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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 324.0 km/sec
density: 5.9 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2346 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A1
1804 UT May10
24-hr: A1
1804 UT May10
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2350 UT
Daily Sun: 10 May 20
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 10 May 2020

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 8 days
2020 total: 99 days (76%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
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%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)

Updated 10 May 2020


Thermosphere Climate Index
today: 3.34
x1010 W Cold
Max: 49.4
x1010 W Hot (10/1957)
Min: 2.05
x1010 W Cold (02/2009)
explanation | more data: gfx, txt
Updated 10 May 2020

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 71 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 10 May 2020

Cosmic Rays Solar minimum is underway. The sun's magnetic field is weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth in 2020 are near a Space Age peak.

Oulu Neutron Counts

Percentages of the Space Age average:
today: +10.0% Very High
48-hr change: -0.2%
Max: +11.7% Very High
(12/2009)
Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991)
explanation | more data
Updated 10 May 2020 @ 1700 UT

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 2 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 2
quiet
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 4.2 nT
Bz: -3.3 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
Coronal Holes: 10 May 20

There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun.
Credit: SDO/AIA

Noctilucent Clouds The northern hemisphere season for noctilucent clouds is coming soon--probably starting in mid- to late-May. Check here for daily images from NASA's AIM spacecraft.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at: 05-09-2020 21:55:02 UT
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2020 May 10 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: 2020 May 10 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
10 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
15 %
20 %
SEVERE
05 %
10 %
 
Sunday, May. 10, 2020
What's up in space
       
 

Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when auroras appear in your area. Aurora tour guides and professional astronomers use this service. Now you can, too!

 

SOLAR SECTOR BOUNDARY CROSSING: Earth is about to cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet--a vast wavy structure in interplanetary space separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. The crossing, called a "solar sector boundary crossing," is expected on May 11th and could trigger geomagnetic activity around Earth's poles. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

NOCTILUCENT CLOUD FORECAST: Last summer, sky watchers in the northern hemisphere witnessed the finest outbreak of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) ever. Normally confined to polar regions, the rippling blue clouds spread as far south as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Los Angeles, California, smashing old records for low-latitude visibility. One of the brightest displays occurred over Paris, France:

"On June 21, 2019, the day of the summer solstice, these rare noctilucent clouds were visible over Paris," says photographer Kulik Bertrand. "It was amazing!"

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the ground. The clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise up to the mesosphere, allowing water to crystallize around specks of meteor smoke. In the northern hemisphere, noctilucent cloud season typically ranges from mid-May through mid-August.

Given that 2019 was such a record-breaker, researchers are naturally wondering what will happen in 2020. Could NLCs spread even farther south? To try to answer that question, Lynn Harvey of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has taken a look at data from NASA's Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). She prepared the following plots, which show moisture and temperature in the mesosphere for the past 14 years--including 2020:

Moisture and temperature are key ingredients of NLCs. The clouds flourish when the mesosphere is extra cold and wet. Harvey's plots show 2020 (red) splitting right down the middle of other recent years--not too cold and not too wet.

"So far, 2020 is shaping up to be fairly average," says Harvey. In other words, 2020 does not look a repeat of 2019. This summer's clouds might be confined to higher latitudes again.

No one will know for sure, however, until NLC season actually begins. Daily images of NLCs from NASA's AIM spacecraft are posted right here on Spaceweather.com. "Based on the MLS data, I would guess that the first NLCs will be spotted in two weeks or so," she says. Stay tuned to see if the forecast is correct!

Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

CRYSTAL MOON BALL IN THE STRATOSPHERE: On Star Wars Day ("May the 4th be with you"), the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched an array of cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere. They do this every week or so to monitor increasing levels of atmospheric radiation. This crystal Moon ball went along for the ride:

You can have it for $129.95. The students are selling these far-out balls to support their cosmic ray ballooning program.

Each one comes with an LED base that turns the laser-etched crystaline Moon a beautiful shade of purple, blue, green or yellow. It makes a great night light. Also included is a greeting card showing the crystal ball in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education


Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

  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 10, 2020, the network reported 4 fireballs.
(4 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 10, 2020 there were 2018 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2020 JN
2020-May-05
0.7 LD
21.9
12
2020 HS9
2020-May-05
4.6 LD
18.1
31
2020 HR8
2020-May-05
9.1 LD
9.6
14
2020 HZ6
2020-May-05
10.2 LD
21.7
34
2020 HL
2020-May-05
16.7 LD
9.1
35
2020 HF7
2020-May-05
9.3 LD
17.3
22
2020 JR
2020-May-05
4.4 LD
7.6
36
2020 HL6
2020-May-06
2.1 LD
5.4
10
438908
2020-May-07
8.9 LD
12.8
282
2020 JE
2020-May-07
11.8 LD
12.1
21
2020 JF
2020-May-07
5 LD
18.5
22
2020 HM4
2020-May-07
10.7 LD
18.1
44
2016 HP6
2020-May-07
4.3 LD
5.7
31
2020 HB6
2020-May-08
9.8 LD
9.1
52
2020 HC6
2020-May-09
2.9 LD
6
30
388945
2020-May-10
7.3 LD
8.8
295
2000 KA
2020-May-12
8.9 LD
13.5
162
2020 JK
2020-May-14
14.8 LD
20.1
56
2020 HS6
2020-May-14
16 LD
23.6
130
478784
2020-May-15
8.5 LD
3.6
28
2020 HA9
2020-May-15
18.2 LD
15.8
31
2020 HG9
2020-May-18
15.6 LD
10.6
72
136795
2020-May-21
16.1 LD
11.7
892
163348
2020-Jun-06
13.3 LD
11.1
339
2013 XA22
2020-Jun-09
10.6 LD
6.5
98
2017 MF7
2020-Jun-14
3.7 LD
10.9
23
2018 PD22
2020-Jun-19
17.2 LD
14.6
56
441987
2020-Jun-24
9.8 LD
12.9
186
2017 FW128
2020-Jun-25
6.9 LD
5.4
11
2019 AC3
2020-Jul-01
10.5 LD
3.4
12
2007 UN12
2020-Jul-04
16.7 LD
2.9
6
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

SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.

To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: 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 18% since 2015:

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

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

In this plot, 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.

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.

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.

  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
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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