MINOR
10 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
20 %
25 %
SEVERE
30 %
25 %
 
Friday, May. 5, 2017
What's up in space
       
 

Lights Over lapland is excited to announce that Autumn Aurora Adventures are available for immediate booking! Reserve your adventure of a lifetime in Abisko National Park, Sweden today!

 

WEAK IMPACT: Arriving later than expected, the flank of a CME that left the sun on April 30th grazed Earth's magnetic field during the waning hours of May the 4th. The impact was weak and, regrettably, did not spark a Star Wars Day geomagnetic storm. Faint auroras are possible at high latitudes as Earth moves through the CME's magnetized wake on May 5th. Free: Aurora Alerts

BLUE MOON OVER BEIJING: "Once in a blue moon" is supposed to mean "seldom" or "absurd." Yesterday in Beijing it meant that a dust storm was in progress. On May the 4th, massive clouds of desert dust from Mongolia swept through the city, choking residents and changing the appearance of the sky. A Spaceweather.com reader in the metropolis watched the waxing gibbous moon turn blue:

Blue moons are not as rare as folklore would have us believe. They usually appear after volcanic eruptions or major forest fires fill the air with ash and dust. If the airborne particles are just the right size--about 1 micron (one millionth of a meter) wide--they act like a color-filter, tinging the moon blue. Clouds of fine-grained Mongolian sand can do the same thing.

China is increasingly affected by dust storms as its cities expand towards nearby deserts, which in turn have been spreading due to climate change. Are more blue moons in the offing? The ongoing storm in Beijing is expected to last at least one more day.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery

MOTHER'S DAY AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: These pendants have touched space--and returned to Earth in time for Mother's Day. On April 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of heart-shaped Venus pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one, 111,550 feet above the Sierras of central California:

These blue jewels make great Mother's Day gifts--and you have have one for $129.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.

More far-out Mother's Day gifts may be found in the Earth to Sky Store. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation monitoring and hands-on STEM education.

METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: This week Earth is passing through a broad stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Specks of ancient dust from the comet are disintegrating in Earth's atmosphere producing a drizzle of shooting stars. Eliot Herman photographed this one streaking over Tucson, Arizona, before sunrise on May 3rd:

"With clear skies this week, the hunt for eta Aquarids is on," says Herman. "This photo is from an all night series of fisheye images taken with a Nikon D810 at 15 sec each, ISO 3200."

Forecasters expect the shower to peak on May 5th and 6th with 10 to 30 meteors per hour visible from the northern hemisphere, and twice that number from the southern hemisphere. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours before local sunrise when the constellation Aquarius is rising in the east.

Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery


Realtime Comet Photo Gallery


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery


  All Sky Fireball Network
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 May. 5, 2017, the network reported 22 fireballs.
(15 eta Aquariids, 7 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]

  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 May 5, 2017 there were 1801 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2017 FE157
2017-Apr-29
18.4 LD
8.6
63
2017 HU3
2017-Apr-30
6.1 LD
8.9
32
2017 HA5
2017-May-01
9.8 LD
4.1
12
2017 JA
2017-May-02
0.3 LD
16
6
2017 HK1
2017-May-05
16.9 LD
2.7
35
2015 VD1
2017-May-07
18.2 LD
10.5
34
2017 HX4
2017-May-08
3.7 LD
12
20
2017 HZ49
2017-May-09
15 LD
5.4
29
2017 HP3
2017-May-10
19.6 LD
17.4
181
2017 HU49
2017-May-11
5.6 LD
1.8
20
2012 EC
2017-May-16
19.5 LD
4.5
74
2017 CS
2017-May-29
8 LD
9.1
468
418094
2017-Jun-01
8 LD
23.2
490
2017 HV4
2017-Jun-10
19.5 LD
4
52
2010 VB1
2017-Jun-16
10.3 LD
8.3
81
471984
2017-Jun-18
19.1 LD
7.7
102
441987
2017-Jun-24
7.9 LD
12.7
178
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

Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here:

This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed 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. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California.

What is this all about? 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. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 12% since 2015:


Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.

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 data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

  Essential web 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 Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
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NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather
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