| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1.33 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 2.67 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 3.54 nT Bz: 1.47 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1146 UT Coronal Holes: 02 Nov 23 Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on Nov. 7th. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds The northern season for NLCs began on May 26th. The first clouds were detected inside the Arctic Circle by the NOAA 21 satellite. An instrument onboard NOAA 21 (OMPS LP) is able to detect NLCs (also known as "polar mesospheric clouds" or PMCs). For the rest of the season, daily maps from NOAA 21 will be presented here: Updated: Aug. 29, 2023 Each dot is a detected cloud. As the season progresses, these dots will multiply in number and shift in hue from blue to red as the brightness of the clouds intensifies. What happened to NASA's AIM spacecraft, which has been monitoring NLCs since 2007? Earlier this year, the spacecraft's battery failed. As a result AIM is offline, perhaps permanently. There may be some hope of a recovery as AIM's orbit precesses into full sunlight in 2024. Until then, we will maintain AIM's iconic "daily daisy," frozen at Feb. 28, 2023, as a show of thanks for years of service and hope for future daisies: | | | Switch view:Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica, Polar Updated Nov02 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2023 Nov 02 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 35 % | 35 % | CLASS X | 05 % | 05 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2023 Nov 02 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 15 % | MINOR | 01 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 15 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 10 % | 20 % | | | | | | | | | | | | This is an AI Free Zone! Text created by ChatGPT and other Large Language Models is spreading rapidly across the Internet. It's well-written, artificial, frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being. | | | CORRECTION--MAYBE IT *WILL* HIT EARTH: A solar magnetic filament erupted on Halloween night, carving a "canyon of fire" in the sun's southern hemisphere. Initial NASA models of the resulting CME suggested it would miss Earth. However, new NOAA models of the same CME point to a glancing blow on Nov. 4th. If so, the impact could cause a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm with high-latitude auroras. Aurora alerts: SMS Text RARE BLUE AURORAS OVER FRANCE: If you live in France, you probably remember the night of Sept. 25th. A CME hit Earth's magnetic field, sparking a display of rare red auroras as far south as Burgundy. Upon further review, however, there was a color even more rare than red. C'est bleu: "On Sept. 25th I was very pleased to capture some pictures of the red auroras over France (48°N)," reports photographer Emmanuel Beaudoin. "After careful study of the images, it appears that a second aurora, later that same night, produced an incredible blue color." This is indeed rare. Blue auroras are seldom seen even in Arctic countries where auroras appear almost every night. How did they get to France? The answer is the Moon, which was almost full (83%) on the night of the storm. Blue can appear when bright moonlight skims the top of the auroras. The process is called "resonant scattering." High up in the aurora zone, ionized nitrogen molecules (N2+) naturally produce blue light, just a little, usually much too faint to see. But when these ions get hit by moonlight, they capture and re-emit blue photons from the Moon. Voilà!--extra blue. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter THE SUPRALATERAL ARC: The sun was setting on Oct. 26th when Jüri Voit of Kuusalu, Estonia, witnessed an unusually complex display of ice halos: "It was little cold, only -2 degree celsius," he says. That low temperature was key to the display. Ice crystals forming in clouds overhead caught the rays of the setting sun and bent them into a circumzenithal arc, an upper tangent arc, a 22-degree circular halo, and a pair of bright sundogs. Most unusual of all was the supralateral arc--the broad rainbow-like band stretching left-to-right across the entire picture. Supralateral arcs are one of the rarest of all ice halos, forming from reflections inside hexagonal-column ice crystals only when the sun is lower than 32 degrees in the sky. