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FARSIDE SUNSPOT: NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft is monitoring a large ultraviolet hotspot behind the sun's northeastern limb. It is definitely a concentration of hot plasma and magnetic fields; it might be an active sunspot. We will soon find out as it rotates into view before the end of the week. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
THE TERMINATION EVENT HAS ARRIVED: Something big just happened on the sun. Solar physicists Scott McIntosh (NCAR) and Bob Leamon (U. Maryland-Baltimore County) call it "The Termination Event."
"Old Solar Cycle 24 has finally died--it was terminated!" says McIntosh. "Now the new solar cycle, Solar Cycle 25, can really take off."
The "Termination Event" is a new idea in solar physics, outlined by McIntosh and Leamon in a December 2020 paper in the journal Solar Physics. Not everyone accepts it--yet. If Solar Cycle 25 unfolds as McIntosh and Leamon predict, the Termination Event will have to be taken seriously.
Above: Predictions for Solar Cycle 25. Blue is the official prediction of a weak cycle. Red is a new prediction based on the Termination Event.
The basic idea is this: Solar Cycle 25 (SC25) started in Dec. 2019. However, old Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) refused to go away. It hung on for two more years, producing occasional old-cycle sunspots and clogging the sun's upper layers with its decaying magnetic field. During this time, the two cycles coexisted, SC25 struggling to break free while old SC24 held it back.
"Solar Cycle 24 was cramping Solar Cycle 25's style," says Leamon.
Researchers have long known that solar cycles can overlap. The twist added by McIntosh and Leamon is the realization that overlapping cycles can interact. This makes sense. In the early 20th century, George Ellery Hale discovered that the magnetic polarity of sunspot pairs reverses itself from one cycle to the next; indeed, the sun's entire global magnetic field flips every ~11 years. When adjacent, opposite-polarity solar cycles overlap, they naturally interfere.
Termination Events mark the end of interference, when a new cycle can break free of the old.
Above: Bands of coronal bright points linked to old Solar Cycle 24 vanished in Dec. 2021, signalling a Termination Event. A Twitter thread from Scott McIntosh explains this in more detail.
The timing of the Termination Event can predict the intensity of the new cycle. In their Solar Physics paper, McIntosh and Leamon looked back over 270 years of sunspot data and found that Termination Events happen every 10 to 15 years.
"We noticed that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle would be," explains Leamon. "Conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle would be."
So when did the latest Termination Event happen? Dec. 2021. This yields a specific, testable prediction for Solar Cycle 25.
"We have finalized our forecast of SC25's amplitude," says McIntosh. "It will be just above the historical average with a monthly smoothed sunspot number of 190 ± 20."
"Above average" may not sound exciting, but this is in fact a sharp departure from NOAA's official forecast of a weak solar cycle. It could be just enough to catapult Terminators into the forefront of solar cycle prediction techniques. Stay tuned. We'll be back.
A sharable version of this story is available here.
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STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY: Are you looking for a far out gift? Consider the Rainbow Dragonfly. On Jan 28th, this sterling silver pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with a spray of rainbow-colored crystals. This item is 100% 925 sterling silver, lead-free, nickel-free, cadmium-free, and totally hypoallergenic.
The students are selling dragonfly pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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 Mar 02, 2022, the network reported 6 fireballs.
(6 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 2, 2022 there were 2270 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2022 DH | 2022-Feb-25 | 2.8 LD | 7.1 | 11 |
| 2022 DF | 2022-Feb-25 | 10.5 LD | 7.8 | 47 |
