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PERSEID METEOR SHOWER: Earth has entered a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. We're only in the outskirts of the stream now, but already Perseid fireballs are streaking across the night sky. The shower will peak in bright moonlight on Aug. 12-13 when Earth touches the densest part of the debris zone: observing tips.
'EARTHQUAKE BALLOONS' IN THE STRATOSPHERE: If you want to detect an earthquake on Venus--good luck. The planet's surface is hot enough to melt lead, and the atmospheric pressure is crushing. No ground-based seismometer could possibly survive.
What's an extraterrestrial seismologist to do? Launch a balloon.
Above: Researchers prepare to launch a Strateole-2 balloon with sensors capable of detecting earthquakes from thousands of kilometers away.
A new paper just published in the Geophysical Research Letters reports the detection of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake by a fleet of balloons floating through the stratosphere above Indonesia's Flores Sea. Onboard infrasound sensors registered acoustic waves rippling upward from the sea surface below, proving that, here on Earth, balloons can be used as seismometers.
"The same technique should work in the atmosphere of Venus," says Raphael Garcia, the study's lead author and a planetary scientist at the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronatique et de l’Espace of the University of Toulouse. "Balloon-based sensors could float high above Venus's deadly surface, collecting data at a safe distance."
In the fall of 2021, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) launched a fleet of 16 balloons from Mahé Island in the Seychelles archipelago. Unlike ordinary weather balloons, which explode in a matter of hours, these were "superpressure balloons," which can remain aloft for months. Stratospheric winds carried them over the Flores Sea.
Above: Position of the Flores Sea quake (blue square) with ground seismometers (purple stars) and Strateole-2 balloons (red circles)
Four balloons picked up the undersea quake on Dec. 14, 2021. Combining their signals, researchers pinpointed the epicenter within 300 km, the magnitude of the quake within 0.8 units, and its onset within 50 seconds. Furthermore, waveforms recorded by the infrasound sensors were detailed enough to sense structures in the Earth 100 km deep.
Garcia would like to do the same thing on Venus. "We know nothing of its interior," he says. "We don't know how it's made inside, and seismology is one of the best tools to figure that out."
Seismic balloons could come in handy on Earth, too. "Balloons could be used to cover ocean regions where conventional seismometers are not yet deployed," notes Garcia. "Another advantage: Balloons may be rapidly deployed just after a big quake for monitoring aftershocks."
Above: Acoustic waves recorded by four balloons during the Flores Sea earthquake.
The test flights have already unearthed a curiosity in South America. On Nov. 28, 2021, just one of the balloons detected a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in northern Peru. The infrasound frequency, 0.23 Hz, was higher than expected; for comparison, the Flores Sea quake registered a more typical 0.085–0.125 Hz. Garcia's team believes the high pitch may have been caused by a "ringing" of sediments in the Amazonian basin.
Sensing earthquakes from the stratosphere is relatively new. Researchers at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did it for the first time in July 2019. Garcia's study marks the first time an earthquake was detected by more than one balloon. It won't be the last.
For more information, read the original research here.
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COSMIC RAY YIN-YANG PENDANT: To celebrate the yin-yang relationship between solar activity and galactic cosmic rays, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus just launched a yin-yang pendant to the stratosphere. On July 23rd, it flew 104,265 ft high onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $133.95. The pendant's sterling silver frame surrounds balancing swirls of black onyx and mother of pearl--all suspended from a matching 18-inch sterling silver chain. It makes a great anniversary, birthday or (never too early!) Christmas gift.
The students are selling yin-yang 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 journey to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
WHAT LIES ON TOP OF A STORM CLOUD: Cleaning up the yard has its benefits. "Yesterday, I was picking up dog poop in my backyard when I looked up to admire an approaching storm," says Ron Robisch of Monrovia, Maryland. This is what he saw:
"There was a hint of rainbow above the leading cloud, so I pulled out my iPhone, zoomed in, and snapped this shot," he says.
Robisch captured an iridescent pileus cloud. This type of cloud forms on sunny afternoons when the heat of the summer sun causes cumulus clouds to boil upwards. Moist layers of air above the cumulus get shoved toward the sky, cooling and condensing to form a cap or 'pileus' (Latin for cap) full of water droplets. Dappled by sunlight at the top of the storm cloud, those droplets glow with iridescent colors.
"I mean, you just NEVER know when you might notice something cool!" says Robisch.
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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 Aug 10, 2022, the network reported 19 fireballs.
(12 sporadics, 4 Perseids, 2 Delta Aquariids, 1 alpha Capricornid)
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 August 10, 2022 there were 2291 potentially hazardous asteroids.
|
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
2022 OE6 | 2022-Aug-05 | 7.5 LD | 11.2 | 13 |
2022 OB5 | 2022-Aug-05 | 2.7 LD | 2.1 | 6 |
2022 PX | 2022-Aug-06 | 6.7 LD | 10.2 | 50 |
2022 PE | 2022-Aug-06 | 2.5 LD | 3.9 | 8 |
2022 OH2 | 2022-Aug-07 | 4.4 LD | 4 | 12 |
2022 OC4 | 2022-Aug-09 | 4 LD | 7.5 | 12 |
2022 PF | 2022-Aug-09 | 4.5 LD | 9.6 | 15 |
2022 PA1 | 2022-Aug-10 | 2.7 LD | 16.3 | 18 |
2022 PK1 | 2022-Aug-11 | 13.6 LD | 10.2 | 33 |
2015 FF | 2022-Aug-12 | 11.2 LD | 9.2 | 17 |
2022 OT1 | 2022-Aug-13 | 12.4 LD | 5.8 | 36 |
2022 OA4 | 2022-Aug-14 | 18.2 LD | 7.9 | 23 |
2022 PJ1 | 2022-Aug-16 | 11 LD | 5.9 | 19 |
2022 PW | 2022-Aug-16 | 1.4 LD | 7.5 | 30 |
2022 PC | 2022-Aug-18 | 16.5 LD | 4.1 | 62 |
2019 AV13 | 2022-Aug-20 | 13.8 LD | 9.2 | 135 |
2020 QW3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 14.1 LD | 18.1 | 30 |
2015 QH3 | 2022-Aug-22 | 5.6 LD | 7 | 14 |
2017 BU | 2022-Aug-29 | 15.8 LD | 7 | 32 |
2021 CQ5 | 2022-Sep-01 | 8.7 LD | 13.5 | 7 |
2008 RW | 2022-Sep-12 | 17.5 LD | 10.2 | 98 |
2020 PT4 | 2022-Sep-15 | 19.7 LD | 10.8 | 39 |
2016 HF2 | 2022-Sep-29 | 19.2 LD | 5.6 | 21 |
2018 ER1 | 2022-Oct-02 | 14.7 LD | 4 | 27 |
2018 VG | 2022-Oct-05 | 18.5 LD | 6.7 | 12 |
2021 TJ10 | 2022-Oct-06 | 19.6 LD | 8.1 | 6 |
2006 SG7 | 2022-Oct-07 | 16.7 LD | 18.4 | 93 |
2013 TJ6 | 2022-Oct-07 | 11.7 LD | 14.4 | 32 |
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 (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 |
| 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 |
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