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SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT (UPDATED): Giant sunspot AR3354 erupted on June 29th (1415 UT), producing an M3.8-class solar flare (movie) and a shortwave radio blackout over the Atlantic Ocean (map). Newly arriving SOHO coronagraph data suggest that no significant CME will emerge from the blast site. . Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
GIANT SUNSPOT ALERT: When this week began, sunspot AR3354 didn't exist. Now it is 10 times wider than Earth and still growing. The sunspot burst into view on June 27th, breaching the surface of the sun, then blossoming into a giant over the next 48 hours: movie.
AR3354 is so big, amateur astronomers can see details normally reserved for the world's greatest telescopes. Michael Karrer sends this picture of the sunspot's dark heart from his backyard observatory in Austria
"Despite its gigantic size, the sunspot was not as easy to photograph as I expected," says Karrer. "The jetstream brought variable seeing to my observatory. But in a few moments of fair conditions I was able to capture this high-resolution image."
Karrer's photo shows that the sunspot's heart is not completely dark. It is peppered by "umbral dots"--incandescent balls of plasma rising and falling in the sunspot's core. Researchers believe they are turbulent convection cells, which dredge up heat from ~1000 km below. The same kind of motions can be seen in a pan of water boiling on a hot stove. The photo also resolves hundreds of "penumbral filaments," fine magnetic tubes that transport energy out of the sunspot.
While many astronomers are using telescopes to examine the sunspot, telescopes are not required. AR3354 can be seen without any magnification. If you have eclipse glasses, put them on and take a look. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
more images: from Stuart Green of Preston, Lancashire, UK; from Francisco A. Rodriguez of Vega de San Mateo, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands;
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NATURE'S SOLAR FILTER: Smoke from Canadian wildfires has spread so widely it's now in Europe. This is having an effect on the visibility of the sun. "We can see large sunspot group AR3354 even without a solar filter," reports Jean-Baptiste Feldmann, who sends this picture from Gleizé, France:
Inset into Feldmann's photo of the sunset is a NASA map of black carbon particles—commonly called soot—crossing the Atlantic Ocean. According to the UK Met Office, these particles are contributing to vivid sunrises and sunsets, and very poor air quality.
Sparked mainly by lightning around Quebec, Canada's unusually intense wildfire season has filled skies with smoke since May. Observers in North America have been watching smokey "sunspot sunsets" for weeks. Now Europeans can, too.
Warning: Even when the sun is dimmed by low-hanging smoke, it is still dangerous to look at with unfiltered optics. To avoid eye damage from magnified sunlight, always use your camera's LCD screen for pointing.
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RARE LT. UHURA MUG (COLLECTOR'S ITEM): You can't buy this on Amazon. Only the Earth to Sky Store has the rare Lt. Uhura Coffee Mug. Like the great translator of Star Trek, it has been to space:
On June 20th, this 16 oz. ceramic mug featuring the face of Nichelle Nichols flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon. At the apex of the flight, it floated 92,192 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California.
You can have it for $170.10 (the serial number of the Enterprise divided by 10). It comes with a greeting card showing the mug in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
MINOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters say that a CME might graze Earth's magnetic field on July 1st. It was launched into space two days ago by an erupting magnetic filament in the sun's northern hemisphere. The glancing blow, if it occurs, could spark a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
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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 28, 2023, the network reported 10 fireballs.
(10 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 29, 2023 there were 2335 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 ML3 | 2023-Jun-24 | 0.7 LD | 14.7 | 8 |
| 467336 | 2023-Jun-24 | 17.4 LD | 7.1 | 269 |
| 2008 LG2 | 2023-Jun-24 | 10.5 LD | 5.6 | 32 |
| 2023 MD | 2023-Jun-25 | 7 LD | 4.1 | 28 |
| 2023 MO5 | 2023-Jun-25 | 1.5 LD | 7.8 | 12 |
| 2023 MF1 | 2023-Jun-25 | 5 LD | 17.8 | 38 |
| 2023 MU2 | 2023-Jun-25 | 0.6 LD | 4.5 | 5 |
| 2023 ME1 | 2023-Jun-26 | 12.8 LD | 12.1 | 28 |
| 2023 MH4 | 2023-Jun-27 | 2.7 LD | 12.7 | 15 |
| 2023 MS2 | 2023-Jun-27 | 9.9 LD | 11.1 | 35 |
| 2023 MO2 | 2023-Jun-27 | 14.6 LD | 12.9 | 42 |
| 2023 MG4 | 2023-Jun-28 | 12.5 LD | 12.4 | 35 |
| 2013 WV44 | 2023-Jun-28 | 9.1 LD | 11.8 | 95 |
| 2023 MN1 | 2023-Jun-29 | 9.5 LD | 15 | 36 |
| 2023 MR1 | 2023-Jun-29 | 6 LD | 12.1 | 61 |
| 2023 MX2 | 2023-Jun-29 | 1.2 LD | 4.3 | 8 |
| 2022 MM1 | 2023-Jun-29 | 9.8 LD | 9.7 | 41 |
| 2023 LG2 | 2023-Jul-01 | 5.7 LD | 2.8 | 25 |
| 2020 NC | 2023-Jul-02 | 13.9 LD | 7.7 | 123 |
| 2023 MT1 | 2023-Jul-03 | 2.9 LD | 5.2 | 14 |
| 2023 HO6 | 2023-Jul-05 | 5.3 LD | 7.8 | 180 |
| 2023 ME4 | 2023-Jul-06 | 3 LD | 10.7 | 34 |
| 2023 LH2 | 2023-Jul-06 | 18.8 LD | 7.9 | 36 |
| 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 | 62 |
| 2023 MD2 | 2023-Jul-11 | 5.6 LD | 8.4 | 48 |
| 2023 MQ1 | 2023-Jul-11 | 10.7 LD | 6 | 51 |
| 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 |
| 2023 MM3 | 2023-Jul-22 | 19.1 LD | 6.4 | 40 |
| 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 |
| 2022 CP1 | 2023-Aug-17 | 13.8 LD | 9.8 | 12 |
| 2011 QJ21 | 2023-Aug-19 | 13 LD | 15.1 | 45 |
| 6037 | 2023-Aug-23 | 15.9 LD | 14.3 | 563 |
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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