| | Solar wind speed: 343.0 km/sec density: 4.3 protons/cm3 explanation | more data Updated: Today at 2346 UT X-ray Solar Flares 6-hr max: A7 1722 UT Oct22 24-hr: A7 0632 UT Oct22 explanation | more data Updated: Today at: 2300 UT Daily Sun: 22 Oct 19 The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI Sunspot number: 0 What is the sunspot number? Updated 22 Oct 2019 Spotless Days Current Stretch: 19 days 2019 total: 218 days (74%) 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 22 Oct 2019 Thermosphere Climate Index today: 4.36x1010 W Cold Max: 49.4x1010 W Hot (10/1957) Min: 2.05x1010 W Cold (02/2009) explanation | more data: gfx, txt Updated 22 Oct 2019 The Radio Sun 10.7 cm flux: 64 sfu explanation | more data Updated 22 Oct 2019 Cosmic Rays Solar minimum is underway. The sun's magnetic field is weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth in 2019 are near a Space Age peak. Oulu Neutron Counts Percentages of the Space Age average: today: +9.8% High 30-day change: 0.1% Max: +11.7% Very High (12/2009) Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991) explanation | more data Updated 22 Oct 2019 @ 2330 UT Since 2015, Earth to Sky cosmic ray balloons launched weekly from California have also detected significant increases in atmospheric radiation. Dose rates reported below are in the stratosphere at approx. 100,000 ft. California Cosmic Ray Balloons Monitoring started in March 2015 now: 4.64 uGy/hr High change since 2015: +19% Max: 4.79 uGy/hr High (10/2019) Min: 3.80 uGy/hr Low (05/2015) explanation | more data Updated 19 Oct 2019 @ 0400 UT Current Auroral Oval: Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 1 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 2.1 nT Bz: 0.9 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2346 UT Coronal Holes: 22 Oct 19 A fast-moving (~700 km/s) stream of solar wind flowing from this large coronal hole should reach Earth on Oct 24-25. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for noctilucent clouds has ended. NASA's AIM spacecraft is no longer detecting electric-blue clouds around the Arctic Circle. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2019 13:55:02 UT SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2019 Oct 22 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 01 % | 01 % | CLASS X | 01 % | 01 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2019 Oct 22 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 05 % | 40 % | MINOR | 01 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 05 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 10 % | MINOR | 15 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 05 % | 60 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Solar minimum is here - but even now strangely beautiful auroras are dancing around the poles. Deep inside the Arctic Circle, the expert guides of Aurora Holidays in Utsjoki, Finland, can help you chase them. Book now! | | | GEOMAGNETIC STORM WARNING: A large hole in the sun's atmosphere is facing Earth and spewing solar wind in our direction. Estimated time of arrival: Oct. 24-25. Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are likely when the gaseous material arrives. Wind speeds are expected to reach 700 km/s, sparking bright auroras around the Arctic Circle and maybe even in northern-tier US states from Maine to Washington. Aurora alerts: SMS Text. BIG SPRITES OVER OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma is a good place to see sprites--exotic forms of lightning that leap up from thunderstorms instead of down. Last night near Edmund, OK, Paul Smith photographed a giant batch: "These were some of the largest spanning multi-events I have personally seen, with sometimes five or six sprites sequentially firing along the line of the storm for what must have been more than one hundred miles," says Smith. "It was a very strong and fast moving cold front with strong winds, large hail, tornadoes--perfect conditions for sprites." Oklahoma is the epicenter of a region that we call "Sprite Alley," a corridor stretching across the US Great Plains where intense thunderstorms produce lots of sprites. Increasing levels of cosmic rays in the atmosphere may be boosting the phenomenon, because cosmic rays are known to help trigger lightning. "I have been recording sprites since the summer of 2017 when I accidentally caught a few during the Perseid meteor shower," says Smith. "These large frontal storm systems are fairly typical in the southern plains in the fall, and I hope for more captures over the coming weeks." More examples may be found on Paul Smith's Facebook page and Youtube channel. Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter THE ORIONID METEOR SHOWER: The Orionid meteor shower is peaking today as specks of dust from Halley's Comet slam into Earth's atmosphere at 148,000 mph. Thomas Ashcraft sends this report from New Mexico: "Last night, I captured an Orionid fireball zinging overhead with a dynamic radio echo." When you play the video, don't forget to turn up the volume: The space-y warbling sound is caused by terrestrial TV stations bouncing off the ionized trail of the meteor. "The full radio reflection lasted over one minute. My VHF (very high frequency) fireball array records in stereo and operates at 54.309 MHz and 76.309 MHz," explains Ashcraft, who is an amateur radio astronomer. The best time to look for Orionids is during the hours before local sunrise when the constellation Orion is high in the sky. Other showers may produce more shooting stars, but the Orionids are second to none in beauty. They strike Earth's atmosphere traveling 66 km/s (148,000 mph). Only the Leonids of November are faster at 72 km/s. Orionids often leave glowing "trains" (incandescent bits of debris in the wake of the meteor) that last for minutes, swirling among the glittering stars of Orion, Gemini, and Taurus. More: photo gallery, sky map. Realtime Spaceweather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter HOUSTON ASTROS IN THE STRATOSPHERE: The Astros are in the World Series. Now they're in the stratosphere, too. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this Houston Astros baseball 113,845 feet above Earth's surface using a high-altitude cosmic ray balloon: You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling space baseballs to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Not an Astros fan? No problem. You can also purchase space baseballs for the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, Cardinals, Angels, Padres, Giants or--coming soon!--the Nationals! Each baseball comes with a greeting card showing the ball in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere. Plus, you'll receive a UV-resistant cubical display case with decorating stickers depicting the ball at the edge of space. 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 Oct. 22, 2019, the network reported 97 fireballs. (75 sporadics, 19 Orionids, 3 southern Taurids) 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 22, 2019 there were 2018 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2019 UB1 | 2019-Oct-17 | 9.9 LD | 6.1 | 21 | 2019 UK2 | 2019-Oct-17 | 2.3 LD | 7.9 | 10 | 2019 TE2 | 2019-Oct-18 | 8.2 LD | 10.1 | 29 | 2019 UO2 | 2019-Oct-18 | 11.5 LD | 13.1 | 25 | 2019 UU1 | 2019-Oct-18 | 0.6 LD | 7.6 | 3 | 2019 TW6 | 2019-Oct-18 | 14.8 LD | 5.6 | 19 | 2019 TP5 | 2019-Oct-18 | 8.2 LD | 18.6 | 35 | 2019 UG | 2019-Oct-18 | 0.8 LD | 12.1 | 9 | 2019 UB | 2019-Oct-18 | 12.3 LD | 16.6 | 92 | 2019 TA1 | 2019-Oct-18 | 15.5 LD | 6.4 | 23 | 2019 TM7 | 2019-Oct-18 | 11.1 LD | 24.1 | 60 | 2019 UX1 | 2019-Oct-19 | 4.1 LD | 10.7 | 55 | 2019 TK5 | 2019-Oct-19 | 2.5 LD | 5.8 | 12 | 2019 TG7 | 2019-Oct-19 | 16.8 LD | 7.6 | 23 | 2019 SJ8 | 2019-Oct-19 | 11.6 LD | 7.4 | 45 | 2019 UX2 | 2019-Oct-20 | 16.8 LD | 17 | 31 | 2019 UJ | 2019-Oct-20 | 7.4 LD | 13.2 | 15 | 2019 UG1 | 2019-Oct-22 | 5.7 LD | 8.9 | 20 | 2019 UM2 | 2019-Oct-22 | 10.2 LD | 3.7 | 7 | 2019 UT | 2019-Oct-22 | 2.4 LD | 11.2 | 9 | 2019 UF1 | 2019-Oct-22 | 6.5 LD | 16.8 | 25 | 2019 UJ1 | 2019-Oct-23 | 4.5 LD | 12 | 11 | 2019 UZ | 2019-Oct-23 | 5.7 LD | 9.6 | 10 | 2019 UH | 2019-Oct-24 | 5 LD | 13.2 | 25 | 2019 UD | 2019-Oct-24 | 8.6 LD | 3.1 | 15 | 2019 UA2 | 2019-Oct-25 | 9.3 LD | 8.7 | 16 | 2019 TQ2 | 2019-Oct-25 | 12.8 LD | 12.4 | 35 | 2019 UQ | 2019-Oct-25 | 4.3 LD | 13 | 21 | 162082 | 2019-Oct-25 | 16.2 LD | 11.2 | 589 | 2017 TG5 | 2019-Oct-25 | 14.4 LD | 11.9 | 34 | 2019 UD2 | 2019-Oct-26 | 12.2 LD | 7.7 | 17 | 2019 UC2 | 2019-Oct-27 | 16.6 LD | 6.6 | 15 | 2019 UT1 | 2019-Oct-28 | 4.7 LD | 8.8 | 11 | 2019 UE1 | 2019-Oct-28 | 8.6 LD | 6.8 | 24 | 2019 UC | 2019-Oct-29 | 2.9 LD | 8.9 | 54 | 2019 TR2 | 2019-Oct-29 | 19.4 LD | 13.8 | 75 | 2019 UB2 | 2019-Oct-29 | 15.1 LD | 8.4 | 23 | 2015 JD1 | 2019-Nov-03 | 12.9 LD | 11.9 | 269 | 2010 JG | 2019-Nov-12 | 19.6 LD | 14.9 | 235 | 2019 UH1 | 2019-Nov-13 | 9.5 LD | 9.1 | 47 | 2019 UR2 | 2019-Nov-18 | 18 LD | 13.4 | 126 | 481394 | 2019-Nov-21 | 11.3 LD | 7.9 | 372 | 2008 EA9 | 2019-Nov-23 | 10.5 LD | 2.2 | 10 | 2017 AP4 | 2019-Dec-03 | 8.5 LD | 7.5 | 15 | 2018 XW2 | 2019-Dec-07 | 17.4 LD | 13 | 28 | 216258 | 2019-Dec-20 | 15.3 LD | 11.8 | 324 | 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 | SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%. E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight. The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level. To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners. Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight. SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015: The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes: In this plot, dose rates are expessed 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 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. Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation. | 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. | | 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 | | 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. Looking for a new online casino? Try Casimpo the new site dedicated to making online casino simple and easy for all. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |