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

SPACE WEATHER
Current
Conditions

Solar Wind
speed: 316.2 km/s
density: 3.0 protons/cm³
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0945 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: B1 0650 UT Jul23
24-hr: B2 0250 UT Jul23
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0945 UT

Daily Sun: 22 Jul '06

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

Sunspot Number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated: 22 Jul 2006

Far Side of the Sun

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

Interplanetary Mag. Field
B_total: 4.2 nT
B_z: 1.6 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0947 UT

Coronal Holes:

A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth as early as July 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 Jul 22 2203 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 2006 Jul 22 2203 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	10 %	30 %
MINOR	05 %	10 %
SEVERE	01 %	05 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	15 %	40 %
MINOR	05 %	15 %
SEVERE	01 %	10 %

What's Up in Space -- 23 Jul 2006
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The Perseid meteor shower is coming. Would you like a call when it's time to look? Sign up for Spaceweather PHONE.

AURORA WATCH: Two days ago on the sun, a magnetic filament snapped. The resulting explosion hurled a CME into space and sent beautiful waves of energy surging through the sun's atmosphere. The CME might strike a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on July 23rd, sparking a mild geomagnetic storm. Northern sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

SUN SPLASH: The surface of the sun is a million times more spacious than the surface of Earth. If you scan so much terrain every day, you're bound to see some strange and unexpected things:

Photo credit: Larry Alvarez and a Coronado SolarMax90.

"There was an interesting area on the sun today that looked like the splashing of a water droplet on the surface," reports photographer Larry Alvarez of Flower Mound, Texas. "It danced about, jetting out streams of matter every 30 minutes or so."

What's next? See for yourself.

GOLDEN GATE SHADOWS: Photographer Mila Zinkova looked over the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday and saw, suspended in the swirling fog, a rainbow around her shadow: (continued below)

Actually, this is not a rainbow. It's a Brocken Spectre.

Brocken Spectre are caused by fine droplets of misty water--i.e., fog. The droplets catch the rays of the sun and, through some combination of reflection and diffraction, produce rings of color around the observer's shadow. Although people on bridges and mountaintops have been observing Brocken Spectre for centuries, the physics of this phenonenon is not fully understood. It's a beautiful mystery.

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 Jul 2006 there were 796 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids

July 2006 Earth-asteroid encounters

ASTEROID	DATE (UT)	MISS DISTANCE	MAG.	SIZE
2004 XP14	Jul 3	1.1 LD	12	600 m
2006 BQ6	Jul 29	14 LD	16	500 m

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

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