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WEAK IMPACT: Arriving a full day earlier than expected, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 12th. The impact was weak and it did not immediately cause a geomagnetic storm. NOAA forecasts say G1-class storms are still possible, however, on Oct. 13th and 14th as Earth passes through the CME's magnetized wake.
WHAT'S NEXT? On Oct. 15th, another disturbance is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. This time it's coming from a coronal hole--a gap in the sun's atmosphere from which solar wind flows:
![](/web/20161013131007im_/http://spaceweather.com/images2016/13oct16/ch_strip.png)
At the leading edge of the emerging solar wind stream is a co-rotating interaction region (CIR)--that is, a transition zone between slow- and fast-moving solar wind. Shock waves and density gradients in CIRs often go a good job sparking auroras, so when it arrives on Oct. 15th polar auroras are likely. Stay tuned for pretty pictures. Free: Aurora Alerts.
Realtime
Aurora Photo Gallery
WHITE RAINBOW: On Oct 10th in Prosser, Missouri, the day began with a layer of fog blanketing the landscape. As the sun came up, "I noticed a beam of sunlight piercing the mist and landing in my backyard," says resident Juli McGahey. "I went outside and noticed a beautiful white rainbow."
![](/web/20161013131007im_/http://spaceweather.com/images2016/13oct16/fogbow_strip.jpg)
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing so I took this picture to show my husband!" she says.
In fact, this is a fogbow--a close cousin of the rainbow. Both rainbows and fogbows are caused by light reflected from water droplets. When the droplets are large (rain), they act like prisms, spreading the colors wide for easy visibility. When the droplets are small (fog), the prism-action is reduced, and colors are smeared together into a ghostly-white arc.
Look for them on foggy mornings whenever sunlight lances through the dispersing mist. They are less colorful than rainbows, but in their own way just as beautiful.
Realtime
Space Weather Photo Gallery
URSUS STRATOSPHERUS: To fund their cosmic ray research, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown 20 pairs of brown bears to the edge of space. Get your own pair for only $39.95--space helmets included. They make great gifts and Christmas stocking stuffers. Each adorable duo comes with a greeting card showing the bears in flight and certifying their trip to the stratosphere.
More funky edge-of-space gifts may be found in the Earth to Sky store. All proceeds support cosmic ray balloon launches and STEM education.
Realtime
Airglow Photo Gallery
Realtime
Sprite Photo Gallery
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Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
Updated: Sept. 29 2016 // Next Flight: Oct. 1, 2016
Sept. 20, 2016: Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here:
![](/web/20161013131007im_/http://spaceweather.com/cosmicrays/everything_11sep16_strip.png)
This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed 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. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California.
What is this all about? Approximately 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 radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 12% since 2015:
![](/web/20161013131007im_/http://spaceweather.com/cosmicrays/stratosphere_11sep16_strip.png)
Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.
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.
The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-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 Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
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 Oct. 12, 2016, the network reported 52 fireballs.
(47 sporadics, 4 Orionids, 1 Southern Taurid)
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
October 13, 2016 there were 1735
potentially hazardous asteroids.
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.
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The
official U.S. government space weather bureau |
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The
first place to look for information about sundogs,
pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
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Researchers
call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO
is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
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3D
views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial
Relations Observatory |
|
Realtime
and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
|
from
the NOAA Space Environment Center |
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a proud supporter of science education and Spaceweather.com |
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the
underlying science of space weather |
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