SUBSIDING STORMS: Earth is exiting a stream of high-speed solar wind that caused G1-class geomagnetic storms and Arctic auroras during the long holiday weekend. The light show will probably subside as the solar wind slackens. Browse: aurora gallery.
NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS APPEAR OVER ANTARCTICA: This just in from NASA's AIM spacecraft: The sky above Antarctica is glowing electric blue. A ring of bright noctilucent clouds (NLCs) has formed around the South Pole, shown here in a Nov. 24th image taken by the spacecraft's Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) Instrument:
"This season started on Nov. 17th, and is tied with 2013 for the earliest southern hemisphere season in the CIPS data record," says Cora Randall, a member of the AIM science team at the University of Colorado.
NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. They form more than 80 km above Earth's surface. Indeed, they are a mixture of Earth and space: Wisps of summertime water vapor rising from the planet below wrap themselves around meteoroids, forming tiny crystals of ice. Emphasis on summertime; NLCs appear on the eve of summer in both hemispheres.
There is growing evidence that noctilucent clouds are boosted by climate change. In recent years they have been sighted at lower latitudes than ever before, and they often get started in earlier months as well.
"The early start of the 2016 season was not at all a surprise," says Randall. "The southern hemisphere polar stratospheric winds switched to their summer-like state quite early this year."
Readers, you can monitor developments over Antarctica right here on Spaceweather.com. "Daily daisies" from NASA's AIM spacecraft are automatically posted every 24 hours, showing the dance of electric-blue around the frozen continent.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
A FAR OUT STOCKING STUFFER: It's out of this world: the Sirius Space Pendant. To raise money for their space weather ballooning program, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown 3 dozen pendants to the edge of space–and you can have one for $69.95. The pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and certifying that it has been to the stratosphere and back again.
The pendants flew to the edge of space on Nov. 20, 2016, alongside an array of cosmic radiation sensors. (We're reducing the data now!) After the balloon exploded, the payload parachuted back to Earth, landing in the snowy San Antonio mountains north of Tonopah, Nevada, where a student team recovered it on Nov. 22nd.
The research of Earth to Sky Calculus is not supported by government grants or corporate donations. Instead, we are entirely crowd-funded. Proceeds from the sale of items like the Sirius Pendant go right back into cutting-edge student research. More edge of space Christmas gifts may be found in the Earth to Sky Store.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery