This is an AI Free Zone! Text created by ChatGPT and other Large Language Models is spreading rapidly across the Internet. It's well-written, artificial, frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being. | | |
A VERY GOOD PERSEID METEOR SHOWER: Forecasters are predicting the best Perseid meteor shower in years this weekend. On Saturday night, Aug. 12-13, Earth will pass through a stream of debris from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, causing dozens of meteors per hour to streak out of the constellation Perseus. The nearly New Moon will make the display unusually easy to see from dark-sky sites. Book a campsite and enjoy the show: Observing tips.
THE GREAT SOLAR STORM OF MARCH 1940: This story is shocking. On March 24, 1940, a solar storm hit Earth so hard it made copper wires in the United States crackle with 800 volts of electricity. A New York Times headline declared that a "sunspot tornado" had arrived, playing havoc with any signal that had to travel through metal wires.
"For a few hours it completely disrupted all long-distance communication," wrote astronomer Seth B. Nicholson in a recap of the event for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Radio announcers seemed to be "talking a language no one could understand." The New York Times reported that more than a million telephone and teletype messages had been garbled: "Veteran electrical engineers unhesitatingly pronounced it the worst thing of its kind within their memory."
So why have you never heard of this storm? Even in 1940 it was fairly quickly forgotten. World War II was underway in Europe, and the USA was on the verge of joining. People had other things on their minds.
Modern researchers, however, are paying attention. A team led by Jeffrey Love of the USGS Geomagnetism Program just published a new study of the event in the research journal Space Weather. Their work confirms that it was no ordinary solar storm.
"It was unusually violent," says Love. "There were very rapid changes in Earth's magnetic field, and this induced big voltages in long metal wires."
Love and colleagues learned about the voltages from old engineering reports. In 1940, the United States was criss-crossed by copper wires hundreds to thousands of miles long. They were not for power distribution; electrical systems were still mostly regional. Instead the wires were used for communications such as telephone calls and telegrams. When the "sunspot tornado" hit Earth, electricity began to move through the system. Technicians jotted down some of the voltages they saw--and the numbers were incredible.
Above: Solar storm voltages in March 1940 (red) vs. the Quebec Blackout of March 1989 (blue)
"Records show 400 V in Minnesota, 750 V in Missouri, and more than 800 V in Massachusetts," says Love. "These are 10 times greater than long-wire voltages recorded during the Great Quebec Blackout in March 1989."
What caused the high voltages? Love's team examined old magnetogram records from the date of the storm and found evidence that two coronal mass ejections CMEs hit Earth only 1.82 hours apart. The double blow rattled Earth's magnetic field in a complicated way most single CMEs do not.
"This could be a harbinger of things to come," says Love. Modern studies show that as many as 5 CMEs leave the sun every day during Solar Maximum. With Solar Cycle 25 underway and intensifying, a double hit could definitely happen again.
A similar storm today might not significantly impact communications; we live in the wireless age of cell phones. Electricity is another matter. Modern power systems depend on long wires to shuttle electricity across the country. A repeat of 1940 could interfere with their operations. Love notes that the 1940 voltages exceed NERC power-grid industry benchmarks for 100-year storms. As a result, some modern power grids might not be ready to handle the shock of another 1940 event.
Read Love's original research here: here.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
LIMITED EDITION ASTRONAUT SNOOPY: Everybody loves Snoopy. For the fan in your life, consider the gift of Astronaut Snoopy. On July 30th, 2023, this limited edition Funko Pop figurine flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon.
You can have it for $119.95. Snoopy comes with a greeting card showing the space beagle in flight and telling the story of his trip to the stratosphere and back again. All sales support cosmic ray monitoring and hands-on STEM education.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
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 Aug 10, 2023, the network reported 40 fireballs.
(28 sporadics, 11 Perseids, 1 Southern Delta Aquariid)
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 August 10, 2023 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2023 PL | 2023-Aug-05 | 15.2 LD | 19.5 | 123 |
2023 OQ | 2023-Aug-06 | 9.9 LD | 21.3 | 145 |
2004 KG1 | 2023-Aug-06 | 19.9 LD | 9.1 | 56 |
2023 PN | 2023-Aug-06 | 8.3 LD | 7.6 | 36 |
2022 BS2 | 2023-Aug-11 | 17.3 LD | 8.2 | 30 |
2023 OE5 | 2023-Aug-14 | 4 LD | 3.9 | 18 |
2023 PC | 2023-Aug-14 | 13.3 LD | 5.3 | 42 |
2022 CP1 | 2023-Aug-17 | 13.8 LD | 9.8 | 12 |
2011 QJ21 | 2023-Aug-19 | 13 LD | 15.1 | 45 |
2023 PM | 2023-Aug-22 | 9.5 LD | 7 | 67 |
6037 | 2023-Aug-23 | 15.9 LD | 14.3 | 571 |
2012 PZ17 | 2023-Aug-30 | 16.8 LD | 3.6 | 16 |
2017 BY32 | 2023-Sep-02 | 16.4 LD | 3.5 | 19 |
2021 JA5 | 2023-Sep-06 | 13.3 LD | 10.9 | 19 |
2020 GE | 2023-Sep-08 | 14.9 LD | 1.4 | 8 |
2020 RT2 | 2023-Sep-12 | 11 LD | 10 | 8 |
2016 LY48 | 2023-Sep-16 | 5 LD | 10.8 | 99 |
2010 TE | 2023-Sep-16 | 6.8 LD | 6 | 22 |
523598 | 2023-Sep-20 | 19.8 LD | 25 | 239 |
2019 SF6 | 2023-Sep-26 | 16.7 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
2013 TG6 | 2023-Sep-28 | 3.6 LD | 4.1 | 17 |
2009 UG | 2023-Sep-30 | 6.1 LD | 9 | 78 |
349507 | 2023-Oct-03 | 16.5 LD | 21 | 696 |
2022 FX1 | 2023-Oct-04 | 20 LD | 9.9 | 25 |
2022 TD | 2023-Oct-07 | 8.9 LD | 9.4 | 10 |
2018 ER1 | 2023-Oct-08 | 12.5 LD | 5.3 | 27 |
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 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-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.
| 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 |
| current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page |
| 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 |
| Getting YouTube comments is essential if you want to beat the algorithm! That’s why you need to buy YouTube comments from RealSocialz.com because they offer real USA comments you can customize. |
| When looking for casinos to play online when the weather is bad, you can try casino online trucchi for Italian games. If you are not from Finland you can try the Swedish page Svenska casino online to find suitable games, check out svenskacasinoonline.net. Always check your local laws before playing with real money. |
| BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web |
| These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! |
| | | | | |