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POSSIBLE CME IMPACT (UPDATED): Solar wind data from NOAA's DSCOVR spacecraft suggest that a CME may have grazed Earth's magnetic field midday on Oct. 18th. It could be the early arrival of a CME expected today--or a previously unrecognized CME taking us by surprise. Either way, it sparked naked-eye auroras over parts of Canada and Norway, and very faint photographic auroras as far south as Nebraska. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
A PURE SINE WAVE IN THE MAGNETOSPHERE: In a quiet room, you can hear a pin drop. Norwegian citizen scientist Rob Stammes just heard a pin drop on Earth's magnetic field.
"It was very quiet when it happened," says Stammes, who runs a space weather observatory in Lofoten, Norway. On Oct. 17th, his magnetometer was monitoring Earth's magnetic field as it does every night, and the instrument's needle had settled itself into a straight line, indicating very low geomagnetic activity. Suddenly, Earth's magnetic field began to ring.
"A very stable ~25 second magnetic oscillation appeared in my recordings, and lasted for more than 20 minutes," he says. "It was fantastic to see the magnetic field swing back and forth by about 0.1 degrees, peak to peak."
This kind of pure tone is rare, but it has happened before. Researchers call it a "pulsation continuous" -- or "Pc" for short. Pc waves are classified into 5 types depending on their period. The waves Stammes caught fall into category Pc3.
The "pin dropping" was a gentle gust of solar wind. Imagine blowing across a piece of paper, making it flutter with your breath. The solar wind can have a similar effect Earth's magnetic field. Pc3 waves are essentially flutters propagating down the flanks of our planet's magnetosphere excited by the breath of the sun.
A NASA animation of waves fluttering down the sides of Earth's magnetosphere [more]
Stammes is a longtime observer of Pc waves. Usually he catches them during Solar Minimum when "the room is quiet" for months at a time. "Recording one now so close to Solar Max is unexpected," he says. "Lately, my magnetometer traces have been too noisy for such delicate waves--so it came a surprise!"
Pc3 waves, which can only be heard in moments of quiet, can also bring the quiet to an end. The oscillations sometimes flow all the way around Earth's magnetic field and cause a "tearing instability" in our planet's magnetic tail. This, in turn, sets the stage for magnetic reconnection and geomagnetic storms.
That didn't happen on Oct. 17th, though. The pin dropped, the magnetosphere rang, and quiet resumed. Stammes is already listening for more. Stay tuned!
Realtime Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
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HANDMADE ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE PENDANT: This pendant has touched the shadow of the Moon. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere on Oct. 14, 2023, during the annular solar eclipse. The handmade pendant was 78,500 feet high when the Moon's shadow arrived and wrapped it in a cool twilight-like darkness:
You can have it for $129.95. The pendant left Earth from Nevada's Valley of the Moon, a remote area filled with the scent of sage and herds of wild horses. Indeed, no fewer than three mustang families approached the launch team during the eclipse to see what was going on. It was a magical experience.
The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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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 Oct 19, 2023, the network reported 18 fireballs.
