What's new
The changes you can see on HelioSpace, newest first.
- New: space weather alerts. Turn them on on the Alerts page and this phone or computer gets a notification when a geomagnetic storm starts (G1 and up, unless you choose a stronger level), an M- or X-class solar flare erupts, or, if you choose, a shock in the solar wind passes the spacecraft upstream of Earth, even when HelioSpace isn't open. No account or email address needed; turning them off deletes what we kept for them. On iPhone and iPad, add HelioSpace to your Home Screen first. The privacy policy says what's kept.
- An app icon, for the browser tab and the Home Screen.
- A "Page not found" page for a mistyped or out-of-date link, with links to the rest of the site.
- The Sky calendar starts at yesterday for this month: "Show all" brings back the days before. The calendar file still has the whole month.
- Astrology from more traditions, shown as culture. From Vedic astrology, the Sankrantis, such as Makar Sankranti, and the sign changes of Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. From Western astrology, Jupiter to Neptune changing sign, and the sign of each new moon, full moon and eclipse. From the Chinese calendar, its 24 solar terms, festivals such as the Lantern, Dragon Boat, Qixi, Mid-Autumn and Double Ninth, Ghost Month, and each year's element and animal. We don't give any of it a meaning.
- The world's calendars on the Sky calendar. Jewish holidays, Ramadan and the Eids, Holi and Diwali, Vesak and the Buddha's Birthday, the Baháʼí New Year and Twin Holy Birthdays, Matariki, Setsubun, and Korea's and Vietnam's New Year when they fall on another day than China's. Also Maya calendar dates, Abu Simbel's sunrise, Manhattanhenge, Venus passing between the Earth and the Sun, eclipse seasons, and more "on this day" history: the red sky over Kyoto in 1770, the great storm of 1872, and the Easter Storm of 1940. Days when the big days of two or more traditions fall on the same date are marked "calendars meet".
- Stories from the sky. Now and then a ✧ after a name in the 3D view, such as Saturn on a Saturday or the Earth on a stormy day, means its card has a story: aurora lore from Finland, Shetland and the Inuit, eclipse myths, the Maya hearth in Orion, Māui's fish-hook in Scorpius, old records of the aurora, and more. A story may also pop up, at most once a week, or on a day when calendars meet, if you allow storage. Each story names its source. The switch under the Sun panel's Sky layers turns them off with the sky events.
- On phones, the Sun and Earth panels start closed, so the whole scene is in view: tap one to open it. Today's sky event, under the summary line, now sits at the left.
- Fixed: when the summary line was too long for one line, it dropped below its coloured dot.
- The Pattern Lab cheers your hits. Each hit gets a cheer in 3D, such as "Amazing! 🤩" or "Out of this world! 🛸", in one of four fonts and seven effects that take turns. Two or more hits in a row get a bigger callout with sparks: "3 in a row! Hat trick!". If your device is set to reduce motion, the cheer shows as still text. "This card was chosen before you guessed" is now gray rather than green, since green means a hit.
- Credits. On phones, the one-line credits now name JPL, whose published orbits our planet positions are worked out from.
- Open-source software. The About page now links a list of the open-source projects whose code or fonts the site uses, such as three.js, each with its licence in full.
- New: the Pattern Lab. "Test your luck" deals 25 Zener cards: guess each one, then see how your score compares with chance alone (1 in 5 a card) and how everyone's guesses add up. Everyone plays one run a day, "today's run". Try it as a guest; if you're 16 or over, sign up with a link we email you and that run is saved to your new account. With an account, your runs count toward your own results and titles, and you can finish a run on any device where you're signed in. Showing your name on the leaderboard and a public profile are up to you.
- New: the sky calendar. A month of sky events on one page, with the meteor shower peaks, and a button to add the month to your own calendar. Pick any date from 1932 to today to see that day's sky: the Moon's phase, the planets in the evening and morning sky, and the day's highest Kp.
- Sky events. Equinoxes and solstices, full moons and supermoons, the Moon's closest and farthest each month, eclipses (with a countdown in the header from a week before), planets turning retrograde, at opposition or gathered together, the Moon passing bright stars as seen from your place, Parker Solar Probe's closest passes to the Sun, Easter, Lunar New Year and Nowruz, and space-weather anniversaries. They show as banners, small icons in the panels and marks in the scene; the "Sky events" switch turns them off.
- Tap to learn. Tap the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, a planet, a constellation's name, a spacecraft or a CME for a card about it: what it is, how far away it is now and what it's doing. "Moon, planets & more" takes the camera to the Moon, a planet, a nebula or a galaxy.
- Travel in time. 🕒 slides the scene up to 30 days back or ahead: the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the sky events move with it, and the solar wind replays the last 24 hours. "Tour" shows what's happening now, a stop at a time.
- More sky. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The nebulae, clusters and galaxies now have their names on screen, a card each and five more objects: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, Omega Centauri, the Carina Nebula and the Double Cluster. "As first charted (500 BCE)" turns the stars back to where they stood when the zodiac was drawn up.
- Daylight. The Sun panel gives sunrise, sunset and day length for your time zone's main city, or a place you choose. It's worked out in your browser and never sent to us.
- Storm watches and warnings. NOAA's geomagnetic storm watches and warnings now show in the header, such as "G1 watch · today", with a card on what the level can mean.
- Streaks and records. The Sun panel shows the last X-class flare and the biggest flares this month and this year; the Earth panel shows the last geomagnetic storm.
- Users online now, at the bottom of the page.
- Panels. "Flares, last 24 h" starts open, right under "Last flare", and "Latest Kp" is one of the Earth panel's main rows. "More settings" is now just "More", and on phones it has "L1 → Earth" too.
- The summary line keeps a reading when GFZ's half-hourly index is late: the last one for up to 3 hours, then NOAA's latest 3-hour Kp.
- Your privacy choices, once more. "Users online now" counts you only if you allow analytics, so we ask everyone again. The privacy page also covers the Pattern Lab now, and says how long our backups keep copies.
- Your own time zone. Every time on the site now shows in your local time, with its zone (for example "3:42 PM CDT"), instead of UTC. The 24-hour graphs mark your midnight, 6 AM, noon and 6 PM.
- Simpler numbers. The summary line under the header shows the activity level and its number, such as "Quiet (1+)", without the index's name, and the Earth panel's "Latest Kp" shows just the value. The About page explains them.
- Fixed: on phones, the Moon could turn dark, and the Sun's glow and the spacecraft could disappear, after the tab had been in the background, until the page was reloaded.
- Fixed: flares that NOAA's lists miss now stay in "Recent flares" for the full 24 hours.
- New: the last 24 hours. The graph button in the Earth panel opens graphs of Kp, solar wind speed and density over the last day, every minute as measured, shaded with the gauges' colours.
- Geomagnetic activity right now. The summary line now uses GFZ's Hp30 index, a new value every half hour, rather than a 3-hour value.
- "Latest Kp" in the Earth panel is NOAA's value for the last finished 3-hour block. NOAA's running estimate for the block under way shows only in the Kp graph, marked "now".
- Fixed: M- and X-class flares that NOAA's flare lists miss are filled in from the X-ray readings, so "Recent flares" and "Last flare" match the alert.
- Fixed: reopening a tab that has been in the background refreshes the data straight away.
- Fixed: on desktop, the panels no longer run into the credits; they scroll instead.
- HelioSpace is live. The Sun, the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic surroundings in one live 3D scene, with alerts for flares, storms and incoming CMEs, the aurora forecast, ground magnetometers, the radiation belts and the sky.