C-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: This weekend, sunspot AR2699 is directly facing Earth. At 1321 UT on Feb. 10th, the sunspot's magnetic canopy erupted, producing a C4-class solar flare. Extreme UV radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, caused a brief 'brownout' of shortwave radio signals over South America and the South Atlantic Ocean: map. Frequencies affected were below 10 MHz. Free: Solar Flare Alerts
STARMAN, 1 MILLION KILOMETERS AWAY: On Feb. 10, 2018, Enrico Pettarin of Farra dIsonzo, Italy, photographed Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster more than 1 million km from Earth "It was very faint," says Pettarin, "shining in reflected sunlight like a 17th magnitude star, but I was able to photograph it using my 0.4-meter telescope."
Launched on Feb. 6, 2018, by a Falcon Heavy Rocket at Cape Canaveral, the Roadster is traveling around the sun on an elliptical orbit that will take it beyond the orbit of Mars. Every day it is getting farther from Earth.
Other amateur astronomers around the world have also been photographing the distant electric car, piloted by a space-suited mannequin named "Starman." At the moment, Pettarin holds the distance record. But stay tuned, because records are meant to be broken!
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
A CRACK IN EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD: Lights over Lapland tour guide Oliver Wright wasn't expecting a great display of auroras on Feb. 8th when he took his guests into the snowy recesses of Sweden's Abisko National Park. There was no geomagnetic storm in the forecast. Nevertheless, this happened:
"The planetary K-index (Kp, an indicator of global geomagnetic activity) was less than 1--that is, very low. There should have been no auroras," says Wright. "Yet we saw a beautiful display of pink, purple and green."
What happened? Wright has the answer: "On Spaceweather.com, I saw 'B sub z' tipping south." This opened a crack in Earth's magnetic field. "Solar wind came flooding in and caused a nice display of auroras over Abisko."
"I've been telling our guests not to pay too much attention to Kp," says Wright. "Tonight was a brilliant example." Indeed it was. Around the Arctic Circle, auroras routinely defy Kp. Browse the gallery for more examples. Free: Aurora Alerts
VALENTINE'S DAY IS NEXT WEEK! Does your sweetheart love auroras? As a Valentine's Day fundraiser, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of Northern Lights pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one 109,908 feet above the Sierras of central California:
They make great Valentine's gifts, and you can have one for $99.95. Each necklace comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again. Sales 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