Two Solar Cycles at Once & A Big Meteor Nearly Hits | Space Weather News 10.10.2019

Our Sun keeps our attention focused even though space weather remains reasonably quiet this week. We have had several bright regions appear in Earth-view. The largest of these regions was strong enough to be officially designated as a sunspot (region 2749) from Solar Cycle 24. But then two high latitude bright regions emerged, one in the north and one in the south. These two regions both had Solar Cycle 25 polarity, which means this is one of the rare moments when we have active regions from two different solar cycles in both the northern and southern hemispheres in view at the same time! Unfortunately, if you blinked, you missed this rarity, as the new regions faded quite quickly. As a result, the solar flux has remained low and radio propagation continues to be poor on Earth’s dayside. We do have a remnant coronal hole rotating through the Earth-strike zone now. Its been sending us some sporadic fast solar wind, which has bumped us up to active conditions sporadically. However, aurora views are expected to be sporadic and elusive, especially at mid-latitudes. Take a closer look at the ongoing solar activity, including the new active regions, see how the fast solar wind hitting now will affect you, and learn about the meteor that nearly hit the ground in Southern California this week!