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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

SpaceWeather.com
Science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment.

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 389.7 km/s
density:
2.6 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max:
A2 1920 UT Mar29
24-hr: A7 0035 UT Mar29
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2245 UT

Daily Sun: 28 Mar '07

Sunspot 949 poses no threat for solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 23
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 28 Mar 2007

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals one sunspot group on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.9 nT
Bz:
1.2 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2246 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on April 1st or 2nd. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV telescope


SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts

Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2007 Mar 29 2203 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 2007 Mar 29 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 15 % 15 %
MINOR 05 % 05 %
SEVERE 01 % 01 %

High latitudes
0-24 hr 24-48 hr
ACTIVE 15 % 15 %
MINOR 05 % 05 %
SEVERE 01 % 01 %

What's Up in Space -- 29 Mar 2007
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Did you miss last night's auroras? Next time get a wake-up call from Spaceweather PHONE.

ASTEROID FLYBY: Asteroid 2006 VV2 is about to fly past Earth. On March 30th around 11 pm PDT the 2 km-wide space rock will streak through the constellation Leo only 2 million miles away glowing like a 9th-to-10th magnitude star. This makes it an easy target for backyard telescopes with CCD cameras. Observers in the Americas are favored. [ephemeris] [3D orbit]

SOLAR ACTIVITY: "The seeing was quite good." That's an understatement from Harald Paleske of Langendorf, Germany, who took this picture of a prominence leaping over the sun's limb yesterday:


Photo details: 225/200/2700mm Unigraph, 1/91 sec exposure

Prominences are hot clouds of hydrogen thrust up by solar magnetic force fields. This one is about four times taller than Earth and many observers say it shimmers like a candle flame. It's still there today; if you have a solar telescope, take a look.

more images: from Andreas Murner of Bavaria, Germany; from Robert Arnold of Isle of Skye, Scotland; from Adrian Guzman of San Jose, California.

BIZARRE HEXAGON: "We've never seen anything like it on any other planet," says atmospheric scientist Kevin Baines of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is a hexagon twice as wide as Earth encircling Saturn's north pole. First observed by Voyager 1 in the 1980s, the hexagon has been sighted anew by the Cassini spacecraft:

In this infrared photo taken by Cassini, the blue color traces auroras at high altitudes in Saturn's atmosphere. Red indicates the amount heat filtering up through clouds below. Researchers believe the auroras and the hexagon are unrelated.

The hexagon could be a distant cousin of Earth's polar vortex, but while Earth's vortex is a circle, Saturn's may be molded into a hexagon by some strange pattern of atmospheric waves. "Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure--yet there it is," says Baines.

UPDATE: Spaceweather reader Richard Haydon may have a solution to the mystery of the hexagon: "It's a nut!" he says. "The two hemispheres of Saturn are obviously held together by a nut and bolt. I bet the other end is circular." Indeed it is. Saturn's south pole is surrounded by a hurricane-shaped storm with a giant circular eye. Surprisingly, the hardware theory seems to hold water.



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 29 Mar 2007 there were 853 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

March 2007 Earth-asteroid encounters
ASTEROID

 DATE
(UT)

MISS DISTANCE

MAG.

 SIZE
2007 EH

Mar. 11

0.5 LD

16

10 m
2007 EK

Mar. 13

0.7 LD

18

5 m
2006 VV2

Mar. 31

8.8 LD

10

2 km
Notes: LD is a "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.

Essential Web Links

NOAA Space Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images -- from the National Solar Data Analysis Center

Recent Solar Events -- a summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

What is the Magnetosphere?

The Lion Roars -- visit this site to find out what the magnetosphere sounds like.

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft.

How powerful are solar wind gusts? Not very! Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1996 to 2006

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; Jan-Mar 2006; Apr-Jun 2006; Jul-Sep 2006; Oct-Dec 2006.

This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips: email


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