SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 540.4 km/s
density: 3.2 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0946 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B2 0730 UT Apr24
24-hr: B3 0155 UT Apr24
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0945 UT

Daily Sun: 24 Apr '05

There are no spots on the Earth-facing side of the sun today. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Sunspot Number: 35
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 23 Apr 2005

Far Side of the Sun

This holographic image reveals no large sunspots on the far side of the Sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI

Interplanetary Mag. Field
B_total: 4.8 nT
B_z: 2.6 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0947 UT

Coronal Holes:

Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Image credit: SOHO Extreme Ultraviolet Telescope

SPACE WEATHER
NOAA
Forecasts
Solar Flares: Probabilities for a medium-sized (M-class) or a major (X-class) solar flare during the next 24/48 hours are tabulated below.
Updated at 2005 Apr 23 2204 UTC

FLARE	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
CLASS M	01 %	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 2005 Apr 23 2204 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	30 %	25 %
MINOR	15 %	10 %
SEVERE	05 %	05 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	40 %	35 %
MINOR	20 %	15 %
SEVERE	10 %	05 %

What's Up in Space -- 24 Apr 2005
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AURORA WATCH: A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, but it is doing little to stir geomagnetic activity. The chances for auroras this weekend are subsiding.

OVER THE HORIZON: The sun is blank today--no sunspots. But that won't last long. A new sunspot group is about to emerge over the sun's eastern limb. How do we know? The sunspot's towering magnetic field is poking over the limb--see the image, right. It's like a distant ship whose sails appear on the horizon first, before the ship itself. Will this new sunspot group be a grand galleon or a puny sailboat? Stay tuned.

RAINBOW FRAGMENT: That's not an aurora! But it sure did look like one, says Mila Zinkova, who took this picture on April 3rd from the Big Island of Hawaii:

"Mila's telephoto shot has caught a rainbow fragment lighting a distant rain shower scudding over the ocean," explains atmospheric optics Les Cowley. "The 'bow curves low over the water because the sun was fairly high. When the sun is low rainbows are high and they sink lower as the sun climbs. Rainbows do not rise above the horizon when the sun is more than 42 degrees high and so in summer you must catch them within an hour or two of sunrise or sunset."

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 are on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

On 24 Apr 2005 there were 681 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids Mar.-Apr. 2005 Earth-asteroid encounters

ASTEROID	DATE (UT)	MISS DISTANCE	MAG.
2005 FN	Mar. 18	0.4 LD	14
2005 FA	Mar. 19	2.3 LD	17
2005 ER70	Mar. 19	9.2 LD	19
2005 EU2	Apr. 5	6.2 LD	18
2005 EE169	Apr. 6	5.9 LD	18

Notes: LD is a "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.

Essential Web Links

NOAA Space Environment Center -- The official U.S. government bureau for real-time monitoring of solar and geophysical events, research in solar-terrestrial physics, and forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.

Atmospheric Optics -- the first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. See also Snow Crystals.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory -- Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. (European Mirror Site)

Daily Sunspot Summaries -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Current Solar Images --a gallery of up-to-date solar pictures from the National Solar Data Analysis Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center. See also the GOES-12 Solar X-ray Imager.

Recent Solar Events -- a nice summary of current solar conditions from lmsal.com.

SOHO Farside Images of the Sun from SWAN and MDI.

The Latest SOHO Coronagraph Images -- from the Naval Research Lab

The Sun from Earth -- daily images of our star from the Big Bear Solar Observatory

List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

Observable Comets -- from the Harvard Minor Planet Center.

What is the Interplanetary Magnetic Field? -- A lucid answer from the University of Michigan. See also the Anatomy of Earth's Magnetosphere.

Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from NASA's ACE spacecraft. How powerful are solar wind gusts? Read this story from Science@NASA.

More Real-time Solar Wind Data -- from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Proton Monitor.

Aurora Forecast --from the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute

Daily Solar Flare and Sunspot Data -- from the NOAA Space Environment Center.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

What is an Iridium flare? See also Photographing Satellites by Brian Webb.

Vandenberg AFB missile launch schedule.

What is an Astronomical Unit, or AU ?

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; Jan-Mar., 2004;

Space Audio Streams: (University of Florida) 20 MHz radio emissions from Jupiter: #1, #2, #3, #4; (NASA/Marshall) INSPIRE: #1; (Stan Nelson of Roswell, New Mexico) meteor radar: #1, #2;

Recent International Astronomical Union Circulars

GLOSSARY | SPACE WEATHER TUTORIAL