Space Weather Screensaver
The Space Weather screensaver shows NOAA's live aurora-oval forecast glowing over a world map, alongside the planetary Kp-index and geomagnetic storm level on a colour-coded gauge. The data is from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center — no key needed. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the Space Weather screensaver works
The saver pulls two live products from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center: the OVATION aurora model — a global grid of aurora probabilities — and the planetary Kp-index, the standard 0-to-9 measure of geomagnetic activity.
The aurora grid has tens of thousands of points, so the saver paints them once to an offscreen image: each becomes a small green (or, where intensity is high, violet) glow, additively blended so the bright auroral ovals form around both poles.
That glow is drawn over a dimmed world map and gently pulsed, so the ovals shimmer the way the real ones do.
Underneath, the latest Kp-index is plotted on a colour gauge from green (quiet) to red (severe storm), with the matching storm scale (G1–G5) labelled. Higher Kp means the aurora pushes further from the poles toward populated latitudes.
A worked example
On a quiet day the gauge sits around Kp 2 · QUIET, with thin green ovals hugging the Arctic and Antarctic. During a geomagnetic storm it climbs — Kp 7 · G3 STORM — and the ovals swell and brighten, pushing south toward Canada, Scotland and Scandinavia, exactly when aurora chasers head out. The readout updates every few minutes.
Settings & tips
- The aurora glow and Kp gauge refresh automatically every few minutes — no settings needed to keep it current.
- Higher Kp (yellow to red on the gauge) means a stronger storm and aurora visible at lower latitudes.
- It needs an internet connection for the live NOAA data; offline it shows a short notice.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the aurora forecast real?
- Yes. It's NOAA's live OVATION aurora model plus the real planetary Kp-index, both from the Space Weather Prediction Center, refreshed every few minutes.
- What is the Kp-index?
- It's a 0-to-9 scale of global geomagnetic activity. Below 5 is quiet; 5 and above are geomagnetic storms, graded G1 to G5, when auroras grow and spread toward the equator.
- Where will the aurora be visible?
- The glowing ovals show where aurora is likely overhead. The higher the Kp, the further from the poles they reach — sometimes into the northern US, UK or central Europe.
- Does it need internet?
- Yes, it reads live NOAA feeds. Offline it shows a short notice instead of the map.
- Is the space weather screensaver free?
- Yes, free and browser-based with no key or download. Run it fullscreen and press ESC to exit.