LOST SPACECRAFT STARTS TO SPILL ITS SECRETS: NASA's IMAGE spacecraft, lost in 2005 and re-discovered in 2018, is beginning to tell engineers what happened to it. New data decoded from IMAGE's telemetry stream indicate that the spacecraft has switched into an alternate power supply--a telltale sign of a systems' reboot. Rebooting may have been the 'jolt' that woke IMAGE up after years of sleep. Engineers will continue piecing together IMAGE's story as they attempt to regain control of this key space weather observatory. Stay tuned.
POLAR CROWN CORONAL HOLE: A large hole in the sun's atmosphere has formed around the sun's north pole. This is called a "polar crown coronal hole," and it is spewing solar wind into space. This image, based on data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows where the sun's magnetic field has opened up, allowing the gaseous material to escape:
Although this hole is not directly facing Earth, forecasters believe that some of the emerging solar wind could spill down and brush against our planet's magnetic field on Feb. 4th and 5th. Minor geomagnetic storms and Arctic auroras are possible when the solar wind arrives later this weekend. Free: Aurora Alerts
UNIQUE VALENTINE'S GIFT: Nothing says "I Love You" like a Valentine's pendant from the edge of space. On Dec. 31, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of these heart-shaped pendants to the stratosphere, 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface:
You can have one for $119.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. Sales of this pendant support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
THE EFFECT OF OZONE ON THE LUNAR ECLIPSE: When you think of a lunar eclipse, the color that comes to mind is red. The core of Earth's shadow is reddened by atmospheric scattering, and when that shadow falls across the Moon, the lunar landscape turns as red as a sunset. Yet some observers of the Jan. 31st lunar eclipse saw a different color: blue. Eliot Herman sends this picture from Tucson, Arizona:
"This is how the Moon looked about 4 minutes prior to totality," says Herman.
The source of the blue band is ozone. Eclipse researcher Richard Keen, an Emeritus professor at the University of Colorado explains: "Most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through the stratosphere, and is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This can be seen, he says, as a turquoise-blue fringe around the red.
Keen was in Hawaii for the eclipse, and he saw it, too. "The blue band was easy to see through binoculars during the last minutes of totality, although naked-eye observers might have missed it. A number of pictures submitted to Spaceweather.com do justice to the visual appearance." Browse the gallery for more ozone:
Realtime Lunar Eclipse Photo Gallery