(12 sporadics, 4 Orionids, 2 epsilon Geminids)
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 October 19, 2023 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 TJ12 | 2023-Oct-14 | 10.7 LD | 10.7 | 17 |
| 2023 UE | 2023-Oct-14 | 2 LD | 5.2 | 7 |
| 2023 TO4 | 2023-Oct-14 | 1.9 LD | 16.8 | 11 |
| 2023 TD7 | 2023-Oct-14 | 0.4 LD | 10.1 | 5 |
| 2023 TQ3 | 2023-Oct-14 | 3.8 LD | 11.3 | 27 |
| 2023 TO17 | 2023-Oct-14 | 0.1 LD | 15.2 | 4 |
| 2023 TD8 | 2023-Oct-14 | 5.6 LD | 9.9 | 9 |
| 2023 UY | 2023-Oct-14 | 0.4 LD | 8.1 | 4 |
| 2023 TC7 | 2023-Oct-15 | 1.7 LD | 6.8 | 15 |
| 2023 TZ6 | 2023-Oct-15 | 11.1 LD | 12.5 | 19 |
| 2011 GA | 2023-Oct-15 | 6.8 LD | 16.6 | 230 |
| 2023 UB | 2023-Oct-15 | 0.2 LD | 15.6 | 4 |
| 2023 TZ8 | 2023-Oct-15 | 11.1 LD | 9.4 | 17 |
| 2007 SQ6 | 2023-Oct-15 | 19.4 LD | 6.5 | 128 |
| 2023 US | 2023-Oct-16 | 10.9 LD | 8.6 | 23 |
| 2023 TA4 | 2023-Oct-16 | 7.3 LD | 4.1 | 11 |
| 2023 TR15 | 2023-Oct-16 | 3.4 LD | 8.8 | 9 |
| 2019 UZ3 | 2023-Oct-16 | 9.6 LD | 8.3 | 14 |
| 2023 TT8 | 2023-Oct-16 | 5.8 LD | 7.9 | 17 |
| 2023 TN15 | 2023-Oct-16 | 12.4 LD | 3.9 | 12 |
| 1998 HH49 | 2023-Oct-17 | 3.1 LD | 14.8 | 193 |
| 2023 TF8 | 2023-Oct-17 | 5.5 LD | 20.1 | 15 |
| 2023 TT15 | 2023-Oct-17 | 6.2 LD | 6.4 | 9 |
| 2023 TH12 | 2023-Oct-17 | 7.8 LD | 8.3 | 24 |
| 2023 TT16 | 2023-Oct-17 | 1.4 LD | 20.2 | 9 |
| 2023 UJ1 | 2023-Oct-18 | 13.4 LD | 14.7 | 22 |
| 2022 UO10 | 2023-Oct-19 | 7.8 LD | 9.8 | 16 |
| 2023 TH4 | 2023-Oct-19 | 5.5 LD | 5.4 | 14 |
| 2023 TM14 | 2023-Oct-19 | 8.3 LD | 7 | 17 |
| 2023 TY19 | 2023-Oct-19 | 14.6 LD | 9.2 | 18 |
| 2023 TP7 | 2023-Oct-19 | 8 LD | 11.7 | 27 |
| 2023 UP | 2023-Oct-19 | 2.7 LD | 14.2 | 9 |
| 2020 UR | 2023-Oct-20 | 5.8 LD | 12.9 | 9 |
| 2023 TK15 | 2023-Oct-20 | 1 LD | 22 | 24 |
| 2023 UH | 2023-Oct-20 | 6.8 LD | 11.1 | 21 |
| 2023 UW | 2023-Oct-21 | 4.2 LD | 6 | 9 |
| 2023 UN | 2023-Oct-21 | 1.3 LD | 11.2 | 23 |
| 2023 UH1 | 2023-Oct-21 | 9.9 LD | 5.1 | 14 |
| 2023 UG1 | 2023-Oct-22 | 4.4 LD | 2.9 | 11 |
| 2023 TW4 | 2023-Oct-22 | 6.4 LD | 10.5 | 26 |
| 2023 TX2 | 2023-Oct-22 | 13.2 LD | 7.5 | 30 |
| 2023 TW26 | 2023-Oct-22 | 2.3 LD | 5.6 | 7 |
| 2023 UZ | 2023-Oct-22 | 2.5 LD | 13.1 | 12 |
| 2023 TP16 | 2023-Oct-23 | 3.8 LD | 1.5 | 4 |
| 2023 TV4 | 2023-Oct-23 | 5.1 LD | 5 | 29 |
| 2023 TC6 | 2023-Oct-23 | 13.4 LD | 8.5 | 35 |
| 2020 FM6 | 2023-Oct-23 | 15.5 LD | 15.9 | 149 |
| 2023 TX8 | 2023-Oct-24 | 3.3 LD | 5.6 | 18 |
| 2019 HH4 | 2023-Oct-24 | 13.3 LD | 20 | 381 |
| 2023 TE6 | 2023-Oct-24 | 17 LD | 4.2 | 18 |
| 2023 RA4 | 2023-Oct-24 | 8.4 LD | 3.9 | 47 |
| 2023 SO11 | 2023-Oct-25 | 3.3 LD | 2.5 | 16 |
| 2023 TG14 | 2023-Oct-26 | 4.2 LD | 6.7 | 24 |
| 2023 TR7 | 2023-Oct-26 | 19.4 LD | 11.4 | 29 |
| 2021 SZ4 | 2023-Oct-26 | 14 LD | 30 | 289 |
| 302169 | 2023-Oct-26 | 12.7 LD | 25.7 | 374 |
| 525229 | 2023-Oct-30 | 10.6 LD | 17.4 | 200 |
| 2023 TW6 | 2023-Oct-31 | 19.2 LD | 24.4 | 90 |
| 2013 UV3 | 2023-Nov-01 | 14.7 LD | 15.4 | 15 |
| 2016 WY | 2023-Nov-02 | 9.1 LD | 3.9 | 5 |
| 363505 | 2023-Nov-02 | 13.7 LD | 8 | 709 |
| 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 | 8.2 LD | 9.2 | 28 |
| 2023 TO15 | 2023-Nov-06 | 15.2 LD | 11.2 | 48 |
| 2023 TD14 | 2023-Nov-08 | 9.3 LD | 6.3 | 24 |
| 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 | 36 |
| 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 | 17.1 LD | 4.3 | 46 |
| 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 |
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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