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. This is an AI Free Zone! | | |
CIR SPARKS G2-CLASS GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Last night, Earth lit up like a Christmas tree with auroras at both poles. The reason: A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit our planet's magnetic field. "The display in New Zealand was one for the ages," reports Ian Griffin from Hoopers Inlet on the Otago Peninsula:
"The aurora kept pulsing and, just as you thought it was going to end it exploded into life again," he says. "What a night!"
Many sky watchers have never heard of "CIRs". They form in the interstices between solar wind streams, especially where fast streams blow through slower-moving streams. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, producing shock-like structures that mimic CMEs.
NOAA correctly predicted the arrival of a CIR on June 15th. Its impact opened a crack in our planet's magnetic field and sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm that persisted through June 16th.
Because of the northern summer sun, Arctic observers couldn't see the show. Some auroras, however, did spill into the darkness at lower latitudes. Jeff Berkes sends this photo from Cape Cod, Massachusetts:
"The lights were faint at first, then really juiced up around midnight," says Berkes. "I could see these pillars with the naked eye from Highland Lighthouse."
Did you miss the storm? Subscribers to our Space Weather Alert Service received an instant text message when the CIR arrived. It announced itself by the crack it formed in Earth's magnetic field. PRO PLAN subscribers were thus able to prepare for the subsequent geomagnetic storm.
more images: from Philip Granrud of Whitefish, Montana; from Kalyky of Custer County, Montana; from Didier Walliang of Quesnoy-le-Montant, France; from Jamie McBean of Herne Bay, Kent, UK; from Ian Carstairs of Harleston, Norfolk, UK;
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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"I LOVE YOU FOREVER" MOONSTONE PENDANT: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider the "I Love You Forever" Moonstone. This one hitched a ride to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research ballooin on May 13th:
You can have it for $162.95. The moonstone's sterling silver infinity wrap is inscribed with the words "I love you forever." It makes a great anniversary or birthday gift. The moonstone comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight, telling the story of its trip to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN CREATE CLOUDS: This is a story about AI. It didn't start that way, though. On May 28th, an unusual weather system blanketed the UK. Cirrostratus clouds containing a rare mixture of gem-like ice crystals filled the sky. Sunlight shining through the crystals produced a stunning variety of ice halos widely seen and reported on BBC news.
During the display, R. J. Cobain of Conlig, Northern Ireland, spun around on his lawn taking as many pictures as he could. "By combining 11 photos I was able to capture a full parhelic circle," says Cobain.
Circling the zenith in a majestic arc, full parhelic circles are among the rarest of ice halos. They require as many as five internal reflections from millions of individual ice crytals, all catching sunbeams simultaneously. "This was by far the best display of atmospheric optics I have ever seen," Cobain says.
There was only one problem with Cobain's excellent photo. He forgot to photograph the zenith. The black gap bothered him.
"I decided to use OpenAI's DALL-E tool to fill in the gap in the panorama," says Cobain. "The prompt was just 'wispy cirrostratus clouds against a dark blue sky'." Here is the result:
"Scary how it convincingly continued with the slightly darker sky behind the 46 degree halo (a detail you wouldn't expect the AI to know)," he says.
DALL-E is the visual version of ChatGPT. It creates images from text. "It is an extension of the GPT-3 language model, designed specifically for the task of image synthesis," according to OpenAI. "DALL-E combines techniques from computer vision and natural language processing to create unique and novel images."
Cobain was not trying to decieve anyone by letting AI fill in the gap. He just wanted to see if it could do a good job. Scary good is more like it.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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Realtime Aurora 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 Jun 16, 2023, the network reported 25 fireballs.
(25 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 June 16, 2023 there were 2335 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 LA | 2023-Jun-12 | 1.7 LD | 10.4 | 31 |
| 488453 | 2023-Jun-12 | 8.3 LD | 21.5 | 495 |
| 2023 LQ | 2023-Jun-12 | 4.1 LD | 10.4 | 23 |
| 2023 LP1 | 2023-Jun-13 | 0.7 LD | 13.4 | 4 |
| 2023 LJ1 | 2023-Jun-13 | 8.8 LD | 12.2 | 25 |
| 2022 WN4 | 2023-Jun-13 | 10.8 LD | 15.1 | 158 |
| 2023 LO | 2023-Jun-13 | 4.6 LD | 5 | 11 |
| 2023 LZ | 2023-Jun-14 | 0.8 LD | 13.6 | 18 |
| 2020 DB5 | 2023-Jun-15 | 11.3 LD | 9.5 | 506 |
| 2023 LL1 | 2023-Jun-15 | 1.5 LD | 10.7 | 8 |
| 2023 LM1 | 2023-Jun-15 | 0.3 LD | 9.2 | 7 |
| 2023 LQ1 | 2023-Jun-16 | 2.7 LD | 8.4 | 13 |
| 2023 HL | 2023-Jun-17 | 13.5 LD | 1 | 15 |
| 2023 LV1 | 2023-Jun-17 | 14.7 LD | 16.5 | 189 |
| 2023 LV | 2023-Jun-18 | 11.9 LD | 8 | 34 |
| 2023 LW | 2023-Jun-18 | 6.1 LD | 16.6 | 33 |
| 2016 LK49 | 2023-Jun-19 | 17.4 LD | 19.4 | 22 |
| 2023 LT1 | 2023-Jun-20 | 1.8 LD | 10.3 | 16 |
| 2023 HF1 | 2023-Jun-21 | 12.5 LD | 4.4 | 59 |
| 467336 | 2023-Jun-24 | 17.4 LD | 7.1 | 269 |
| 2008 LG2 | 2023-Jun-24 | 10.5 LD | 5.6 | 32 |
| 2013 WV44 | 2023-Jun-28 | 9.1 LD | 11.8 | 95 |
| 2022 MM1 | 2023-Jun-29 | 9.8 LD | 9.7 | 41 |
| 2020 NC | 2023-Jul-02 | 13.9 LD | 7.7 | 123 |
| 2023 HO6 | 2023-Jul-05 | 5.3 LD | 7.8 | 233 |
| 2019 LH5 | 2023-Jul-07 | 14.9 LD | 21.6 | 281 |
| 2018 NW | 2023-Jul-10 | 18 LD | 21.8 | 10 |
| 2023 LN1 | 2023-Jul-10 | 17.9 LD | 5.8 | 63 |
| 2018 UY | 2023-Jul-12 | 7.4 LD | 16.4 | 243 |
| 2020 UQ3 | 2023-Jul-18 | 3.2 LD | 9.3 | 59 |
| 2022 GX2 | 2023-Jul-20 | 11.9 LD | 9.4 | 5 |
| 2020 OM | 2023-Jul-20 | 8.5 LD | 9.5 | 14 |
| 2015 MA54 | 2023-Jul-24 | 16.6 LD | 9.2 | 31 |
| 2018 BG5 | 2023-Jul-27 | 10.7 LD | 8.4 | 56 |
| 2020 PP1 | 2023-Jul-29 | 17 LD | 4.1 | 17 |
| 2021 BD3 | 2023-Jul-30 | 14 LD | 8.5 | 25 |
| 2016 AW65 | 2023-Jul-31 | 16.6 LD | 5.7 | 54 |
| 2020 PN1 | 2023-Aug-03 | 10.8 LD | 4.8 | 29 |
| 620082 | 2023-Aug-04 | 14 LD | 20.6 | 375 |
| 2004 KG1 | 2023-Aug-06 | 18.7 LD | 9.2 | 54 |
| 2022 BS2 | 2023-Aug-11 | 17.3 LD | 8.2 | 30 |
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 |
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