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GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH--CANCELED: Sept. 26 has passed without another CME impact. Thus the geomagnetc storm watch is cancelled. Earth's magnetic field should continue to calm on Sept. 27th as lingering effects from the Sept. 24th CME impact subside. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
COMET NISHIMURA VS. THE SUN: This month, Comet Nishimura (C/2023 P1) is passing by the sun inside the orbit of Mercury. The Heliospheric Imager on NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft has gotten some great footage of the close encounter:
"Comet Nishimura is looking spectacular!" says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Laboratory, who made the movie. "There are lots of beautiful interactions between the comet tail and the solar wind, along with a possible glancing blow from a CME."
The other bright object in the field of view is Mars. Although the comet and the planet seem to be close together (especially on Sept. 23rd), they are in fact very far apart. Mars is on the far side of the sun hundreds of millions of kilometers away.
The comet will remain in STEREO-A's field of view until Oct. 3rd, and Battams plans to make new movies every day. Stay tuned for more CME strikes to Nishimura.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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RARE RED AURORAS (UPDATED): As predicted, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Sept. 24th (2043 UT). The impact was much stronger than expected. Magnetometer needles in Canada jerked by as much as 129 nT, and a G2-class geomagnetic storm began almost immediately after the CME arrived. Observers in Europe saw rare red auroras as far south as France:
"What a wonderful red aurora we had last night night in France!" says photographer Nicolas Drouhin of Burgundy. "It did not last long (about 5 minutes), but it was intense, even to the naked eye!"
Naked-eye sightings of red auroras are unusual because human eyes are notoriously insensitive to the 6300 Å wavelength of their red light. Yet multiple observers in, e.g., Scotland and Iceland confirmed that they saw the scarlet glow.
Later, the storm crossed the Atlantic and brought the same red colors to North America:
"These amazing red auroras were all over the sky," says Ayumi Bakken, who took the picture just outside Fairbanks, Alaska. The farthest south they were photographed was Curtis, Nebraska (latitude +40.6N) and Burlington, Kansas (+38.2N).
Why are red auroras rare? Partly it's just that we have trouble seeing them, so they go unreported by sky watchers. Mainly, though, it's because they are the most delicate kind of auroras. Red auroras come from atomic oxygen near the top of Earth's atmosphere. Oxygen atoms excited by solar wind or a CME spit out their red photons very slowly. The radiative lifetime of the transition is 110 seconds--an eternity in the quantum realm. The atoms must remain undisturbed that long to produce their eerie red light.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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SOLAR ECLIPSE PENDANT: The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are about to try something never done before--to photograph the shadow of an annular solar eclipse from the stratosphere. On Oct. 14th, they'll launch a cosmic ray research balloon equipped with cameras to photograph the shadow zone of an eclipse over Nevada. You can support the flight by buying a Solar Eclipse Pendant:
It's yours for $99.95. The students launched this pendant on July 17th. Floating at an altitude 105,000 feet above Earth’s surface, it made contact with space, experiencing temperatures as low as -63 C.
Buy the pendent now and for no additional charge we will fly it back to the stratosphere during the annular eclipse. Just make a note in the COMMENTS BOX of your shopping cart: "Fly my pendant again!"
Note: We have photographed the shadow of an eclipse before. Here's what the total eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017, looked like from the stratosphere over the Nebraska-Wyoming border:
