Tag Archives: cosmos

April 1st Aurora

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PRIL AURORAS: According to the space weather forecast, geomagnetic storms were unlikely on April 1st. It would’ve been foolish to go out looking for Northern Lights. Warren Gammel of Fairbanks, Alaska, decided to check the skies anyway, and this is what he saw:

“I didn’t expect to see too much when I went out at 2 a.m. on April 1st, but the auroras were fairly strong,” he says. “I took these pictures using a Canon T1i with a Pelang 8mm fisheye lens.”

The display was caused by a minor but effective solar wind stream that arrived during the early hours of April 1st. The impact sparked bright lights across the Arctic realm of North America.

 

Geomagnetic Storm

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GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A solar wind stream hit Earth’s magnetic field during the early hours of March 1st, sparking a day-long magnetic storm that is subsiding but perhaps not over yet. In recent hours, spotters have reported auroras over Northern Ireland, Scotland, Latvia, Norway, and Sweden. High-latitude sky watchers in North America should be alert for green lights as night falls across their continent. Stay tuned! [Aurora alerts: phone, text]

NASA space physicist James Spann sends this picture from Poker Flats, Alaska, where he is attending a scientific conference to study auroras:

Photo details: Nikon D700 with 14-24mm lens at f/3.5, exposure of 25 seconds at 14 mm, ISO 1000

“This is the first time I have seen the aurora borealis in person,” says Spann who lives in Alabama. “It was fantastic–the greatest light show on Earth. It was cold (<-20 F) outside but worth every minute of exposure and lost sleep. I am afraid now that I have been ruined for life since my first personal viewing of the aurora was so amazing." As a researcher he also appreciated the greater meaning of the display: "This is the most obvious and accessible evidence of the connectivity that Earth has with our star the sun. Witnessing the connectivity first-hand was particularly special to me."

2 Planets Share 1 Orbit

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Two planets found sharing one orbit

Updated 18:01 24 February 2011 by Marcus Chown
Magazine issue 2801. Subscribe and save
Buried in the flood of data from the Kepler telescope is a planetary system unlike any seen before. Two of its apparent planets share the same orbit around their star. If the discovery is confirmed, it would bolster a theory that Earth once shared its orbit with a Mars-sized body that later crashed into it, resulting in the moon’s formation.

The two planets are part of a four-planet system dubbed KOI-730. They circle their sun-like parent star every 9.8 days at exactly the same orbital distance, one permanently about 60 degrees ahead of the other. In the night sky of one planet, the other world must appear as a constant, blazing light, never fading or brightening.

to read more, go to:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20160-two-planets-found-sharing-one-orbit.html

Comment: Does this add to the possibility for the ‘Other Earth’?

incredible Solar Flare

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EASTERN BLAST: The quiet didn’t last long. Earth-orbiting satellites detected an M3-class solar flare at 0735 UT on Feb. 24th. The source was an active region located just behind the sun’s eastern limb. The eruption produced strong radio emissions, a coronal mass ejection (not Earth directed), and this spectacular picture taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
check out spaceweathr.com for pictures and movies of the event

More Solar Flares & Disruptions

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ANOTHER X-FLARE–ALMOST: Fast-growing sunspot complex 1161-1162 erupted on Feb. 18th, producing an M6.6-class solar flare. The almost-X category blast was one of the strongest flares in years and continued the week-long trend of high solar activity. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of more M-flares during the next 24 hours.

WAVES OF IONIZATION: Waves of ionization are rippling through Earth’s upper atmosphere in response to the recent onslaught of solar flares. This affects the propagation of radio signals–suppressing some frequencies and boosting others. By monitoring distant transmitters at a frequency of 23.4 kHz, Rudolf Slosiar of Bojnice, Slovakia detected nearly a dozen sudden ionospheric disturbances (SIDs) on Feb. 18th:

…More waves of ionization are iin the offing as sunspot complex 1161-1162 continues to crackle with M-class solar flares.

go to spaceweather.com to read more

Another Planet?

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About that Giant Planet Possibly Hiding in the Outer Solar System…
by NANCY ATKINSON on FEBRUARY 16, 2011
Siding Spring Comet found by the WISE spacecraft. credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
An old story got new legs this week as word went viral of a possible new 9th planet in our solar system – a gas giant bigger than Jupiter – which could be hiding somewhere in the Oort Cloud, just waiting to be found.
An article this week in The Independent suggested the new planet, called Tyche, had already been found among data from the WISE mission. This prompted the WISE team to post a rebuttal on their Facebook page: “Not true. A pair of scientists published a paper stating that if such a big planet exists in the far reaches of the Solar System, then WISE should have seen it. That is true. But, analysis over the next couple of years will be needed to determine if WISE has actually detected such a world or not.”
To make sense of this all, Universe Today sought out a scientist who has looked at the outer solar system as much as anyone, if not more: Mike Brown, of Eris, Haumea and Makemake fame – to get his take on Tyche.
To read more, go to:

About that Giant Planet Possibly Hiding in the Outer Solar System…by NANCY ATKINSON on FEBRUARY 16, 2011
Siding Spring Comet found by the WISE spacecraft. credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAAn old story got new legs this week as word went viral of a possible new 9th planet in our solar system – a gas giant bigger than Jupiter – which could be hiding somewhere in the Oort Cloud, just waiting to be found.
An article this week in The Independent suggested the new planet, called Tyche, had already been found among data from the WISE mission. This prompted the WISE team to post a rebuttal on their Facebook page: “Not true. A pair of scientists published a paper stating that if such a big planet exists in the far reaches of the Solar System, then WISE should have seen it. That is true. But, analysis over the next couple of years will be needed to determine if WISE has actually detected such a world or not.”
To make sense of this all, Universe Today sought out a scientist who has looked at the outer solar system as much as anyone, if not more: Mike Brown, of Eris, Haumea and Makemake fame – to get his take on Tyche.
To read more, go to:

http://www.universetoday.com/83363/about-that-giant-planet-possibly-hiding-in-the-outer-solar-system/

New Solar Flare

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MAJOR FLARE:  Earth-orbiting satellites have detected the strongest solar flare in more than four years.  At 0156 UT on Feb. 15th, giant sunspot 1158 unleashed an X2-class eruption.  X-flares are the strongest type of x-ray flare, and this is the first such eruption of new Solar Cycle 24.  The explosion that produced the flare also sent a solar tsunami rippling through the sun’s atmosphere and, more importantly, hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth. This raises the possibility of geomagnetic storms in the days ahead. Visit http://spaceweather.com for images and updates.

New Solar Flare

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EARTH-DIRECTED SOLAR FLARE: On Feb. 13th at 1738 UT, sunspot 1158 unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year so far, an M6.6-category blast. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation, circled below:

The eruption produced a loud blast of radio waves heard in shortwave receivers around the dayside of our planet. In New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded these sounds at 19 to 21 MHz. “This was some of the strongest radio bursting of the new solar cycle,” he says. “What a great solar day.”

to read more about this, go to:

http://spaceweather.com/

Sun’s Plasma Bullets

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DODGING PLASMA BULLETS: The remains of old sunspot complex 1147-1149 are rotating over the eastern limb today. Although the region is in an advanced state of decay, it’s not dead yet. During the late hours of Feb. 11th, a plasma bullet came rocketing out of the region’s unstable core. Watch the movie–but don’t blink, because it’s fast (21 MB Quicktime):


Movie formats: 21 MB Quicktime, 1.3 MB mpeg, 0.5 MB iPad. Credit: SDO

The eruption was not geoeffective. Earth’s magnetic field will remain undisturbed as the ‘bullet’ sails wide-left of our planet over the weekend.

This region has been spitting plasma and crackling with flares since it first emerged more than a month ago on Jan. 10th. Remarkably, however, every eruption so far has missed Earth. Why? It’s just luck: Most of the blasts occurred while AR1147-1149 was on the far side of the sun. Statistically speaking, a plasma bullet in our direction may be overdue

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