HAPPY SOLSTICE: The seasons are changing. At 6:07 a.m. EDT on Thursday, June 21st, the sun will reach its highest point on the celestial sphere, marking the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. Spaceweather.com will celebrate the solstice by launching a cosmic ray balloon from the north island of New Zealand. Stay tuned for updates from the winter stratosphere and, where ever you live, Happy Solstice!
FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT: Yesterday, sunspot AR2715 did not exist. Today, it sprawls across more than 60,000 km of solar surface with a primary dark core wider than Earth. Philippe Tosi photographed the growing active region from his backyard observatory in Nîmes, France:
Note: A picture of Earth has been inserted for scale.
"The seeing was good and I also caught a minor solar flare arcing between the sunspot's two main cores," says Tosi.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is monitoring this region, and latest images from SDO show the sunspot continuing to grow. The cycle of sunspot genesis, so far, may be seen in this 24-hour movie.
This is a "Solar Minimum sunspot." In recent months, sunspot numbers have plummeted as the solar cycle shifts toward a deep minimum. On more than half of the days so far in 2018, the face of the sun has been completely blank without any sunspots at all. Even during Solar Minimum, however, big sunspots pop up from time to time--hence, AR2715. We will monitor this region carefully and post frequent updates about its potential for flares. Stay tuned. Free: Solar Flare Alerts.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
'FROZEN LIGHTNING' OVER SCOTLAND: On Tuesday night, June 19th, observers in Scotland witnessed a magnificent apparition of noctilucent clouds (NLCs). "It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The strange and ethereal clouds resembled frozen lightning," says Giuseppe Petricca, who took this pictre from the Isle of Lewis:
The widely-observed clouds over Scotland were remarkable for their intensity and fine rippling structure. NASA's AIM spacecraft in Earth orbit saw them, too, and confirmed that NLCs forming at the edge of space are now spilling out of the Arctic into Europe and Canada.
"Structures that seem never-changing, created at temperatures below one hundred degrees below zero, using meteor dust as seed, of a color that goes from the pure white to the electric blue, forged an almost otherworldly view, above the eternal sunset of these latitudes--an experience that will be impossible to forget!" says Petricca.
Summer is the season for noctilucent clouds. NLCs form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise to the top of Earth's atmosphere and wrap themselves around specks of "meteor smoke." High-altitude winds in the mesosphere gather the resulting crystals into strange electric-blue forms in the night sky. The first full night of northern summer is on June 21st, so stay tuned for more!
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
ONE RING TO RULE THE STRATOSPHERE: Today, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus are in New Zealand preparing to launch a trio of cosmic ray balloons over Earth's 8th continent. But first... on June 12th they launched a ring of power to the stratosphere. Here it is floating 33 km above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have one for $119.95. The students are selling these Tolkien-inspired rings as a fundraiser for their trip. They are made of golden-colored tungsten and inscribed with the authentic Mordor script of the One Ring.
Buy one now, and we will fly it again for you over Hobbiton, located in the North Island of New Zealand where our cosmic ray balloons will be released. Just note "Please fly it again!" in the comments section at checkout.
Each golden ring comes with a greeting card showing the ring in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. 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