Directly under the Arctic Circle! Marianne's Arctic Xpress in Tromsø offers fjord, whale and wildlife tours by day, aurora tours by night. Book Now and get a 10% discount on combo day and night adventures. | | | SPOOKY AURORAS TONIGHT? Around the Arctic Circle, Halloween could bring spooky lights to the midnight sky in response to minor geomagnetic activity. At lower latitudes, however, auroras are unlikely. Earth is finally exiting a broad stream of solar wind that has lately excited some of the most spectacular auroras of 2016. SUNSET PLANETS: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look southwest. Venus and Saturn have gathered in a loose conjunction just above the rosy glow of sunset. Peter Lowenstein sends this picture from Mutare, Zimbabwe: "I have been watching Venus and Saturn converge for the past few nights," he says. "Mutare is experiencing a heatwave with temperatures of up to 37 degrees centigrade. Smokey haze from bush fires deepens the natural red of the sunset. It is a beautiful view." It's about to get even better. On Nov. 1st, a slender crescent Moon will emerge from the glare of the setting sun and move toward the two planets. On Nov. 2nd, Venus, Saturn, and the Moon will form a must-see triangle in the sunset sky. Don't miss it! Sky maps: Nov. 1, Nov. 2. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery THE AURORAS JUST WON'T STOP: Six days after Earth entered a stream of high-speed solar wind ... we're still inside. The solar wind continues to blow faster than 500 km/s on Oct. 31st. Although it is not as gusty as it was during first contact on Oct. 25th, the relentless pressure of the sun's electrically charged wind on Earth's magnetic field is causing the poles to glow with beautiful auroras. Marketa S. Murray sends this picture from Fairbanks, Alaska, on Oct. 29th: "When you stand there and the whole sky is just dancing overhead, your adrenaline and endorphin get so high," says Murray. "It's mind blowing every time it happens. It never gets old, even for an Alaskan!" Until Earth fully exits this stream, polar auroras remain likely. A good way to follow the action is to tune into a live webcam in Sweden's Abisko National Park. "We have seen the lights nearly every night in October!" says Chad Blakley of Lights over Lapland, who operates the camera. Watch it now. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery 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. 31, 2016, the network reported 10 fireballs. (7 sporadics, 3 Northern 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 31, 2016 there were potentially hazardous asteroids. 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 | Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here: This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. 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. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. What is this all about? 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 12% since 2015: 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 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. 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. | 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 | | a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com | | the underlying science of space weather | | Find homes for sale in Ocala, Orlando and Tampa with the #1 real estate company in Central Florida Local Realty Service | | Visit Need An Eitzah for all your questions and forum discussions on Jewish life. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | |