METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: This weekend, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquariid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on May 6-7 with 20 meteors per hour in the northern hemisphere, and twice that number in the southern hemisphere. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the hours before local sunrise on Monday morning, May 7th. [sky maps]
SOLAR WIND STORM: Blowing faster and arriving earlier than expected, a stream of solar wind engulfed Earth on May 5th. "Northern Lights were visible in Minnesota while there was still light in the western sky, an hour after sunset," reports Thomas Spence. He took this picture from his home in Tofte, MN:
"We had nice flare ups through midnight and into the morning," says Spence. "STEVE made a nice appearance, too!"
With gusts of nearly 700 km/s, the solar wind stream has so far produced geomagnetic storms of category G1 and G2. The gaseous material is flowing from a wide hole in the sun's atmosphere--so wide that Earth might remain inside the stream for some days. NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance that storming will continue on May 6th and 7th.
High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, especially in the southern hemisphere where deepening autumn darkness favors the visibility of Southern Lights. Free: Aurora Alerts.
FAR-OUT MOTHER'S DAY GIFT: Mother's Day is less than a week away. o get ready, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched an array of cosmic ray sensors to the stratosphere onboard a helium balloon. This Mother's Day pendant went along for the ride:
You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these pendants as a fund-raiser for their cosmic ray monitoring program. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation measurements and hands-on STEM education.
Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again. Mom-satisfaction guaranteed.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
WEST COAST ROCKET BLASTS OFF FOR MARS: On Saturday morning, for the first time ever, NASA launched a spacecraft to Mars from the US west coast. Carol Kunkis Cohn saw the powerful Atlas 5 rocket climbing into the sky from Corona Del Mar, California:
"We are about 200 miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the rocket was launched," says Cohn. "Despite the distance, we could see it clearly. The launch was awesome." Indeed, the Atlas 5 was visible as far away as Arizona.
The payload, NASA's InSight lander, is now en route to Mars. After it touches down on the Red Planet in November 2018, InSight will deploy a seismometer, listening to Marsquakes caused by meteorite impacts and, possibly, instabilities in the planet itself. This will allow researchers to map the interior of Mars for the first time.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery