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ORIONID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual Orionid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on Oct. 21st with as many as 20 meteors/hr. Orionids strike Earth's atmosphere traveling 148,000 mph. At that speed, they often leave glowing "trains" (incandescent bits of debris) that linger for minutes, swirling among the glittering stars of Orion, Gemini, and Taurus. The best time to look is between 1:00 am and sunrise. More: sky map, photo gallery, observing tips.
VENUS AND THE POLAR STREAMER: Venus is passing by the sun this week as it heads for superior solar conjunction on Oct. 22nd. Today it is less than an arcminute away from a bright polar streamer:
This coronagraph image comes from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
Streamers are magnetic loops emerging from the surface of the sun. The solar wind stretches them into long narrow structures with pointy tips. There are four streamers in today's coronagraph image. Streamer #1, pointing almost directly toward Venus, has roots near the sun's north pole.
This image tells us something interesting about the solar cycle. During Solar Minimum, streamers emerge primarily from the sun's equator, giving the sun a Saturn-like appearance. At Solar Maximum, however, streamers can pop up anywhere, turning the solar disk into a porcupine of plasma quills. Today's sun looks more like a porcupine, signalling that Solar Max is on its way. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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A SUDDEN CHANGE IN CHINA'S SPACE STATION: China's new space station, Tiangong, is only a year and a half old, yet astrophotographer Philip Smith has seen it many times flying over his backyard in Manorville, New York. On Oct. 15th he looked at it again--and something was not right. "The space station was in a new configuration," he says. "Suddenly, it looks like a letter 'L'."
What happened? The Wentian science laboratory was recently moved to the side port of the space station's core module. The space station is now in an L shape as a result. The move makes room for another module, Mengtian, which is scheduled to be launched around the end of this year.
Smith has created a composite of recent observations showing how the shape of Tiangong has changed. With solar arrays, a robotic arm, multiple modules, and two spacecraft (Tianzhou 4 and Shenzhou 14) waiting at docking ports, Tiangong is starting to resemble the ISS. The ISS is still much larger, but China is catching up.
When it is completed in December 2023, Tiangong with be a Mir-class facility massing nearly 70 tons with living space for as many as 7 astronauts and even a Hubble-class telescope to view the cosmos. The growing space station is now about as bright as a 1st magnitude star when it flies overhead in the night sky.To see it, visit Heavens Above and select Tiangong for local flyby predictions.
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VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD ORNAMENT: This is a must-have Christmas ornament for space fans: The Voyager Golden Record. On Oct. 15th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $129.95. The 4-inch aluminum disk is imprinted with instructions intended for extraterrestrials, telling them how to play the phonographs now sailing through interstellar space onboard NASA's Voyager probes. Having touched the edge of space, it's the closest thing on Earth to an actual Golden Record.
The students are selling these unique ornaments to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the ornament in flight and extra materials decoding the markings on the disk.
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 Oct 20, 2022, the network reported 33 fireballs.
(18 sporadics, 11 Orionids, 2 southern Taurids, 1 epsilon Geminid, 1 lambda Draconid)
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 October 20, 2022 there were 2300 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2022 UF | 2022-Oct-15 | 2.2 LD | 11.2 | 12 |
2022 TM2 | 2022-Oct-15 | 0.5 LD | 15.5 | 32 |
2022 SY10 | 2022-Oct-15 | 6.4 LD | 3.2 | 15 |
2022 SK48 | 2022-Oct-15 | 17.7 LD | 10.2 | 57 |
2022 UD | 2022-Oct-15 | 1.6 LD | 11 | 13 |
2020 TO2 | 2022-Oct-15 | 1.4 LD | 12.6 | 18 |
2020 BD | 2022-Oct-16 | 12.1 LD | 11.4 | 20 |
2022 UU | 2022-Oct-16 | 5.4 LD | 13.8 | 23 |
2022 SK15 | 2022-Oct-16 | 9.5 LD | 15.8 | 61 |
2022 UG3 | 2022-Oct-16 | 0.2 LD | 15.5 | 5 |
2022 QM6 | 2022-Oct-16 | 19.6 LD | 4.2 | 69 |
2022 UO | 2022-Oct-17 | 16.7 LD | 15.5 | 18 |
2022 UR | 2022-Oct-17 | 10.8 LD | 9.5 | 9 |
2022 UJ1 | 2022-Oct-18 | 7.2 LD | 4.5 | 9 |
2022 UM | 2022-Oct-18 | 6.1 LD | 10.7 | 15 |
2022 UK1 | 2022-Oct-18 | 13.4 LD | 11.4 | 45 |
2022 US | 2022-Oct-18 | 18.7 LD | 5.5 | 42 |
2022 UB | 2022-Oct-18 | 10.3 LD | 7.8 | 16 |
2022 UX2 | 2022-Oct-18 | 12.4 LD | 4.3 | 15 |
2022 UY2 | 2022-Oct-18 | 9.1 LD | 6.6 | 25 |
2022 UT1 | 2022-Oct-19 | 16.6 LD | 14.9 | 17 |
2022 UA | 2022-Oct-19 | 8.8 LD | 13.1 | 14 |
2022 SF63 | 2022-Oct-19 | 5.5 LD | 3.9 | 10 |
2022 UE | 2022-Oct-19 | 3.8 LD | 5.5 | 18 |
2022 TS2 | 2022-Oct-20 | 5.9 LD | 14.3 | 43 |
2022 UG | 2022-Oct-20 | 3.6 LD | 9.2 | 20 |
2022 UD1 | 2022-Oct-20 | 4.5 LD | 5 | 8 |
2022 UO1 | 2022-Oct-20 | 16.9 LD | 14.6 | 33 |
2022 UL | 2022-Oct-20 | 6.7 LD | 10.4 | 17 |
2022 US1 | 2022-Oct-21 | 11.7 LD | 8.9 | 14 |
2022 TT2 | 2022-Oct-21 | 6.7 LD | 12.1 | 34 |
2022 UG2 | 2022-Oct-21 | 1.6 LD | 10.5 | 15 |
2022 UC1 | 2022-Oct-21 | 1.4 LD | 6.8 | 20 |
2022 UW3 | 2022-Oct-21 | 8.1 LD | 19.7 | 67 |
2022 UT | 2022-Oct-22 | 5.5 LD | 12.2 | 19 |
2022 RB5 | 2022-Oct-22 | 13.1 LD | 5.3 | 115 |
2022 UC2 | 2022-Oct-24 | 13.8 LD | 8 | 15 |
2022 UH2 | 2022-Oct-24 | 5.7 LD | 11.9 | 11 |
2005 AZ28 | 2022-Oct-24 | 11.5 LD | 5.4 | 48 |
2022 UY1 | 2022-Oct-25 | 17.9 LD | 9.3 | 30 |
2022 UC3 | 2022-Oct-25 | 10.1 LD | 8.4 | 12 |
2022 UU2 | 2022-Oct-25 | 2.7 LD | 12.7 | 13 |
2016 TH94 | 2022-Oct-25 | 19.1 LD | 13.5 | 43 |
2022 TY | 2022-Oct-25 | 15.1 LD | 5.1 | 21 |
2022 UV2 | 2022-Oct-26 | 1.5 LD | 5.8 | 8 |
2022 UU1 | 2022-Oct-26 | 10.9 LD | 7.2 | 23 |
2019 AN5 | 2022-Oct-27 | 20 LD | 6.8 | 215 |
2022 UM3 | 2022-Oct-28 | 8.7 LD | 7.5 | 12 |
2022 UD3 | 2022-Oct-28 | 8.4 LD | 6.5 | 20 |
2004 UT1 | 2022-Oct-29 | 3.9 LD | 6.4 | 17 |
2021 VH | 2022-Nov-01 | 5.9 LD | 5.3 | 4 |
2022 RM4 | 2022-Nov-01 | 6 LD | 23.5 | 443 |
2020 WD | 2022-Nov-08 | 3 LD | 6 | 8 |
2019 XS | 2022-Nov-10 | 16.7 LD | 11.9 | 60 |
2020 FC4 | 2022-Nov-12 | 19.3 LD | 13.3 | 78 |
2022 UP2 | 2022-Nov-14 | 10.6 LD | 6 | 33 |
2019 VL5 | 2022-Nov-15 | 8.5 LD | 8.1 | 24 |
2018 WH | 2022-Nov-16 | 2.5 LD | 7.7 | 4 |
2019 OR1 | 2022-Nov-21 | 18.1 LD | 13.4 | 246 |
2005 LW3 | 2022-Nov-23 | 3 LD | 13.5 | 168 |
2010 VQ | 2022-Dec-02 | 11.9 LD | 3.9 | 10 |
2009 HV58 | 2022-Dec-02 | 12.3 LD | 28.8 | 427 |
2017 QL33 | 2022-Dec-03 | 16 LD | 6.9 | 195 |
2019 XY | 2022-Dec-10 | 3.6 LD | 12.9 | 9 |
2003 YS70 | 2022-Dec-13 | 10.4 LD | 4.1 | 5 |
2019 XQ1 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.5 LD | 9.8 | 30 |
2018 XU3 | 2022-Dec-13 | 14.8 LD | 10.3 | 30 |
2021 XS4 | 2022-Dec-14 | 14.5 LD | 9.7 | 23 |
2015 RN35 | 2022-Dec-15 | 1.8 LD | 5.9 | 84 |
2016 YE | 2022-Dec-18 | 18.6 LD | 4.8 | 23 |
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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