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ALMOST NO CHANCE OF FLARES TODAY: Big sunspot AR2916 is turning away from Earth as it sets off on a 2-week trip around the farside of the sun. With its exit, the chance of solar flares has plummeted. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of M-class flares today, dropping to no more than 1% tomorrow. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
AN ECSTATIC SOLAR ECLIPSE: One month ago today, there was a solar eclipse over Antarctica. The penguins enjoyed it. Annie Schmidt, Antarctica Program Director for Point Blue Conservation Science, sends this picture from the Adélie penguin colony on Cape Crozier:
"I caught an Adélie penguin performing an 'Ecstatic Vocalization' in front of the eclipse," explains Schmidt. "The Ecstatic Vocalization is a special display that males perform to claim their territory and advertise their condition."
"We observed the eclipse from Cape Crozier, one of the largest Adélie penguin colonies in the world," she continues. "Researchers from Point Blue have been studying this colony for more than 25 years. We're learning how climate change may affect penguin nesting habitat and how individuals vary in their response to these changes."
"While this penguin was posing nicely in front of the eclipse, another research team collected space weather measurements near McMurdo, South Pole," says Schmidt. "All the work was conducted with funding from the National Science Foundation and support from the US Antarctic Program."
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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INFERIOR CONJUNCTION OF VENUS: Venus is about to pass almost directly between Earth and the sun--an event astronomers call "inferior conjunction." This is turning Venus into an incredibly thin crescent. Bum-Suk Yeom photographed the transformation in broad daylight from Iksan, South Korea:
Venus looks like a crescent because it is turning its night side toward us. The dark disk of the planet is outlined by a narrow fringe of sunlight filtering through the edge of Venus's atmosphere.
At closest approach on Saturday, Jan. 8th, Venus and the sun will be separated by almost 5 degrees. This relatively wide gap will allow careful daytime photography. Anthony J. Cook, recently retired from the Griffith Observatory, offers some observing tips: "Find a tall building to shade your telescope at noon. This should make finding and observing Venus relatively easy and safe to do from the northern hemisphere. Just be sure the telescope is entirely inside the building's shadow and observe within 15 minutes of local noon." Please be careful! Any sunlight straying into unshadowed optics can cause potentially serious eye damage.
When Venus is very close to the sun, the crescent can close upon itself, making a complete circle. That probably won't happen this year; the 5 degree sun-Venus separation is a bit too wide. To see what to expect, look at this photo of Venus taken during a similar conjunction in 2018.
Realtime Venus Photo Gallery
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MR SPOCK IN THE STRATOSPHERE (COLLECTOR'S ITEM): He's back by popular demand: Mr. Spock Bobblehead. On Dec. 12, 2021, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew the green-blooded science officer to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight he was 107,341 ft high:
You can have it for $170.10 (the serial number of the Enterprise divided by 10). The bobblehead is made of high-quality resin and hand-painted. It cannot be purchased from Amazon; this rare collector's item is available only from the Earth to Sky Store.
The students are selling Mr. Spock bobbleheads to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing Spock in flight and telling the story of his journey to the edge of space and back.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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Realtime Comet Leonard Photo Gallery
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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 Jan 03, 2022, the network reported 19 fireballs.
(9 Quadrantids, 9 sporadics, 1 Dec. Leonis Minorid)
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 January 4, 2022 there were 2246 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2021 YK | 2022-Jan-02 | 0.5 LD | 7 | 12 |
2021 YX | 2022-Jan-05 | 10 LD | 11.9 | 32 |
2021 YQ | 2022-Jan-05 | 5.6 LD | 14.7 | 64 |
2014 YE15 | 2022-Jan-06 | 19.3 LD | 6.4 | 8 |
2020 AP1 | 2022-Jan-07 | 4.6 LD | 5.7 | 4 |
2013 YD48 | 2022-Jan-11 | 14.6 LD | 14.8 | 107 |
2022 AG | 2022-Jan-14 | 8.4 LD | 3.8 | 35 |
2021 BA | 2022-Jan-18 | 9.8 LD | 9.1 | 22 |
7482 | 2022-Jan-18 | 5.2 LD | 19.6 | 1732 |
2022 AB | 2022-Jan-20 | 9.7 LD | 5.6 | 73 |
2018 PN22 | 2022-Jan-21 | 11.4 LD | 2.7 | 11 |
2017 XC62 | 2022-Jan-24 | 18.7 LD | 4.3 | 112 |
2021 BZ | 2022-Jan-27 | 17.6 LD | 14.6 | 39 |
2022 AA | 2022-Feb-04 | 6.6 LD | 4.3 | 43 |
2018 CA1 | 2022-Feb-05 | 9.8 LD | 15.1 | 32 |
2007 UY1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 13.9 LD | 6.6 | 89 |
2020 DF | 2022-Feb-14 | 12 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
2018 CW2 | 2022-Feb-18 | 2.2 LD | 10.8 | 25 |
2020 CX1 | 2022-Feb-18 | 7.2 LD | 8.2 | 54 |
455176 | 2022-Feb-22 | 14 LD | 25.1 | 257 |
2017 CX1 | 2022-Feb-23 | 15.2 LD | 5 | 8 |
2016 QJ44 | 2022-Feb-24 | 19.6 LD | 8.5 | 324 |
2021 QO2 | 2022-Feb-25 | 20 LD | 11 | 65 |
2020 UO4 | 2022-Feb-28 | 18.5 LD | 2.1 | 7 |
138971 | 2022-Mar-04 | 12.8 LD | 12 | 749 |
2021 UL7 | 2022-Mar-04 | 11.5 LD | 2 | 23 |
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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