Data sources & attribution

Aurorix stands on public, authoritative data. Every number on this site comes from one of the feeds below — named, linked, and with the update cadence and cache window we apply to it. We attribute generously and cache politely.

Every feed we consume

Manifest last verified 2026-07-12; re-checked weekly through 2026 (L1 transition).

"Stale after" is the age at which we stop presenting a value as current and show a "data as of" notice instead. "Cached" is how long our edge holds a response before re-fetching — the number you see can therefore be up to that old, and its own observation timestamp is always shown alongside it. During a G3+ storm watch we halve most of these windows, so the figures above are the slowest case, not the typical one.

Which spacecraft is "SOLAR-1"?

The solar-wind readings come from whichever spacecraft NOAA has designated active at the L1 point, about 1.5 million km sunward of Earth. Through 2026 that fleet is in transition, so the label can change under you:

• SOLAR-1 — NOAA's Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), launched 24 September 2025 and renamed SOLAR-1 (Space weather Observations at L1 to Advance Readiness – 1) on arrival at L1 in January 2026. It is NOAA's first satellite dedicated solely to operational space weather.
• IMAP — NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, whose I-ALiRT real-time beacon also began delivering in 2026.
• DSCOVR (since 2016) and ACE (since 1998) — the previous workhorses, still carried as fallbacks.

We follow NOAA's own active flag when the feed exposes one, and otherwise prefer the newest available spacecraft in that order. The dashboard names the spacecraft each reading came from, so a mid-storm handover is visible rather than silent.

What we compute ourselves

Two things on this site are not fetched from anyone — they are calculated, and you should judge them accordingly:

• Darkness, moon and sun geometry — computed in your browser with Astronomy Engine. No third-party call, no coordinates transmitted.
• Your geomagnetic latitude and the Kp you would need — a centred-dipole conversion (±2° typical error) mapped against the published ~2°-per-Kp relation between Kp and the oval's equatorward edge. This is the single biggest source of uncertainty in a local verdict, and why we give you the reasoning rather than just a number.

Limitations you should know about

Aurora forecasting is probabilistic. Clouds, light pollution, a blocked northern horizon, or simply a substorm that fires an hour before you look outside can each defeat an otherwise perfect geomagnetic forecast. A favourable reading here means the odds are good, never that you will see it.

Observation is not forecast. Kp observed is a measured 3-hourly index that lags reality by up to three hours; Kp forecast is NOAA's prediction, reissued twice daily. The solar-wind readings are the closest thing to real time — but they are measured at L1, roughly 30–60 minutes upstream of Earth, which is exactly why we can offer a lead time at all.

Our staleness policy

NOAA can serve old data with a normal HTTP 200. So every value we show is timestamped, and if a feed falls behind its usual cadence we display the last-known-good value with a clear "data as of" notice rather than pretend it's current. If a feed cannot be reached at all we say so and drop the part of the forecast that depended on it — we never substitute sample data for a live reading. During the 2026 L1-fleet transition we re-check feed formats weekly.

Aurorix is independent and educational — not an official NOAA product, and not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA, NWS or SWPC.