| 2022 DW1 | 2022-Feb-25 | 7.9 LD | 12.9 | 31 |
| 2022 DC | 2022-Feb-25 | 12.2 LD | 6.8 | 34 |
| 2021 QO2 | 2022-Feb-25 | 20 LD | 11 | 65 |
| 2022 DR1 | 2022-Feb-25 | 9.8 LD | 3.4 | 13 |
| 2022 DS4 | 2022-Feb-26 | 6.4 LD | 10.9 | 36 |
| 2022 DL1 | 2022-Feb-26 | 1.7 LD | 9.4 | 7 |
| 2022 DD3 | 2022-Feb-26 | 4.9 LD | 4.1 | 9 |
| 2022 DW | 2022-Feb-26 | 4.5 LD | 19.8 | 17 |
| 2022 DT2 | 2022-Feb-26 | 6.9 LD | 13.3 | 27 |
| 2022 DO3 | 2022-Feb-27 | 0.3 LD | 15 | 14 |
| 2022 DA2 | 2022-Feb-27 | 2.7 LD | 26.4 | 19 |
| 2022 EK | 2022-Feb-27 | 18.6 LD | 6.8 | 17 |
| 2022 DX1 | 2022-Feb-27 | 4.7 LD | 7.6 | 10 |
| 2022 DL | 2022-Feb-27 | 18.8 LD | 12.4 | 44 |
| 2022 DH3 | 2022-Feb-27 | 10.4 LD | 12.4 | 33 |
| 2022 DQ2 | 2022-Feb-28 | 1.2 LD | 20.3 | 33 |
| 2022 DT4 | 2022-Feb-28 | 3.6 LD | 7.1 | 20 |
| 2022 DK2 | 2022-Feb-28 | 3.1 LD | 16.6 | 12 |
| 2020 UO4 | 2022-Feb-28 | 18.5 LD | 2.1 | 7 |
| 2022 EB | 2022-Feb-28 | 2 LD | 11.5 | 16 |
| 2022 DQ1 | 2022-Mar-01 | 7.5 LD | 8.5 | 14 |
| 2022 DC4 | 2022-Mar-01 | 1 LD | 14.1 | 14 |
| 2022 DY2 | 2022-Mar-01 | 1.1 LD | 15.5 | 7 |
| 2022 DA3 | 2022-Mar-01 | 3.5 LD | 10.4 | 10 |
| 2022 DE3 | 2022-Mar-02 | 2 LD | 6.9 | 9 |
| 2022 DM4 | 2022-Mar-02 | 0.7 LD | 9.1 | 5 |
| 2022 EG | 2022-Mar-02 | 4.4 LD | 7.5 | 33 |
| 2022 EE | 2022-Mar-02 | 10.2 LD | 8.3 | 28 |
| 2022 EJ | 2022-Mar-02 | 16.6 LD | 17 | 52 |
| 2022 DM1 | 2022-Mar-02 | 17.9 LD | 6.7 | 17 |
| 2022 DN1 | 2022-Mar-03 | 11.4 LD | 10 | 19 |
| 2022 DK1 | 2022-Mar-03 | 9.7 LD | 6.4 | 23 |
| 2022 DC1 | 2022-Mar-03 | 13.4 LD | 8.3 | 17 |
| 138971 | 2022-Mar-04 | 12.8 LD | 12 | 742 |
| 2021 UL7 | 2022-Mar-04 | 11.5 LD | 2 | 25 |
| 2022 DR4 | 2022-Mar-04 | 17.5 LD | 11.2 | 30 |
| 2022 DO4 | 2022-Mar-05 | 3.5 LD | 11.1 | 18 |
| 2022 EA | 2022-Mar-05 | 3.4 LD | 15.7 | 18 |
| 2022 DT3 | 2022-Mar-06 | 9.8 LD | 19.5 | 22 |
| 2022 DO1 | 2022-Mar-06 | 6.6 LD | 13.9 | 15 |
| 2020 DC | 2022-Mar-06 | 3.9 LD | 4.9 | 16 |
| 2022 DH1 | 2022-Mar-07 | 18 LD | 7 | 45 |
| 2022 DS3 | 2022-Mar-09 | 13.4 LD | 3.7 | 15 |
| 2021 EY1 | 2022-Mar-10 | 10.1 LD | 15.5 | 16 |
| 2015 DR215 | 2022-Mar-11 | 17.5 LD | 8.3 | 290 |
| 2009 DV43 | 2022-Mar-11 | 8.2 LD | 16.5 | 65 |
| 2022 DX2 | 2022-Mar-13 | 15.8 LD | 12.7 | 37 |
| 2022 DR3 | 2022-Mar-13 | 15.6 LD | 12.4 | 32 |
| 2018 GY | 2022-Mar-13 | 11.9 LD | 10.7 | 43 |
| 2022 BX1 | 2022-Mar-13 | 20.1 LD | 11 | 161 |
| 2022 DP3 | 2022-Mar-15 | 3 LD | 10.8 | 45 |
| 2022 DB2 | 2022-Mar-18 | 11 LD | 8.6 | 52 |
| 2016 FZ12 | 2022-Mar-19 | 2.2 LD | 8.3 | 16 |
| 2022 DX | 2022-Mar-19 | 8.5 LD | 1.5 | 8 |
| 2022 DG3 | 2022-Mar-21 | 18.3 LD | 7.2 | 37 |
| 2020 SQ | 2022-Mar-21 | 2.8 LD | 6 | 12 |
| 2013 BO76 | 2022-Mar-24 | 13.3 LD | 13.8 | 271 |
| 2011 GE3 | 2022-Mar-26 | 7.6 LD | 7 | 22 |
| 2012 FX35 | 2022-Mar-26 | 13.7 LD | 5.9 | 25 |
| 2010 GD35 | 2022-Mar-29 | 17.7 LD | 12.5 | 43 |
| 2020 FW5 | 2022-Mar-30 | 8.9 LD | 13.1 | 27 |
| 2007 FF1 | 2022-Apr-01 | 19.4 LD | 12.8 | 155 |
| 2021 GN1 | 2022-Apr-02 | 14.4 LD | 14.3 | 19 |
| 2016 GW221 | 2022-Apr-02 | 9.8 LD | 5.9 | 41 |
| 2012 TV | 2022-Apr-05 | 19.2 LD | 18.1 | 32 |
| 2020 GH1 | 2022-Apr-09 | 16.8 LD | 7.2 | 28 |
| 2017 TO2 | 2022-Apr-10 | 17.9 LD | 11.6 | 78 |
| 363599 | 2022-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 221 |
| 2020 TQ6 | 2022-Apr-18 | 13.4 LD | 15.4 | 43 |
| 2017 UR2 | 2022-Apr-22 | 19.4 LD | 9.3 | 10 |
| 2020 VN1 | 2022-Apr-25 | 19.3 LD | 2.3 | 9 |
| 418135 | 2022-Apr-28 | 8.5 LD | 10.4 | 443 |
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 |
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 (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data:
This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out.
We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset.
En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere:
The dose rates shown above are expressed 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 higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, 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. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link 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 first graph ("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 |
| | 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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