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THE EERIE QUIET CONTINUES: Solar activity remains low for the 7th day in a row--a whole week with lots of sunspots, yet no significant solar flares. The sunspot most likely to break the quiet is AR3555 (S10E45), which has developed an unstable magnetic field with latent energy for M-class eruptions. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
FRESH FRUIT LAUNCHED TO SPACE: Yesterday, China launched a rocket from the South China Sea carrying fresh fruits and vegetables for astronauts onboard the Tiangong space station. Ten minutes later, it flew over the Philippines where vacationing photographers Conor McDonald and Emily Orr watched it climb out of Earth's atmosphere:
"After an amazing day exploring the Philippines, my girlfriend and I sat down with a chamomile tea and observed the sky over Palawan," says Conor. "To our amazement we spotted this large satellite-looking object emitting a large bow of gas or fire."
"At first we thought it was the Peregrine lunar lander crashing back to Earth," he says. "Later we realized it was actually the launch of China's Tianzhou 7 cargo carrier."
China's fleet of Tianzhou spacecraft has recently been upgraded, allowing each one to carry around 16,300 pounds of cargo to China's space station. Only a fraction of Tianzhou 7's contents was fruit, but "the increase in quantity and weight of fresh fruits we are able to deliver this time should improve the quality of astronauts' life in orbit," says Yang Sheng of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
The supply vessel has since docked to Tiangong where the crew are unloading equipment and provisions sufficient for 8 months. The next cargo carrier, Tianzhou 8, will launch in August.
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WHERE THE SUNSET IS: Everybody knows where to look for the sunset. Just go outside at the end of the day and face west. At the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, however, that's not the best way.
"Many people visit our observatory for its sunset views," says astronomer Laura-May Abron, "but the most unique sunset view is inside the building, looking through the large eyepiece of our coelostat."
"Yesterday, moody clouds and the current cornucopia of sunspots morphed the sun into a distorted otherworldly spheroid," she says. "We can even catch the green rim, a similar phenomena to the green flash which cannot be seen with the naked eye."
If you live in Los Angeles and wish to see an out-of-this-world sunset, here are directions to the Griffith Observatory.
VALENTINE'S CRYSTAL BEAR AND ROSE: Valentine's Day is coming. Looking for a far-out gift? This Crystal Bear and Rose flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon on Dec. 17th:
You can have it for $129.95. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling space bears to support their high-altitude ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the ursine astronaut 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
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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 Jan 17, 2024, the network reported 30 fireballs.
(30 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 January 18, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2024 AW2 | 2024-Jan-13 | 10.9 LD | 6.7 | 19 |
| 2024 AR1 | 2024-Jan-13 | 10 LD | 4.5 | 22 |
| 2024 AQ4 | 2024-Jan-14 | 3.3 LD | 9.8 | 25 |
| 2024 AF3 | 2024-Jan-14 | 8.8 LD | 6.7 | 15 |
| 2024 AG3 | 2024-Jan-14 | 4.4 LD | 9.8 | 10 |
| 2024 AZ3 | 2024-Jan-14 | 0.6 LD | 10 | 6 |
| 2024 AT2 | 2024-Jan-15 | 3.7 LD | 8.7 | 12 |
| 2015 AK1 | 2024-Jan-15 | 15.8 LD | 13.2 | 52 |
| 2024 AH4 | 2024-Jan-16 | 15.5 LD | 8.8 | 25 |
| 2024 AB3 | 2024-Jan-16 | 7.7 LD | 19.2 | 18 |
| 2021 CZ2 | 2024-Jan-16 | 7.8 LD | 14.4 | 113 |
| 2024 AV4 | 2024-Jan-17 | 8.7 LD | 15.5 | 31 |
| 2024 BB | 2024-Jan-17 | 10.5 LD | 17 | 21 |
| 2024 AP2 | 2024-Jan-19 | 4 LD | 5.9 | 41 |
| 2024 BD | 2024-Jan-19 | 7.1 LD | 22.5 | 29 |
| 2024 AE3 | 2024-Jan-19 | 11.1 LD | 7.5 | 51 |
| 2024 BC | 2024-Jan-20 | 2.2 LD | 18.9 | 14 |
| 2021 BL3 | 2024-Jan-23 | 17.2 LD | 23.4 | 41 |
| 2017 BG92 | 2024-Jan-25 | 11.8 LD | 6.3 | 6 |
| 2011 CQ1 | 2024-Jan-26 | 11.3 LD | 4.6 | 1 |
| 2024 BJ | 2024-Jan-27 | 0.9 LD | 6.6 | 22 |
| 2024 AU4 | 2024-Jan-28 | 16.5 LD | 17.4 | 84 |
| 2024 AT1 | 2024-Jan-30 | 20 LD | 21.4 | 145 |
| 2007 EG | 2024-Jan-30 | 16 LD | 8.6 | 43 |
| 2008 OS7 | 2024-Feb-02 | 7.5 LD | 18.2 | 285 |
| 2019 CC5 | 2024-Feb-04 | 19.2 LD | 15 | 139 |
| 2023 SP1 | 2024-Feb-07 | 14.3 LD | 11.8 | 256 |
| 2024 BH | 2024-Feb-10 | 18.4 LD | 8.1 | 78 |
| 2020 DK | 2024-Feb-12 | 8.9 LD | 9.9 | 22 |
| 2024 AO | 2024-Feb-16 | 9.3 LD | 7.3 | 53 |
| 2019 DA1 | 2024-Mar-03 | 14.6 LD | 13.4 | 22 |
| 2015 FM34 | 2024-Mar-12 | 19.4 LD | 11.1 | 113 |
| 2020 FU | 2024-Mar-15 | 14.9 LD | 15.5 | 19 |
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 |
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