| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 3 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 5 storm explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 9.37 nT Bz: 0.05 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 1150 UT Coronal Holes: 27 May 22 Solar wind flowing from these coronal holes should reach Earth on May 27-28. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Noctilucent cloud season has begun. NASA's AIM spacecraft detected the first NLCs of 2022 around the Arctic Circle on May 22nd. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated May27 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2022 May 27 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 10 % | 01 % | CLASS X | 01 % | 01 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2022 May 27 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 35 % | 25 % | MINOR | 20 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 05 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 10 % | 20 % | MINOR | 30 % | 30 % | SEVERE | 50 % | 30 % | | | | | | | | | | | | Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when magnetic storms erupt. Aurora your guides and professional astronomers use this service. You can, too! | | | SUBSIDING GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit Earth's magnetic field today, May 27th, sparking a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm. CIRs are transition zones between fast- and slow-moving solar wind streams. They contain shock waves that do a good job rattling Earth's magnetic field. After peaking with a K-index of 5, the storm is now subsiding.. Geomagnetic storm alerts: SMS Text NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS OVER SCOTLAND: Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are spilling out of the Arctic Circle. Andy Stables photographed them last night from Glendale on the Isle of Skye, Scotland: "The first NLCs of the season showed up at 00:45 UT on May 27th," says Stables. "Zoom into this full-sized shot to see the fine wave structures that so often appear in NLCs." NLC season has definitely begun. In the northern hemisphere, early-summer plumes of water vapor are drifting up to the edge of space where water molecules stick to specks of meteor smoke. The resulting ice crystals form noctilucent clouds. NASA's AIM spacecraft spotted the first NLCs of the 2022 season near the North Pole on May 22nd. Now people outside the Arctic Circle are seeing them, too. The clouds should intensify and spread to lower latitudes in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned for electric blue. Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter A 'GREEN GHOST' OVER TIBET: Three years ago, a photographer in Oklahoma discovered the first "Green Ghost"--a patch of verdant light that appears when powerful sprites strike the top of Earth's atmosphere. Now the phenomenon has been detected in Tibet as well. Soheil Esy was trekking through the Himalaya on May 19th when this spectcular wall of sprites lit up the night sky: "This happened on my 13th night of star chasing in Tibet, carrying 4 camera stands and lenses with multiple focal lengths," says Esy. "I have always believed that you should give yourself completely to nature, wait and prepare unceasingly, and the sky will reward you with more than you can imagine. My patience was definitely rewarded." "The outbreak was triggered by strong lightning over China, perhaps hundreds of kilometers away," he continues. "We could also see ripples of red airglow surrounding the sprites. It was truly the fireworks of the Universe." After one outburst subsided, Esy photographed a green afterglow--the Green Ghost: Researchers are still learning about this phenomenon. A leading theory holds that Green Ghosts appear when the tops of strong sprites hit the airglow layer ~90 km above Earth's surface. Oxygen atoms briefly glow green, marking the location of the impact. "I believe this could be the first Green Ghost sighted over China," says Esy, "and the image could provide valuable data for research." Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter CAPT. KIRK BEER COZY: Boldly going where no beer has gone before, this Capt. Kirk beer cozy flew to the edge of space on May 21, 2022. It hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon. Here it is parachuting back to Earth from an altitude of 109,888 feet: You can have it for $97.95. The students are selling beer cozies (beer not included) to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. They make great Father's Day and birthday gifts. Each one comes with greeting card showing the cozy 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 Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter Realtime Space Weather 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 May 27, 2022, the network reported 2 fireballs. (2 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 May 27, 2022 there were 2279 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2022 KG1 | 2022-May-22 | 0.2 LD | 9.1 | 6 | 2022 KH | 2022-May-22 | 3.8 LD | 15.8 | 30 | 2013 KS1 | 2022-May-24 | 2.6 LD | 9.3 | 16 | 2022 KJ | 2022-May-24 | 9.6 LD | 14.2 | 22 | 2022 KY | 2022-May-24 | 2.1 LD | 10.3 | 14 | 2022 KW2 | 2022-May-25 | 7.8 LD | 8.8 | 40 | 2022 KZ | 2022-May-25 | 2.4 LD | 11.9 | 18 | 2022 KK | 2022-May-25 | 1.4 LD | 14.2 | 15 | 2022 KX | 2022-May-25 | 2.5 LD | 16.8 | 25 | 2022 KV | 2022-May-27 | 6.2 LD | 11.1 | 23 | 2022 KZ1 | 2022-May-27 | 9.6 LD | 22.5 | 21 | 7335 | 2022-May-27 | 10.5 LD | 13.1 | 1078 | 2022 JU1 | 2022-May-27 | 15.1 LD | 6.1 | 36 | 2022 KK3 | 2022-May-28 | 2 LD | 10.6 | 8 | 2022 KA | 2022-May-28 | 14.8 LD | 8.6 | 34 | 2022 JY | 2022-May-28 | 15.1 LD | 11 | 66 | 2022 KF3 | 2022-May-28 | 3.6 LD | 20.9 | 13 | 2022 KT | 2022-May-28 | 9.5 LD | 6.7 | 12 | 2022 KC1 | 2022-May-29 | 4.1 LD | 11.4 | 32 | 2021 KO2 | 2022-May-30 | 3.1 LD | 14.8 | 9 | 2022 KD1 | 2022-May-30 | 4.6 LD | 10 | 21 | 2022 HT2 | 2022-May-30 | 11.9 LD | 15.7 | 224 | 2022 KB1 | 2022-May-31 | 4 LD | 17.3 | 31 | 2020 DA4 | 2022-Jun-01 | 5.5 LD | 8.9 | 26 | 2022 KD2 | 2022-Jun-03 | 6.4 LD | 6.8 | 48 | 2022 KH1 | 2022-Jun-03 | 12.5 LD | 9.6 | 25 | 2022 KJ3 | 2022-Jun-03 | 17.9 LD | 7.7 | 31 | 2022 KB3 | 2022-Jun-06 | 2.9 LD | 11.9 | 17 | 2021 GT2 | 2022-Jun-06 | 9.5 LD | 7.5 | 50 | 2022 KV1 | 2022-Jun-08 | 11.2 LD | 15.2 | 61 | 2018 LU2 | 2022-Jun-09 | 14.8 LD | 10.7 | 16 | 2022 KM1 | 2022-Jun-09 | 16.3 LD | 11.1 | 42 | 2022 KC3 | 2022-Jun-10 | 6.4 LD | 4.6 | 17 | 2006 XW4 | 2022-Jun-12 | 5.9 LD | 7.3 | 49 | 2022 GU6 | 2022-Jun-12 | 3.2 LD | 8.4 | 88 | 2015 WP2 | 2022-Jun-26 | 18.5 LD | 11.4 | 3 | 2022 JE1 | 2022-Jul-03 | 8.6 LD | 5.6 | 72 | 2021 EL4 | 2022-Jul-05 | 19.8 LD | 9.5 | 25 | 2015 OQ21 | 2022-Jul-12 | 18.3 LD | 6.6 | 9 | 2021 OT | 2022-Jul-17 | 16.5 LD | 11.2 | 20 | 349068 | 2022-Jul-19 | 17.6 LD | 22.9 | 756 | 2017 RX2 | 2022-Jul-24 | 17.2 LD | 14.2 | 17 | 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 (Nov. 2021): Our balloons have just measured a sudden drop in atmospheric radiation. It happened during the strong geomagnetic storms of Nov. 3-4, 2021. Here are the data: This is called a "Forbush decrease," named after American physicist Scott Forbush who studied cosmic rays in the early 20th century. It happens when a CME from the sun sweeps past Earth and literally pushes cosmic rays away from our planet. Radiation from deep space that would normally pepper Earth's upper atmosphere is briefly wiped out. We have measured Forbush decreases before. For example, here's one from Sept. 2014. The Forbush Decrease of Nov. 3-4, 2021, was the deepest in the history of our 7-year atmospheric monitoring program. Radiation levels in the stratosphere over California dropped nearly 20%, more than doubling the previous record from our dataset. En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes, so we can sample radiation where planes fly. This plot shows how the Forbush decrease was restricted to the stratosphere; it did not affect lower levels of the atmosphere: The dose rates shown above are expressed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x. The higher you fly, the more radiation you will absorb. .Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can seed clouds, 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. Somewhat more controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) link 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 first graph ("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 | | 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 | | Going above and beyond to provide the best homes listings in the Comox real estate market to keep you up to date and informed | | BestCSGOGambling is the best site for everything related to CSGO gambling on the web | | To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings. 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