| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 4 unsettled 24-hr max: Kp= 4 unsettled explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 4.82 nT Bz: -3.18 nT south more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT Coronal Holes: 17 Jun 22 A narrow stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on June 20th. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Noctilucent cloud season has begun. NASA's AIM spacecraft detected the first NLCs of 2022 around the Arctic Circle on May 22nd. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated Jun17 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 Jun 17 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 30 % | 25 % | CLASS X | 05 % | 05 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2022 Jun 17 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 20 % | 10 % | MINOR | 05 % | 01 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 25 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 25 % | 20 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora your guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too! | | | LOTS OF SUNSPOTS: Today, there are nine sunspot groups on the solar disk, the most in years. If only one explodes, Earth could experience a solar storm. The most likely would be sunspot AR3031, which has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text MAMMATUS SUNSET: Yesterday afternoon, a thunderstorm swept across Pennsylvania. Then this happened: "Just after sunset, the sky turned a bright yellow," says photographer Mary Huth of Schenley, PA. "I went outside to see it, and the sky was filled with mammatus clouds." Named for their resemblance to a cow's underbelly, mammatus clouds appear at the edges of some storms, often when a thundercloud is breaking up. Researchers have called them an "intriguing enigma," because no one knows exactly how they form. Mammatus clouds often go unnoticed because potential observers have been chased indoors by bad weather. If you are one of them, go back outside when the storm passes; you could witness a beautiful mystery in the sky. more images: from Randy Hollaway of Pittsburgh, PA; from Patrick M. of Murrysville, Pennsylvania Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter AN OUTBURST OF NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: On June 15th, sky watchers across Europe witnessed an outburst of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) from the Arctic. "They came all the way to Poland," says Marek Nikodem, who photographed electric-blue ripples near Szubin: "It was a really beautiful display," says Nikodem. "I noticed a lot of different structures: waves, bands, and whirls. A good start to the season." NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. They form when wisps of summertime water vapor rise up to the edge of space and freeze around specks of meteor smoke.When you see one, you're literally seeing a cloud of frosted meteoroids. Noctilucent clouds are famous for two things: (1) shining at night and (2) being wavy. The waves come from powerful storm systems near Earth's surface, which send ripples of temperature and pressure up into the sky. They're called "gravity waves." Gravity waves propagate all the way up to the mesosphere, where they imprint themselves on noctilucent clouds. Night-shining waves were seen from many locations in Europe. more images: from Heiko Ulbricht near Börnchen, Saxony, Germany; from Ian Carstairs of Harleston, Norfolk, UK; from Öri Ágnes of Jobbágyi, Nógrád, Hungary; from Pentti Arpalahti of Helsinki, Finland; from Mikko Peussa of Turku, Rusko, Finland Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY (GOLDEN HEART): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider a rainbow dragonfly from the edge of space. On June 3, 2022, this sterling silver pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon: You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a golden Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with a spray of rainbow-colored crystals. The students are selling dragonfly 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 trip to the stratosphere 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 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 June 17, 2022, the network reported 31 fireballs. (31 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 June 17, 2022 there were 2279 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2006 XW4 | 2022-Jun-12 | 5.9 LD | 7.3 | 49 | 2022 GU6 | 2022-Jun-12 | 3.2 LD | 8.4 | 86 | 2022 LY1 | 2022-Jun-12 | 3.5 LD | 7.1 | 12 | 2015 LK | 2022-Jun-13 | 13.6 LD | 8.7 | 31 | 2022 MA | 2022-Jun-13 | 4.6 LD | 4.6 | 20 | 2022 LO3 | 2022-Jun-15 | 1.8 LD | 11.6 | 16 | 2022 LC2 | 2022-Jun-15 | 10.1 LD | 10.2 | 29 | 2022 LA3 | 2022-Jun-18 | 7.4 LD | 7.2 | 22 | 2022 LX | 2022-Jun-22 | 10.4 LD | 10.1 | 35 | 2022 LS1 | 2022-Jun-23 | 18.9 LD | 9.9 | 35 | 2022 LB2 | 2022-Jun-25 | 5 LD | 8.3 | 23 | 2022 LV | 2022-Jun-25 | 2 LD | 3.6 | 22 | 2015 WP2 | 2022-Jun-26 | 18.5 LD | 11.4 | 3 | 2022 JE1 | 2022-Jul-03 | 8.6 LD | 5.6 | 74 | 2021 EL4 | 2022-Jul-05 | 19.8 LD | 9.5 | 25 | 2015 OQ21 | 2022-Jul-12 | 18.3 LD | 6.6 | 9 | 2022 LR1 | 2022-Jul-16 | 9.3 LD | 4.7 | 42 | 2022 KY4 | 2022-Jul-17 | 15.9 LD | 7.6 | 91 | 2021 OT | 2022-Jul-17 | 16.5 LD | 11.2 | 20 | 349068 | 2022-Jul-19 | 17.6 LD | 22.9 | 756 | 2017 RX2 | 2022-Jul-24 | 17.2 LD | 14.2 | 17 | 2016 CZ31 | 2022-Jul-29 | 7 LD | 15.6 | 129 | 531944 | 2022-Jul-30 | 18.2 LD | 5.9 | 192 | 2020 PP1 | 2022-Aug-01 | 13.1 LD | 3.7 | 17 | 2020 PN1 | 2022-Aug-03 | 9.7 LD | 4.6 | 29 | 2015 FF | 2022-Aug-12 | 11.2 LD | 9.2 | 17 | 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 | 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 (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data: This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out. We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere: The dose rates shown above are expressed 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 higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, 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. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link 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 first graph ("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 | | 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 | | Going above and beyond to provide the best homes listings in the Comox real estate market to keep you up to date and informed | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. 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