| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 1.67 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 2.67 quiet explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 6.17 nT Bz: 2.87 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1147 UT Coronal Holes: 14 Mar 24 There are no large coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun. Credit: SDO/AIA Polar Stratospheric Clouds Colorful Type II polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) form when the temperature in the stratosphere drops to a staggeringly low -85C. NASA's MERRA-2 climate model predicts when the air up there is cold enough: On Mar. 14, 2024, the Arctic stratosphere is much too warm for Type II polar stratospheric clouds. | more data. Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for NLCs is over. The first clouds were detected inside the Antarctic Circle on Dec. 4, 2023, by the NOAA 21 satellite. The same satellite detected the last cloud on Feb. 21, 2024. Daily maps are now blank: Updated: Feb 22, 2024 An instrument onboard NOAA 21 (OMPS LP) is able to detect NLCs (also known as "polar mesospheric clouds" or PMCs). Now that the southern season has ended, attention turns to the northern hemisphere. The first NLCs should appear inside the Arctic Circle in mid to late May. SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2024 Mar 14 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 15 % | 15 % | 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: 2024 Mar 14 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 30 % | 15 % | MINOR | 10 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 30 % | 25 % | SEVERE | 40 % | 25 % | | | | | | | | | | | | 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. | | | QUIET WITH A SLIGHT CHANCE OF STORMS: Today, geomagnetic activity is low and the forecast calls for no bright auroras. However, a change may be in the offing. NOAA forecasters say that a CME might graze Earth's magnetic field on March 14th. A minor G1-class geomagnetic storm could result from the low-probability impact. Aurora alerts: SMS Text MANMADE NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: When the Space Age began, only Mother Nature made noctilucent clouds (NLCs). They formed every summer above Earth's poles, an electric-blue mixture of water vapor and meteor dust; you had to approach the Arctic Circle to see them. Seventy years of space travel have changed things, though. On March 4, 2024, sky watchers saw NLCs in Texas--and they were anything but natural. "I was leaving for work about 6:30am CST when I noticed the clouds," reports Craig Harris from Lubbock, Texas (+33.6N). "To me, they looked like NLCs, but I know I am at the wrong latitude, and this is not correct season for them to appear. Could these really be noctilucent clouds?" The answer is yes, but Mother Nature was not responsible. These clouds were created by SpaceX. Approximately 8 hours before Craig left for work, a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. The engines burned through the atmosphere, emitting a spray of watery exhaust. About 80 km above Earth's surface, molecules of H2O began sticking to specks of meteor dust, seeding the formation of noctilucent ice crystals. James G. Rodriguez of Midland, Texas (+32.0N) saw them, too: "The NLCs appeared low in the eastern horizon just before sunrise," says Rodriguez. "They were so bright I was able to photograph them using my iPhone." Why Texas? The rocket was launched in Florida. "Winds high in the atmosphere could have easily blown some of the rocket exhaust from Florida to Texas, where the clouds formed," explains Cora Randall, an expert in NLCs at the University of Colorado. "I'm not surprised." This isn't the first time onlookers have caught rockets creating noctilucent clouds. Space shuttle launches in the 1990s produced some of the first widely-noticed "rocket NLCs." The shuttle program ended in 2011, but the phenomenon continued. Recent studies led by Michael Stevens of the Naval Research Lab confirm a strong correlation between modern rocket launches and the abundance of NLCs as far south as +56N. "Space traffic has a strong influence on the interannual variability of these bright mesospheric clouds," the researchers concluded in a 2022 paper. According to the US International Trade Commission, the annual rate of rocket launches has almost quadrupled since 2008. Every year breaks the previous year's record, a trend driven mainly by SpaceX. The Texas sightings highlight how much things have changed. The latitude of those clouds was just above 30 degrees, thousands of miles from the Arctic. NLCs aren't just a polar phenomenon any more. They can appear anywhere rockets go. Check the SpaceX launch schedule, and be alert for NLCs. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter 18K GOLD "LOVE YOU TO THE MOON" LOCKET: This is a very special locket. It's heart-shaped, plated with 18K gold, and we will fly it again during this year's total eclipse of the sun. Keep reading... On Jan. 26, 2024, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this locket to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight, it floated 111,535 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California: Buy it now for $149.95, and we'll fly it again--FOR FREE--during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The students will be launching multiple balloons from the path of totality in Texas. Your pendant will go along for the ride, touching the shadow of the Moon at the edge of space. (Simply type "FLY IT AGAIN" in the comments box at checkout.) The locket, which opens to hold a personal photo or other small item, comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry 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 Comet 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 Mar 14, 2024, the network reported 4 fireballs. (4 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 14, 2024 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2024 EO | 2024-Mar-09 | 3.6 LD | 19.2 | 19 | 2024 EG | 2024-Mar-09 | 8.4 LD | 19.2 | 45 | 2024 EB3 | 2024-Mar-09 | 12.4 LD | 17.7 | 43 | 2024 EQ1 | 2024-Mar-09 | 6.6 LD | 17.1 | 34 | 2024 EJ3 | 2024-Mar-10 | 2.6 LD | 13.8 | 15 | 2024 EA2 | 2024-Mar-10 | 5.5 LD | 11 | 12 | 2024 EE2 | 2024-Mar-10 | 13.9 LD | 18.7 | 38 | 2024 ER3 | 2024-Mar-11 | 12.2 LD | 15.7 | 28 | 2024 DA1 | 2024-Mar-11 | 9.4 LD | 9.9 | 49 | 2024 EL3 | 2024-Mar-11 | 0.1 LD | 13.7 | 6 | 2024 EX3 | 2024-Mar-11 | 3.1 LD | 5.2 | 9 | 2024 EG2 | 2024-Mar-12 | 1.7 LD | 19.6 | 23 | 2015 FM34 | 2024-Mar-12 | 19.4 LD | 11.1 | 113 | 2024 EC3 | 2024-Mar-13 | 2.3 LD | 7.2 | 7 | 2024 EL1 | 2024-Mar-13 | 8.5 LD | 7.9 | 18 | 2024 EH3 | 2024-Mar-14 | 6.5 LD | 10.1 | 29 | 2024 EK3 | 2024-Mar-15 | 1.6 LD | 6.8 | 6 | 2020 FU | 2024-Mar-15 | 14.9 LD | 15.5 | 19 | 2024 CJ8 | 2024-Mar-16 | 17.3 LD | 12.1 | 81 | 2024 EQ | 2024-Mar-16 | 6.9 LD | 10.7 | 22 | 2024 EK | 2024-Mar-16 | 7 LD | 7.6 | 15 | 2024 EX2 | 2024-Mar-16 | 5.8 LD | 6.2 | 19 | 2024 EP3 | 2024-Mar-17 | 11 LD | 8.9 | 41 | 2024 ED3 | 2024-Mar-18 | 3.5 LD | 9.9 | 31 | 2024 EN3 | 2024-Mar-18 | 5.6 LD | 6.3 | 17 | 2024 EN | 2024-Mar-18 | 3.9 LD | 12 | 45 | 2020 FD | 2024-Mar-18 | 4.5 LD | 15.1 | 10 | 2024 BD7 | 2024-Mar-19 | 18.8 LD | 10.1 | 140 | 2024 EQ3 | 2024-Mar-20 | 12 LD | 10.8 | 14 | 2024 EZ3 | 2024-Mar-20 | 11.6 LD | 5.8 | 25 | 2024 EY3 | 2024-Mar-20 | 12 LD | 11.6 | 44 | 2019 CJ | 2024-Mar-24 | 12.4 LD | 4.4 | 28 | 2021 CF6 | 2024-Mar-25 | 14.6 LD | 8.3 | 62 | 2024 EA3 | 2024-Mar-27 | 8.2 LD | 10.8 | 50 | 2024 EO3 | 2024-Mar-28 | 10.1 LD | 11.4 | 39 | 2023 RO49 | 2024-Mar-29 | 14.1 LD | 4.3 | 45 | 2015 MB54 | 2024-Mar-30 | 11.7 LD | 3.8 | 54 | 2024 DQ | 2024-Mar-30 | 6.4 LD | 2.9 | 41 | 2018 CC14 | 2024-Apr-03 | 19.6 LD | 8.9 | 115 | 2023 GC2 | 2024-Apr-04 | 8.7 LD | 5.7 | 12 | 2005 FG | 2024-Apr-08 | 18.4 LD | 5.5 | 57 | 2020 BP13 | 2024-Apr-09 | 15.2 LD | 6.8 | 209 | 2021 RJ19 | 2024-Apr-12 | 19.6 LD | 11.4 | 25 | 2021 GQ5 | 2024-Apr-13 | 8.8 LD | 7.5 | 7 | 2023 FN13 | 2024-Apr-14 | 3.3 LD | 4.9 | 13 | 2022 UO1 | 2024-Apr-14 | 16.7 LD | 14 | 33 | 517681 | 2024-Apr-15 | 18.4 LD | 14.2 | 589 | 439437 | 2024-Apr-15 | 8.5 LD | 16.5 | 609 | 2023 HU3 | 2024-Apr-18 | 15.9 LD | 19.1 | 35 | 2021 JW2 | 2024-Apr-19 | 1.6 LD | 5.1 | 11 | 2017 SA20 | 2024-Apr-19 | 3.8 LD | 6.2 | 8 | 2021 VH2 | 2024-Apr-25 | 9.3 LD | 2.7 | 6 | 2021 GD3 | 2024-Apr-30 | 11.4 LD | 3.5 | 14 | 2022 TN1 | 2024-Apr-30 | 18.6 LD | 17.7 | 295 | 2022 AA5 | 2024-May-02 | 12 LD | 8.9 | 67 | 2021 JG9 | 2024-May-10 | 16.9 LD | 16.1 | 32 | 2016 FT14 | 2024-May-10 | 19.9 LD | 5.9 | 39 | 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 the SkyCity Online Casino if you are located in New Zealand. If you are not from NZ you can try the Swedish page Svenska casino online to find suitable games, check out svenskacasinoonline.net. 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