Issues On Call

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse Today. Solar Forecast

RING OF FIRE SOLAR ECLIPSE--TODAY! On May 9-10, the Moon will pass directly in front of the sun over the South Pacific, producing a "ring of fire" solar eclipse. At greatest eclipse, more than 95% of the sun's surface will be covered. The Coca-Cola Space Science Center is hosting a live webcast of the event from Australia! Tune in on May 9th beginning at 5 pm EDT. More: animation, map,details.

MAGNETIC ACTIVITY: A ragged, dynamic filament of magnetism is dancing along the sun's southwestern limb today. It is so large, more than 250,000 km from end to end, that amateur astronomers are able to see it in great detail using backyard solar telescopes. John Stetson sends this snapshot from Falmouth, Maine:

The magnetic underpinnings of this arching prominence may be connected to nearby sunspot AR1736, which is itself unstable and poses a threat for M-class solar flares. If the anchor is unstable, the overlying structure could collapse. Observers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor the southwestern limb for developments.

Solar wind
speed: 451.5 km/sec
density: 3.4 protons/cm³explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at 0037 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: C9 2316 UT May09
24-hr: C9 2316 UT May09
explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at: 2359 UT

Near Earth Asteroids

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 10, 2013 there were 1397 potentially hazardous asteroids.

Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid	Date(UT)	Miss Distance	Size
2013 JR7	May 10	9.1 LD	18 m
2004 BV102	May 25	69.9 LD	1.4 km
1998 QE2	May 31	15.2 LD	2.1 km
2009 FE	Jun 4	9.6 LD	230 m
2000 FM10	Jun 5	50.3 LD	1.3 km
2002 KL3	Jun 6	66.4 LD	1.1 km
1999 WC2	Jun 12	39.2 LD	1.9 km
2006 RO36	Jun 18	70.9 LD	1.2 km
2001 PJ9	Jul 17	29.2 LD	1.1 km
2006 BL8	Jul 26	9.3 LD	48 m
2003 DZ15	Jul 29	7.6 LD	153 m
2005 WK4	Aug 9	8.1 LD	420 m

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.

Source: SpaceWeather.com

The GOES X-ray Flux plot contains 5 minute averages of solar X-ray output in the 1-8 Angstrom (0.1-0.8 nm) and 0.5-4.0 Angstrom (0.05-0.4 nm) passbands. Data from the SWPC Primary and Secondary GOES X-ray satellites are shown. Some data dropouts from the Primary satellite will occur during satellite eclipses.

Other plots of interest: A black background version of this plot; GOES 1-min X-rays; SWPC Real-time Monitors.

SWPC X-ray alerts are issued at the M5 (5x10E-5 Watts/m2) and X1 (1x10E-4 Watts/m2) levels, based upon 1-minute data. Large X-ray bursts cause short wave fades for HF propagation paths through the sunlit hemisphere. Some large flares are accompanied by strong solar radio bursts that may interfere with satellite downlinks.