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter ALASKAN TIMBER WOLF PENDANT: It's a great gift for wolf lovers. On Sept. 5th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this Alaskan Timber Wolf Pendant to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight, it floated 103,018 ft high, above 99.7% of Earth's atmosphere. You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling space pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the wolf in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All sales support hands-on STEM education Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter Realtime Space Weather 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 Nov 01, 2023, the network reported 8 fireballs. (7 sporadics, 1 Northern Taurid) 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 November 2, 2023 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2023 UA2 | 2023-Oct-29 | 12.9 LD | 9.2 | 15 | 525229 | 2023-Oct-30 | 10.6 LD | 17.4 | 200 | 2023 TW6 | 2023-Oct-31 | 19.2 LD | 24.4 | 91 | 2013 UV3 | 2023-Nov-01 | 14.7 LD | 15.4 | 15 | 2023 UZ3 | 2023-Nov-01 | 2.7 LD | 14.4 | 19 | 2023 VA | 2023-Nov-02 | 0.1 LD | 11.3 | 7 | 2016 WY | 2023-Nov-02 | 9.1 LD | 3.9 | 5 | 363505 | 2023-Nov-02 | 13.7 LD | 8 | 709 | 2023 UY3 | 2023-Nov-02 | 14.1 LD | 3.7 | 15 | 2022 JF | 2023-Nov-03 | 15.2 LD | 17.2 | 39 | 2023 QP8 | 2023-Nov-03 | 17.1 LD | 8.8 | 180 | 2016 VW2 | 2023-Nov-03 | 10.1 LD | 8.1 | 20 | 2019 UH7 | 2023-Nov-04 | 9.9 LD | 5.9 | 11 | 2023 TL31 | 2023-Nov-04 | 8.1 LD | 9.2 | 28 | 2023 UG4 | 2023-Nov-06 | 6.5 LD | 3.5 | 18 | 2023 TO15 | 2023-Nov-06 | 15.2 LD | 11.2 | 49 | 2023 TD14 | 2023-Nov-08 | 9.3 LD | 6.3 | 24 | 2023 UQ4 | 2023-Nov-11 | 10.7 LD | 8.4 | 39 | 2023 TZ2 | 2023-Nov-12 | 19 LD | 2.8 | 24 | 2014 BA3 | 2023-Nov-13 | 15.7 LD | 2.7 | 8 | 2023 UO | 2023-Nov-15 | 6.4 LD | 6.8 | 37 | 2021 TN3 | 2023-Nov-15 | 17 LD | 6.3 | 31 | 2019 VL5 | 2023-Nov-16 | 8.5 LD | 8.2 | 24 | 2019 LB1 | 2023-Nov-18 | 15.8 LD | 4.2 | 14 | 2016 DK1 | 2023-Nov-19 | 5.3 LD | 6.8 | 12 | 2022 VR1 | 2023-Nov-19 | 8.1 LD | 6.1 | 39 | 2019 UT6 | 2023-Nov-24 | 9 LD | 13.2 | 141 | 2019 CZ2 | 2023-Nov-25 | 2.8 LD | 5.8 | 44 | 2013 UB3 | 2023-Nov-27 | 18.5 LD | 5.4 | 25 | 1998 WB2 | 2023-Dec-03 | 11 LD | 14.2 | 151 | 2013 VX4 | 2023-Dec-04 | 5.1 LD | 6.6 | 60 | 2023 TB27 | 2023-Dec-06 | 17 LD | 4.3 | 45 | 139622 | 2023-Dec-06 | 14.4 LD | 6.7 | 719 | 2020 HX3 | 2023-Dec-10 | 9.8 LD | 15.7 | 13 | 2010 XF3 | 2023-Dec-11 | 19.4 LD | 4 | 46 | 2016 XD2 | 2023-Dec-19 | 18.7 LD | 6.9 | 59 | 341843 | 2023-Dec-20 | 16.5 LD | 5.3 | 344 | 2018 YJ2 | 2023-Dec-21 | 18.4 LD | 13.1 | 154 | 2022 YG | 2023-Dec-22 | 10.8 LD | 5.1 | 17 | 2020 YO3 | 2023-Dec-23 | 3.6 LD | 16.6 | 42 | 2010 UE51 | 2023-Dec-24 | 9 LD | 1.3 | 7 | 2020 YR2 | 2023-Dec-25 | 13.8 LD | 8 | 8 | 2021 AM6 | 2023-Dec-31 | 18.3 LD | 6.6 | 17 | Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. | 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 (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-year low: What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, 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. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking 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 graph labeled "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 | | current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page | | Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries | | 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 | | When looking for casinos to play online when the weather is bad, you can try casino online trucchi for Italian games. If you are not from Finland you can try the Swedish page Svenska casino online to find suitable games, check out svenskacasinoonline.net. Always check your local laws before playing with real money. | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2021 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |