GEOMAGNETIC STORM UNDERWAY: A G1-class geomagnetic storm is underway on Aug. 31st as Earth enters a stream of fast moving solar wind. First contact with the stream sparked bright auroras over Alaska. Forecasters expect the solar wind around Earth to blow faster than 600 km/s for at least the next 24 hours, so more high-latitude auroras are possible on Sept.1st. Free: Aurora Alerts
A NEW KIND OF SPRITE? Barely 30 years ago, many researchers did not believe that upper atmospheric lightning existed—until 1989 when researchers from the University of Minnesota captured them on video tape. Now there is a menagerie of accepted forms: sprites, elves, gigantic jets, gnomes. These "transient luminous events" (TLEs) appear above thunderclouds, reaching toward space rather than lancing down to the ground like regular lightning.
On Aug.14th, Thomas Ashcraft may have spotted a new kind of sprite. "I was photographing a cluster of sprites over a thunderstorm in western Oklahoma when something curved snaked up behind the main cluster." This frame from his video of the event shows the strange form:
What was it? Experts aren't sure.
Lightning researcher Oscar van der Velde at the Technical University of Catalonia says it could be a troll—a type of TLE that sometimes appears underneath sprites, crawling up tendrils dangling beneath the luminous clusters. "I have recorded many trolls," says van der Velde, "but never such weird curving ones. This is a really exceptional display."
Jozsef Bo'r of the Geodetic and Geophysical Research Institute in Hungary thinks it might be a type of gigantic jet. Gigantic jets are like sprites on steroids—powerful and bright. "A working hypothesis is that the red sprites in the photo occurred first and deposited a cloud of positive charge above the thundercloud. A subsequent gigantic jet was itself rich in positive charge and had to bend around the positive cloud on its way up."
Or it could be something unprecedented. "Even after almost 30 years of sprite observations, we are still seeing new things," says Walter Lyons, past president of the American Meteorological Society and a longtime observer of sprites. "Over the years I have seen thousands of sprites, but only a few curved structures like this -- so this is pretty rare."
"I don't know what to call them," says Ashcraft, who regularly monitors the sky around his private observatory in New Mexico for strange phenomena, "but I am going to keep my eyes open for more."
EDGE OF SPACE ECLIPSE PENDANTS: On Aug. 21st during the Great American Solar Eclipse, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched 11 space weather balloons from the path of totality. They aimed to photograph the Moon's shadow from the stratosphere--and they succeeded. As a fundraiser, some of the balloons carried pendants into the eclipse. Here's one dipping in and out of the Moon's shadow more than 86,000 feet above the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon:
During the 2.5 hour flight, the pendants were wrapped in the Moon's shadow for more than two minutes, experiencing a spooky darkness colder than -50 C.
You can have one for $149.95. Each pendant comes with a unique gift card showing the jewelry passing through the Moon's shadow and floating at the top of Earth's atmosphere. The interior of the card tells the story of the flight and confirms that this gift has been to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
ASTEROID FLORENCE APPROACHES EARTH: Asteroid 3122 Florence is approaching Earth for a 7 million km close encounter on Sept. 1st. There's no danger of a collision, but the space rock is large (4.4 km across) and it will be visible in small amateur telescopes during the nights around closest approach. Michael Jäger photographed the approaching asteroid from his private observatory in Weißenkirchen, Austria, on Aug. 29th:
"What a fast mover," says Jäger. "Minor planet Florence is now near Earth and shining like a star of magnitude +8 to +9."
Named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), "this is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began," says Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL. Radar imaging is planned at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The resulting radar images could reveal surface details as small as 10 meters. Stay tuned.Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery