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! | | |
EMERALD GREEN COMET: Astrophotographers, point your telescopes at the Big Dipper. Emerald green Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) is there, half as wide as the sun and rapidly brightening. It is not yet visible to the naked eye, but by late May it could be as bright as the planet Venus. Sky maps: March 25, 26, 27.
NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS OVER THE SOUTH PACIFIC: You don't see this everyday–or even in 30 years. "Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) have appeared over the South Pacific," reports meteorologist Ashleigh Wilson of the Australian Antarctic Division. "I photographed them from Macquarie Island on Jan. 4th."
Wilson is just wrapping up a year-long stint on the remote island where the Australian government maintains a research station to study climate change and wildlife. "According to John French of the Australian Antarctic Division Atmospheric Science Program, the only other photographic recording of NLCs from Macquarie Island was in the mid-1990s," she says.
NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet’s surface. NLCs form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise up to the edge of space and crystalize around specks of 'meteor smoke.' Prime time for sightings is June-July in the north, December-January in the south.
"It was a breathtaking moment when I first realized what I was seeing," recalls Wilson. "I spent two hours down by the ocean with a camera and tripod, adjusting ISO and lenses, trying to capture the extraordinary event. The clouds were so bright, I could see their reflection in the water."
Wilson's sighting caps a remarkable year for noctilucent clouds. Once confined to Earth's polar regions, NLCs have recently spread to lower and lower latitudes. In June 2019, the clouds appeared over Rome, Italy; Las Vegas, Nevada; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Paris, France; and outside Los Angeles, California. Many of the sightings smashed old records for low-latitude visibility.
Above: The spread of NLCs. Their traditional domain is shaded. Black circles denote sightings in 2003-2011. Red circles are for June 2019. The map originally appeared in JGR Atmospheres: article.
In the southern hemisphere, reports of any noctilucent clouds are quite rare–in part because there are fewer people on that side of the world; in part because southern NLCs are usually weaker than their northern counterparts. Nevertheless, NLCs were sighted over New Zealand in Dec. 2019 and Macquarie Island in Jan. 2020.
No one knows why NLCs are so revved up. It could be a result of climate change and/or the solar cycle. Whatever the reason, get ready for more. The northern hemisphere season for NLCs is about to begin. Typically, the first electric-blue filaments are sighted in mid- to late-May followed by a sharp intensification in June. If recent trends continue, summer 2020 could be very special indeed.
A longer and sharable version of this story may be found here.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
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FAR-OUT MOTHER'S DAY GIFT: Every time the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launch cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere, they send a little something extra along for the ride. For example, this Northern Lights pendant:
On Dec. 6, 2019, it flew 107,612 feet above the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains of central California.
You can have it for $129.95. The students are selling these pendants as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray monitoring program. They make great anniversary, birthday and Mother's Day gifts. Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
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 Mar. 26, 2020, the network reported 9 fireballs.
(9 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 March 26, 2020 there were 2018 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2020 FK | 2020-Mar-21 | 3.6 LD | 10.5 | 8 |
2020 FJ5 | 2020-Mar-21 | 7.8 LD | 8.1 | 22 |
2020 FS | 2020-Mar-21 | 8.2 LD | 4.3 | 10 |
2020 FM2 | 2020-Mar-22 | 3.3 LD | 9.8 | 19 |
2020 FP5 | 2020-Mar-22 | 1.3 LD | 7.3 | 4 |
2020 DP4 | 2020-Mar-22 | 3.5 LD | 8.1 | 33 |
2020 FL2 | 2020-Mar-22 | 0.4 LD | 20.3 | 21 |
2020 FH4 | 2020-Mar-22 | 3.3 LD | 2.5 | 7 |
2020 FF1 | 2020-Mar-22 | 1.9 LD | 12.9 | 11 |
2020 FB5 | 2020-Mar-22 | 7.2 LD | 29.2 | 40 |
2020 FF4 | 2020-Mar-24 | 3.1 LD | 3.9 | 9 |
2020 FF | 2020-Mar-24 | 15.9 LD | 5.6 | 15 |
2020 FW2 | 2020-Mar-24 | 9.8 LD | 8.4 | 53 |
2020 FJ4 | 2020-Mar-25 | 0.7 LD | 13.7 | 5 |
2020 FB | 2020-Mar-25 | 8.6 LD | 4.7 | 30 |
2020 FV4 | 2020-Mar-26 | 9.8 LD | 8.5 | 29 |
2020 FP | 2020-Mar-27 | 14.7 LD | 9.5 | 24 |
2012 XA133 | 2020-Mar-27 | 17.4 LD | 23.7 | 235 |
2020 FV3 | 2020-Mar-27 | 10.3 LD | 6.5 | 11 |
2020 FM5 | 2020-Mar-27 | 5.4 LD | 5.5 | 7 |
2020 FT5 | 2020-Mar-27 | 9.7 LD | 13.2 | 23 |
2020 FZ2 | 2020-Mar-27 | 14 LD | 21.3 | 34 |
2020 FE2 | 2020-Mar-28 | 4.5 LD | 7.1 | 25 |
2010 GD35 | 2020-Mar-29 | 15.3 LD | 12 | 43 |
2020 FK4 | 2020-Mar-29 | 4.4 LD | 5.3 | 11 |
2006 FH36 | 2020-Mar-30 | 11.3 LD | 5.1 | 93 |
2020 FB1 | 2020-Mar-30 | 19.1 LD | 10.5 | 27 |
2020 FB4 | 2020-Mar-31 | 12 LD | 6.2 | 16 |
2020 FA1 | 2020-Mar-31 | 18.3 LD | 2.2 | 18 |
2019 GM1 | 2020-Apr-02 | 9 LD | 4.2 | 14 |
2020 FK3 | 2020-Apr-03 | 10.4 LD | 9.7 | 26 |
2015 FC35 | 2020-Apr-04 | 10.5 LD | 13.8 | 148 |
2020 DT3 | 2020-Apr-05 | 17.6 LD | 11.8 | 199 |
2020 FL4 | 2020-Apr-09 | 10.5 LD | 4.6 | 16 |
2020 FW4 | 2020-Apr-09 | 19.6 LD | 18.6 | 165 |
2019 HM | 2020-Apr-10 | 7.2 LD | 3.2 | 23 |
363599 | 2020-Apr-11 | 19.2 LD | 24.5 | 224 |
2020 FX3 | 2020-Apr-15 | 14.1 LD | 10.2 | 56 |
2019 HS2 | 2020-Apr-26 | 13.6 LD | 12.6 | 17 |
2019 GF1 | 2020-Apr-27 | 18.7 LD | 3.2 | 12 |
52768 | 2020-Apr-29 | 16.4 LD | 8.7 | 2457 |
2020 DM4 | 2020-May-01 | 18.4 LD | 6.4 | 163 |
438908 | 2020-May-07 | 8.9 LD | 12.8 | 282 |
2016 HP6 | 2020-May-07 | 4.3 LD | 5.7 | 31 |
388945 | 2020-May-10 | 7.3 LD | 8.8 | 295 |
2000 KA | 2020-May-12 | 8.9 LD | 13.5 | 162 |
478784 | 2020-May-15 | 8.5 LD | 3.6 | 28 |
136795 | 2020-May-21 | 16.1 LD | 11.7 | 892 |
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 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 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 |
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