HelioSpace

What am I looking at?

Sun today’s real image; circles mark sunspot regions (with their flare odds), pulsing spots recent flares.
Solar wind the stream flowing out from the Sun, coloured by its speed: green typical, then yellow, red and purple as it gets faster.
CME a cloud of solar plasma heading for Earth (NOAA’s model), coloured by the storm NOAA expects when it arrives: green quiet, yellow active, red G1–G2, purple G3 and up, grey not forecast yet. It fades the later it gets with no sign at L1; the faint tube is when it could arrive (±10 h). Tap its label for details.
L1 spacecraft measure the solar wind 1.5 million km upstream, about an hour before it reaches Earth; the green glow marks the one our readings use.
STEREO-A NASA spacecraft about 70° ahead of Earth in its orbit, watching CMEs side on: tap its label for its view.
Magnetosphere (blue shell) Earth’s magnetic shield; it shrinks when the solar wind pushes harder.
Radiation belts (green rings) particles trapped by Earth’s field, brighter when GOES measures more of them.
Aurora NOAA’s forecast of the aurora ovals for the next half hour or so.
Dots on the globe magnetometer stations; tap one for its last 24 hours.
Sky the Moon, planets, constellations and meteor showers as they are now.

Not to scale: the Sun and Earth are drawn far bigger than they are and much closer together, and L1 far further out, so it all fits on screen.