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NOCTILUCENT CLOUD SEASON BEGINS: NASA's AIM spacecraft has just detected noctilucent clouds (NLCs) forming inside the Arctic Circle. NLCs are clouds of frosted meteor smoke. They should intensify in the weeks ahead, potentially spilling over the Arctic Circle into mid-latitudes where many people can see them. Browse: NLC Photo Gallery
A DEAD SUNSPOT EXPLODES (UPDATED): A magnetic filament snaking through the corpse of decayed sunspot AR3016 erupted on May 25th (1824 UT), producing a M1-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast:
Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) confirm that the explosion hurled a CME into space. A first look at the data suggests that the bulk of the CME will miss Earth, but there is clearly an Earth-directed component. A fraction of the CME will hit our planet on May 28th or 29th, . Computer modeling by NOAA analysts will soon refine the arrival time. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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METEOR OUTBURST POSSIBLE NEXT WEEK: In late 1995, Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 exploded. Next week, some of the debris might hit Earth.
Above: NASA images of Comet 73P still crumbling years after its initial breakup. [more]
Multiple forecasters agree that a meteor shower could erupt on May 31, 2022, when Earth runs into one or more debris streams from Comet 73P. The display could be as intense as a meteor storm (1000 or more meteors per hour) or as weak as nothing at all. No one knows how much debris is inside the approaching streams, so meteor rates are hard to estimate.
Whatever happens, people in North America are in a good position to see it. Almost the entire continent will be in Moon-free darkness when the shower peaks. Maximum activity is expected around 1:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (05:00 UT) on Tuesday morning, May 31st. The shower's radiant (the point from which all meteors stream) will be almost straight above Baja California.
Above: Altitude contours for the shower's radiant. Baja California is favored with zenith observing geometry. Image credit: Josselin Desmars (IMCCE/IPSA) [more]
This isn't the first time Earth has sampled debris from Comet 73P. In 1930, at least a handful of meteors were observed shortly after the comet's discovery by German astronomers. The meteors emerged from a radiant near 4th magnitude star tau Herculis, so the shower has since been called "the tau Herculid meteor shower." NASA cameras also detected minor tau Herculid activity in 2011 and 2017.
Based on past performance, the tau Herculids seem unlikely to produce a good show. For nearly a century the shower has been a dud. The X-factor this year is fresh material from the comet's catastrophic breakup. If the new meteoroids reach Earth--and that is a big IF--shooting stars will fly from a point near the bright star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes. Here is a sky map to help you find it.
To learn more about the tau Herculid meteor shower, we recommend this comprehensive paper by Joe Rao, a lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Also, a new analysis by Jérémie Vaubaillon of the Institute for Celestial Mechanics and Computation of Ephemerides in Paris raises the possibility of two additional outbursts on May 31st resulting from debris shed by Comet 73P in the years 1892 and 1897.
It all adds up to a date with the night sky at the end of the month. Don't miss it!
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MR. SPOCK BEER COZY: It's the logical way to keep your drink cool--a Mr. Spock beer cozy. This one has been to the edge of space. It hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon on May 21, 2022:
You can have it for $99.95. 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
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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 May 25, 2022, the network reported 3 fireballs.
(3 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 25, 2022 there were 2279 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2022 KU1 | 2022-May-20 | 16.6 LD | 6.1 | 24 |
| 2022 HD1 | 2022-May-20 | 15.3 LD | 6.8 | 60 |
| 2022 KA2 | 2022-May-20 | 1.8 LD | 9.9 | 9 |
| 2022 KL1 | 2022-May-20 | 1.5 LD | 9.6 | 12 |
| 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 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 | 26 |
| 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 KA | 2022-May-28 | 14.8 LD | 8.6 | 34 |
| 2022 JY | 2022-May-28 | 15.1 LD | 10.9 | 65 |
| 2022 KT | 2022-May-28 | 9.5 LD | 6.7 | 12 |
| 2022 KC1 | 2022-May-29 | 4.1 LD | 11.4 | 31 |
| 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 | 29 |
| 2020 DA4 | 2022-Jun-01 | 5.5 LD | 8.9 | 26 |
| 2022 KD2 | 2022-Jun-03 | 6.4 LD | 6.8 | 47 |
| 2022 KH1 | 2022-Jun-03 | 12.5 LD | 9.6 | 25 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
|
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 |
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