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GRAZING CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth on April 2nd @ 0100 UT. Weak discontinuities in solar wind data suggest a grazing impact. This appears to be the CME launched by an X1.3-class solar flare on March 30th (sunspot AR2975). The glancing blow sparked a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm, which is now subsiding. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
LONG DURATION SOLAR FLARE: Departing sunspot AR2975 exploded again today, April 2nd, producing a long-duration M4-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast:
Energetic protons accelerated by the flare are now peppering the top of Earth's atmosphere. They were funneled in our direction by spiralling magnetic field lines, which connect the western limb of the sun to our planet. A polar cap absorption event is now underway as a result of the proton storm; this means shortwave radios won't work well in airplanes flying over Earth's poles.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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SOLAR RADIO BURST AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Last Wednesday, March 30th, the sun did two seemingly contradictory things at once. It produced a loud radio burst and, at the same time, caused a deep radio blackout. Both were side-effects of an X1.3-class solar flare. First, let's listen to the radio burst:
Click to listen to the radio burst or view the complete dynamic spectrum.
The gentle roar of static you just heard emerged from the loudspeaker of a shortwave radio receiver in New Mexico. Amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded it. "The sun was well positioned in my radio antennas for the X1.3 solar flare," says Ashcraft. "The left channel of the audio file is 22.2 MHz, the right channel is 21.1 MHz."
This is a Type II solar radio burst. Shock waves from the flare rippled through the sun's atmosphere, creating plasma oscillations that emit shortwave static. Briefly, the sun turned itself into a natural radio transmitter.
While the sun was busy creating radio waves, it was equally busy wiping them out. Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, preventing terrestrial radio stations from bouncing their signals over the horizon as usual. This map shows where manmade signals suddenly faded:
Ashcraft's observatory in New Mexico is located near the middle of the blackout zone. Take another look at his dynamic spectrum. Horizontal lines are terrestrial radio stations. They vanished for about 10 minutes around the time of the flare. The effect is strongest at frequencies below ~20 MHz.
In Gainesville, Florida, radio astronomer Francisco Reyes recorded the blackout as well. "I used an array of 4 dipoles with an FSX-7 radio spectrograph (Radio JOVE)," he says.
Would you like to record an event like this? NASA's Radio JOVE program makes it easy. Off-the-shelf radio telescope kits allow even novices to monitor radio outbursts from the sun, which are becoming more frequent as Solar Cycle 25 intensifies.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a rainbow dragonfly from the edge of space. 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
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 Apr 02, 2022, the network reported 8 fireballs.
(8 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 April 2, 2022 there were 2272 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2022 FB2 | 2022-Mar-28 | 0.4 LD | 13.7 | 16 |
2022 FT4 | 2022-Mar-28 | 7.4 LD | 20.5 | 38 |
2022 FE | 2022-Mar-28 | 9 LD | 7.2 | 15 |
2022 FF1 | 2022-Mar-29 | 3.9 LD | 6.7 | 5 |
2022 FR1 | 2022-Mar-29 | 4.9 LD | 9.6 | 9 |
2022 EL5 | 2022-Mar-29 | 7.1 LD | 3 | 14 |
2010 GD35 | 2022-Mar-29 | 17.7 LD | 12.5 | 43 |
2022 GA | 2022-Mar-30 | 1.7 LD | 10.5 | 15 |
2022 FL4 | 2022-Mar-30 | 2 LD | 10.7 | 18 |
2022 EK1 | 2022-Mar-30 | 19 LD | 7.6 | 42 |
2022 GB | 2022-Mar-30 | 0.7 LD | 8.2 | 5 |
2022 FX1 | 2022-Mar-30 | 13.3 LD | 9.6 | 25 |
2022 FM2 | 2022-Mar-31 | 11.6 LD | 6.2 | 20 |
2022 FL1 | 2022-Mar-31 | 5 LD | 2.6 | 5 |
2020 FW5 | 2022-Mar-31 | 12 LD | 12.9 | 27 |
2022 FQ2 | 2022-Mar-31 | 6 LD | 9.4 | 16 |
2022 DX4 | 2022-Mar-31 | 16.7 LD | 6 | 39 |
2022 GD | 2022-Apr-01 | 11.9 LD | 10.1 | 25 |
2022 GC | 2022-Apr-01 | 0.1 LD | 15.6 | 5 |
2022 FF3 | 2022-Apr-01 | 2.6 LD | 5.3 | 10 |
2007 FF1 | 2022-Apr-01 | 19.4 LD | 12.8 | 155 |
2022 FQ | 2022-Apr-02 | 8 LD | 10.4 | 37 |
2021 GN1 | 2022-Apr-02 | 14.4 LD | 14.3 | 19 |
2016 GW221 | 2022-Apr-02 | 9.8 LD | 5.9 | 41 |
2022 FE2 | 2022-Apr-02 | 10 LD | 10.6 | 31 |
2022 FJ1 | 2022-Apr-02 | 16.5 LD | 5 | 27 |
2022 FL | 2022-Apr-03 | 8.7 LD | 7.3 | 20 |
2017 WN13 | 2022-Apr-04 | 6.3 LD | 19.5 | 102 |
2022 EN2 | 2022-Apr-04 | 18.7 LD | 5.6 | 37 |
2022 FG3 | 2022-Apr-04 | 12.6 LD | 7.4 | 23 |
2022 FO3 | 2022-Apr-04 | 6.7 LD | 11.3 | 23 |
2012 TV | 2022-Apr-05 | 19.2 LD | 18.1 | 32 |
2020 GH1 | 2022-Apr-09 | 16.8 LD | 7.2 | 28 |
2022 FU4 | 2022-Apr-09 | 8.3 LD | 4.7 | 13 |
2022 FT3 | 2022-Apr-10 | 19.8 LD | 11 | 22 |
2017 TO2 | 2022-Apr-10 | 17.9 LD | 11.6 | 78 |
363599 | 2022-Apr-12 | 19.3 LD | 24.5 | 221 |
2022 FR3 | 2022-Apr-14 | 18.3 LD | 8.4 | 90 |
2020 TQ6 | 2022-Apr-18 | 13.4 LD | 15.4 | 43 |
2022 FN3 | 2022-Apr-19 | 15.2 LD | 6.3 | 39 |
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 |
2017 XO2 | 2022-May-01 | 18.8 LD | 12.4 | 118 |
2017 HG1 | 2022-May-04 | 18.2 LD | 6 | 11 |
467460 | 2022-May-09 | 14.9 LD | 11.3 | 513 |
2019 JE | 2022-May-11 | 4.9 LD | 7.2 | 20 |
2012 UX68 | 2022-May-15 | 2.8 LD | 8.2 | 54 |
388945 | 2022-May-15 | 15 LD | 8.2 | 287 |
2013 UX | 2022-May-17 | 16.8 LD | 16.3 | 141 |
2021 WY | 2022-May-18 | 16.9 LD | 9 | 65 |
7335 | 2022-May-27 | 10.5 LD | 13.1 | 1108 |
2021 KO2 | 2022-May-30 | 3.1 LD | 14.8 | 9 |
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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