SOLAR MINIMUM CONDITIONS ARE IN EFFECT: The sun has been without sunspots for 44 of the past 47 days. To find a similar stretch of blank suns, you have to go back to 2009 when the sun was experiencing the deepest solar minimum in a century. Solar minimum has returned, bringing extra cosmic rays, long-lasting holes in the sun's atmosphere, and strangely pink auroras. Free: Aurora alerts.
THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER IS PEAKING: Earth is passing through a stream of debris from giant comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. The shower is peaking now, with more than 90 meteors per hour being observed from dark-sky sites. Malcolm Park created this composite of bright Perseids streaking over Starfest in Ayton, Ontario:
"Starfest, Canada's largest annual star party, attracted hundreds of campers with the chance to see beautiful bright fireballs like these," says Park. "Mars tried to steal the show, but the Perseids won out!"
Meteor rates should remain relatively high for the next ~12 to 24 hours as Earth moves through the densest part of of the comet's debris stream. The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the dark hours before sunrise when the constellation Perseus is high in the sky, spewing meteors in all directions: sky map.
GREEN AIRGLOW OVER WYOMING: Over the weekend, Matt Comerford of Wyoming went outdoors to photograph the Perseids. During his meteor watch, the sky turned green:
"Very bright airglow rippled above the Medicine Bow National Forest in Southern Wyoming," he says. "I was able to photograph it with just a 30 second exposure on my Nikon D850.The frame includes Mars, the Milky Way and one Perseid as well."
Although airglow looks like the aurora borealis, it is not. Auroras are caused by gusts of solar wind. Airglow is caused by chemi-luminescent reactions in Earth's upper atmosphere. These reactions get started during daylight hours when the atmosphere is bathed in strong UV radiation from the sun. At night, we can see the afterglow, colored green by oxygen atoms 90-100 km high.Green airglow is best photographed from extremely dark sites on nights when the Moon is New--as it has been during this year's Perseid meteor shower. The verdant bands often show up in long exposures of the Milky Way. For more examples, browse the airglow photo gallery:
Realtime Airglow Photo Gallery
FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On Jan 27th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a hand-crafted sterling silver Celtic love knot 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. All sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery