SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsGRAZING CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth on April 2nd @ 0100 UT. Weak discontinuities in solar wind data suggest a grazing impact. This appears to be the CME launched by an X1.3-class solar flare on March 30th (sunspot AR2975). Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible as Earth's magnetic field reverberates from the glancing blow
The K-index scale has a range from 0 to 9 and is directly related to the maximum amount of fluctuation (relative to a quiet day) in the geomagnetic field over a three-hour interval
The Kp index is derived through by an algorithm that essentially averages the K-indices from several stations. Note that as a storm becomes more intense, the edge of the auroral boundary typically moves to lower latitudes.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsA 'CANYON OF FIRE' JUST OPENED ON THE SUN: A dark filament of magnetism just whipsawed out of the sun's atmosphere, carving a gigantic canyon of fire. The walls of the canyon are at least 20,000 km high and 10 times as long. Fragments of the magnetic filament may soon emerge from the blast site in the form of an Earth-directed CME
GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G1-CLASS): Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on April 6th and 7th when at least one CME is expected to graze Earth's magnetic field. There might even be two strikes. A pair of CMEs left the sun over the weekend, one propelled by a solar flare (M4-class), the other by an exploding magnetic filament. Neither CME is heading directly for Earth, but they are both capable of glancing blows beginning midday on April 6th
SOLAR CYCLE UPDATE: New sunspot counts from NOAA confirm that Solar Cycle 25 is racing ahead of the official forecast--and the gap is growing:
MAGNETIC FILAMENTS ON THE SUN: Sunspots aren't the only things on the sun that explode. So do filaments of magnetism There are three of them on the sun today, circled in this photo from Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau of Rafaela, Argentina:
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsMagnetic filaments are plasma-filled tubes of magnetism that meander through the sun's atmosphere. They easily become unstable and erupt, hurling fragments of themselves into space. A CME from just such an eruption is due to graze Earth's magnetic field on April 6th.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsWAITING FOR THE CME: April 6th has passed quietly, contrary to predictions of a CME strike and geomagnetic storm. However, there is confidence that the CME is still coming. NOAA forecasters expect a glancing blow during the early hours of April 7th, possibly sparking minor G1-class geomagnetic storms.
CHINESE ROCKET PHOTOBOMBS AURORA: A week-long mystery has just been solved. On Tuesday, March 29th, webcams and sky watchers in the interior of Alaska, witnessed a strange blue ball of light cut across the night sky
Physicists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks had no explanation--except it looked gaseous.
At least it wasn't Russian this time...The explanation, it turns out, may be traced back to the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston says sightings of the orb in Alaska match the flight of a Chinese satellite.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsEyewitnesses said the orb was bigger than a full Moon. In fact, the cloud was a few hundred miles across. The tumbling rocket booster released its unused fuel into space where it froze and expanded into a nearly spherical cloud of ice, reflecting high-altitude sunlight above Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsOFF-TARGET CMEs MISS EARTH: A CME missed Earth on April 6th. Another CME missed Earth on April 7th. Now a third CME is coming--hurled into space yesterday by an erupting filament of magnetism on the sun. It is expected to miss Earth, too. Ripples from the near miss *might* cause minor geomagnetic unrest on April 11th
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroidsWEAK IMPACT: Arriving a day later than expected, a CME grazed Earth's magnetic field on April 8th (0400 UT). It was a weak, glancing blow that almost escaped detection. The CME was hurled into space near the edge of the Earth-strike zone on April 3rd by a "canyon of fire" filament eruption. Its tardy arrival did not spark a geomagnetic storm.