All of these sunspots have relatively stable magnetic fields that pose little threat for strong solar flares. Solar activity should remain low for the next 24 hours. Credit: SDO/HMI
Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days 2023 total: 0 days (0%) 2022 total: 1 day (<1%) 2021 total: 64 days (18%) 2020 total: 208 days (57%) 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 14 May 2023
Thermosphere Climate Index today: 20.88x1010W Warm Max: 49.4x1010 W Hot (10/1957) Min: 2.05x1010 W Cold (02/2009) explanation | more data:gfx, txt Updated 14 May 2023
Cosmic RaysSolar Cycle 25 is intensifying, and this is reflected in the number of cosmic rays entering Earth's atmosphere. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth are slowly declining--a result of the yin-yang relationship between the solar cycle and cosmic rays. Oulu Neutron Counts Percentages of the Space Age average: today: -2.9% Low 48-hr change: +3.0% Max: +11.7% Very High (12/2009) Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991) explanation |more data Updated 14 May 2023 @ 0700 UT
Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 2.33 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 3.00 quiet explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 5.68 nT Bz: 2.49 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT
Coronal Holes: 13 May 23
There are no equatorial coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA
Noctilucent Clouds Bad news: NASA's AIM spacecraft, which monitors noctilucent clouds, may be dead due to problems with an onboard battery. Mission controllers have not yet given up all hope, so stay tuned.
Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2023 May 14 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
10 %
20 %
MINOR
05 %
05 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
20 %
20 %
SEVERE
15 %
20 %
Sunday, May. 14, 2023
What's up in space
Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora tour guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too!
A MINOR CME IS COMING: NOAA forecasters say that a CME could hit Earth's magnetic field on May 16th. Relatively faint and slow-moving, it was hurled into space on May 12th by an erupting filament of magnetism in the sun's southern hemisphere. No more than minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are expected. Aurora alerts:SMS Text.
SOLAR FLARES AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE: In 1952 the famous Miller-Urey experiment proved that lightning in the atmosphere of early Earth could produce the chemical building blocks of life. New research reveals that solar flares might do an even better job.
"The production rate of amino acids by lightning is a million times less than by solar protons," says Vladimir Airapetian of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, a coauthor of the paper published April 28, 2023, in the research jornal Life.
Above: An artist's concept of the early Earth
Early research on the origins of life mostly ignored the sun, focusing instead on lightning as an energy source. In the 1950s Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago filled a closed chamber with methane, ammonia, water, and molecular hydrogen – gases thought to be prevalent in Earth's early atmosphere – and repeatedly ignited an electrical spark to simulate lightning. A week later, Miller and his graduate advisor Harold Urey analyzed the chamber’s contents and found that 20 different amino acids had formed.
"That was a big revelation," says Airapetian. "From the basic components of early Earth's atmosphere, you could synthesize these complex organic molecules."
But then things got complicated, with further research suggesting different ingredients in the young Earth's atmosphere. Scientists now believe ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) were far less abundant; instead, Earth's air was filled with carbon dioxide (CO2) and molecular nitrogen (N2), which require more energy to break down. These gases can still yield amino acids, but in greatly reduced quantities.
Seeking alternative energy sources, some scientists pointed to shockwaves from incoming meteors. Others cited solar ultraviolet radiation. In 2016, Airapetian suggested a different idea: energetic particles from our sun.
Chemistry professor Kensei Kobayashi of the Yokohama National University heard about Airapetian's idea and offered to help test it.
"I was fortunate enough to have access to several [particle accelerators] near our facilities," says Kobayashi. These accelerators could be used to create energetic protons of the type produced by strong solar flares and CMEs.
Next, they set about re-creating the Miller-Urey experiment with a mixture of gases matching early Earth’s atmosphere as we understand it today. Kobayashi's team shot the gas-filled chamber with protons (simulating solar particles) or ignited it with spark discharges (simulating lightning), comparing which worked best.
While protons (solar flares) formed amino acids with methane concentrations as low as 0.5%, spark discharges (lightning) required about a 15% methane concentration before any amino acids formed at all. Protons also tended to produce more carboxylic acids (a precursor of amino acids) than spark discharges.
Overall, solar protons outperformed lightning by a factor of a million.
This is significant because the young sun produced a lot of energetic protons. Some 4 billion years ago, the sun shone with only about three-quarters the brightness we see today, but its surface roiled with giant eruptions. "Superflares" were common, by some estimates occuring as often as 10 times a day, helping to cook plenty of amino acids.
This doesn't mean solar flares created life--only the building blocks. How non-living chemicals might self-assemble into a living organism remains a mystery.
SATURN'S CAT PENDANT: It's a far-out gift for the cat-lover in your life: Saturn's Cat. The sterling silver pendant touched space on April 29, 2023, when it hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon.
You can have it for $142.95. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling space pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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 14, 2023, the network reported 3 fireballs. (2 eta Lyrids, 1 sporadic)
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 14, 2023 there were 2316 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.
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.
To get an up close view of the heavenly bodies surrounding Earth, think about selling your junk car for cash and buying a high quality telescope.
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