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

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 593.5 km/s
density: 1.5 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0946 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B7 0655 UT Apr23
24-hr: B7 0655 UT Apr23
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0945 UT

Daily Sun: 22 Apr '06

Sunspot 874 has dissolved, leaving the sun spotless. Credit: SOHO/MDI.

Sunspot Number: 15
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 22 Apr 2006

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: 2.7 nT
B_z: 1.1 nT north
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0947 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from this large, weakly-organized coronal hole could reach Earth on or about April 24th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV 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 2006 Apr 22 2203 UTC

FLARE	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
CLASS M	05 %	05 %
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 2006 Apr 22 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	40 %	20 %
MINOR	05 %	05 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	50 %	30 %
MINOR	10 %	10 %
SEVERE	01 %	01 %

What's Up in Space -- 23 Apr 2006
Subscribe to Space Weather News

Don't you want your mom to see the space station? Spaceweather PHONE for Mother's Day.

VENUS & THE MOON: Set your alarm. Just before sunrise on Monday, April 24th, Venus and the crescent Moon will have a spectacular close encounter in the eastern sky. This is worth waking up for, and a wonderful way to begin the day. [sky map]

SOLAR ACTIVITY: "It is big and getting bigger by the hour," says Mila Zinkova of San Francisco, California. "I decided to photograph it as soon as possible because, if I waited longer, the Earth, which I added to the picture for comparison, would become too small to see!" It is this solar prominence, dancing today above the sun's northwestern limb:

Solar prominences are among the most entertaining targets for amateur astronomers. They are huge. They move. And you don't have to stay up late to see them. This one is expected to carry on for days to come.

more images: from Andreas Murner of Lake Chiemsee, Bavaria, Germany; from Didier Favre of Brétigny, France; from Pete Lawrence of Selsey, UK; from Eva Seidenfaden and Markus Weber of Trier, Germany; from James Jefferson of Ruislip, Middlesex, England; from Denis Joye of Paris, France; from Adrian Guzman of San Jose, California;

COMET NEWS: Fragment B of dying comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3 has split in two. Using a 4-inch refracting telescope, Mike Holloway of Arkansas photographed the pair last night as they passed the 5th magnitude star chi Bootes:

Look also for Fragment G in the full-sized image

"If they were going to hit something, would they be the Killer Bees?" jokes Holloway. No worries. Fragment B and all the other pieces of comet 73P will be at least 6 million miles away when they pass Earth in mid-May, close enough for a fantastic view, but no impact.

Other astronomers have photographed the breakup as well:

Ernesto Guido & Giovanni Sostero of Italy used a remote-controlled 14-inch telescope in New Mexico to obtain this image on April 22nd.
When he looked through his 8-inch telescope on April 21st, Anton Spenko of Tunjice, Slovenia, saw immediately that "the nucleus had broken in two parts": image
Eric J. Allen of the Observatoire du Cégep de Trois-Rivières, Quebec, was the first to submit a photo clearly showing the split on April 20th: image.

Sky maps: April 23, April 24, April 25.

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 23 Apr 2006 there were 778 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

April-May 2006 Earth-asteroid encounters

ASTEROID	DATE (UT)	MISS DISTANCE	MAG.	SIZE (meters)
2006 GY2	May 16	6.7 LD	13+	~0.8 km

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

Daily images from the sun -- 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.

Lists of Coronal Mass Ejections -- from 1998 to 2001

Mirages: Mirages in Finland; An Introduction to Mirages;

NOAA Solar Flare and Sunspot Data: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; Jan-Mar 2006;

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