Total eclipses make deep black shadows, in this case blacking out more than 70 miles of terrain. What does the shadow of an *annular* eclipse look like? We hope to find out. It should be fuzzier around the edges, and not nearly as dark in the middle. An overview from the stratosphere could provide a unique picture.
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Realtime Comet 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 Sep 26, 2023, the network reported 18 fireballs.
(18 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 September 26, 2023 there were 2349 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 ST | 2023-Sep-21 | 2.1 LD | 23 | 22 |
| 2023 SR4 | 2023-Sep-21 | 18.6 LD | 6.2 | 19 |
| 2023 SQ5 | 2023-Sep-21 | 8 LD | 12.3 | 36 |
| 2023 SW | 2023-Sep-21 | 2 LD | 12.3 | 14 |
| 2023 SJ | 2023-Sep-21 | 16.9 LD | 16.5 | 52 |
| 2023 SP5 | 2023-Sep-21 | 7.1 LD | 7.6 | 26 |
| 2023 RR6 | 2023-Sep-21 | 15.6 LD | 7.5 | 14 |
| 2023 SV5 | 2023-Sep-21 | 2.2 LD | 8.3 | 12 |
| 2023 SN5 | 2023-Sep-22 | 4.8 LD | 9 | 38 |
| 2023 SU5 | 2023-Sep-22 | 8.7 LD | 7.9 | 62 |
| 2023 SR6 | 2023-Sep-22 | 5.8 LD | 8 | 27 |
| 2023 SY5 | 2023-Sep-22 | 1.4 LD | 11 | 12 |
| 2023 RQ6 | 2023-Sep-22 | 15.8 LD | 9.4 | 24 |
| 2023 ST6 | 2023-Sep-23 | 17.3 LD | 36.3 | 40 |
| 2023 SC3 | 2023-Sep-23 | 16.4 LD | 9.6 | 15 |
| 2023 SQ6 | 2023-Sep-23 | 2.3 LD | 9.7 | 15 |
| 2023 RU3 | 2023-Sep-23 | 19.8 LD | 11.6 | 34 |
| 2023 SO6 | 2023-Sep-23 | 6.7 LD | 8.1 | 17 |
| 2023 SM5 | 2023-Sep-23 | 1 LD | 11.5 | 18 |
| 2023 SV2 | 2023-Sep-23 | 4.5 LD | 12.8 | 14 |
| 2023 SW5 | 2023-Sep-23 | 9.4 LD | 10.9 | 30 |
| 2023 RD15 | 2023-Sep-24 | 6 LD | 5 | 15 |
| 2023 SQ1 | 2023-Sep-24 | 5.4 LD | 20.5 | 20 |
| 2023 SD3 | 2023-Sep-24 | 15.7 LD | 3.5 | 16 |
| 2023 SB2 | 2023-Sep-24 | 6.9 LD | 8 | 11 |
| 2023 SP3 | 2023-Sep-24 | 0.9 LD | 11.7 | 17 |
| 2023 ST2 | 2023-Sep-25 | 7.8 LD | 21.2 | 21 |
| 2023 SZ | 2023-Sep-25 | 5.6 LD | 4.3 | 24 |
| 2023 SY3 | 2023-Sep-26 | 3.4 LD | 7.9 | 14 |
| 2023 SO5 | 2023-Sep-26 | 13 LD | 16.8 | 24 |
| 2019 SF6 | 2023-Sep-26 | 16.7 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
| 2023 SP6 | 2023-Sep-26 | 1.5 LD | 17 | 9 |
| 2023 SE2 | 2023-Sep-27 | 7.7 LD | 24 | 25 |
| 2023 SF6 | 2023-Sep-27 | 3.8 LD | 17.4 | 20 |
| 2023 SY1 | 2023-Sep-28 | 7.2 LD | 10.1 | 12 |
| 2023 RF3 | 2023-Sep-28 | 15.4 LD | 7.7 | 38 |
| 2023 SW6 | 2023-Sep-28 | 3.5 LD | 11.9 | 18 |
| 2013 TG6 | 2023-Sep-28 | 3.6 LD | 4.1 | 17 |
| 2023 SE4 | 2023-Sep-29 | 5.3 LD | 4.6 | 14 |
| 2023 RF9 | 2023-Sep-29 | 10.6 LD | 9.2 | 26 |
| 2023 SC4 | 2023-Sep-30 | 12.4 LD | 8.3 | 22 |
| 2023 SA6 | 2023-Sep-30 | 16.4 LD | 9.7 | 22 |
| 2009 UG | 2023-Sep-30 | 6.1 LD | 9 | 78 |
| 2023 SY2 | 2023-Oct-01 | 9.1 LD | 9.9 | 21 |
| 349507 | 2023-Oct-03 | 16.5 LD | 21 | 696 |
| 2022 FX1 | 2023-Oct-04 | 20 LD | 9.9 | 25 |
| 2023 SN6 | 2023-Oct-04 | 12.6 LD | 8.5 | 27 |
| 2019 QO5 | 2023-Oct-05 | 19.9 LD | 9.4 | 61 |
| 2023 RF10 | 2023-Oct-05 | 15.8 LD | 5.8 | 27 |
| 2023 QC8 | 2023-Oct-05 | 15.8 LD | 6.3 | 43 |
| 2023 RR29 | 2023-Oct-06 | 9.2 LD | 8.1 | 34 |
| 2022 TD | 2023-Oct-07 | 8.9 LD | 9.4 | 10 |
| 2023 SA1 | 2023-Oct-08 | 17.9 LD | 5.9 | 26 |
| 2018 ER1 | 2023-Oct-08 | 12.5 LD | 5.3 | 27 |
| 2022 UX1 | 2023-Oct-11 | 3.1 LD | 8.6 | 9 |
| 2023 RD11 | 2023-Oct-11 | 12.8 LD | 9.6 | 39 |
| 2015 KW120 | 2023-Oct-12 | 18.2 LD | 13 | 22 |
| 2021 NT14 | 2023-Oct-13 | 18.6 LD | 8.6 | 254 |
| 2011 GA | 2023-Oct-15 | 6.8 LD | 16.6 | 230 |
| 2007 SQ6 | 2023-Oct-15 | 19.4 LD | 6.5 | 130 |
| 2019 UZ3 | 2023-Oct-16 | 9.6 LD | 8.3 | 14 |
| 1998 HH49 | 2023-Oct-17 | 3.1 LD | 14.8 | 193 |
| 2022 UO10 | 2023-Oct-19 | 7.8 LD | 9.8 | 16 |
| 2020 UR | 2023-Oct-20 | 5.8 LD | 12.9 | 9 |
| 2020 FM6 | 2023-Oct-23 | 15.5 LD | 15.9 | 149 |
| 2019 HH4 | 2023-Oct-24 | 13.3 LD | 20 | 365 |
| 2023 RA4 | 2023-Oct-24 | 8.4 LD | 3.9 | 49 |
| 2021 SZ4 | 2023-Oct-26 | 14 LD | 30 | 287 |
| 302169 | 2023-Oct-26 | 12.7 LD | 25.7 | 374 |
| 525229 | 2023-Oct-30 | 10.6 LD | 17.4 | 200 |
| 2013 UV3 | 2023-Nov-01 | 14.7 LD | 15.4 | 16 |
| 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 | 174 |
| 2016 VW2 | 2023-Nov-03 | 10.1 LD | 8.1 | 20 |
| 2019 UH7 | 2023-Nov-04 | 9.9 LD | 5.9 | 11 |
| 2014 BA3 | 2023-Nov-13 | 15.7 LD | 2.7 | 8 |
| 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 | 11 |
| 2022 VR1 | 2023-Nov-19 | 8.1 LD | 6.1 | 39 |
| 2019 UT6 | 2023-Nov-24 | 9 LD | 13.2 | 141 |
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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