BEAUTIFUL CONJUNCTION: Are you awake before sunrise? Go outside and look southeast. Venus and Jupiter are converging for a bright and beautiful conjunction in the dawn sky. At closest approach on Jan. 22nd, they will be less than 3 degrees apart--a beautiful pairing visible even from light polluted cities. Sky maps: Jan. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
THE COLOR OF SOLAR MINIMUM: The sun has been blank for 7 straight days--a sign that Solar Minimum is in progress. Another sign of Solar Minimum: strangely pink auroras. "The Spaceweather.com team has warned us to be alert for pink auroras during Solar Minimum, and here they are," reports Markus Varik, who took this picture last night in Tromsø, Norway:
"During our nights out shooting auroras, we have been getting more pinks than usual," says Varik, an experienced tour guide. "The pink colors often appear in linear bands similar to STEVE."
Does the palette of auroras really change during Solar Minimum? The evidence is anecdotal, but the idea is not far-fetched. During Solar Minimum, unusually long-lasting holes open in the sun's atmosphere, spewing streams of solar wind that lash Earth repeatedly month after month. Perhaps the chemical mix, magnetic structure, and repetition of these Solar Minimum streams produces colors less often seen in other phases of the solar cycle. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
NEW! SPACE WEATHER ALERTS: Spaceweather.com is proud to announce our new and improved space weather alert system. Sign up now and you'll never miss another solar storm in 2019. Subscribers receive instant text messages when there are solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and CMEs about to strike Earth. And if you sign up for the PRO PLAN, you'll receive a type of alert available no where else--"Magnetic Crack" alerts. Keep reading after the graphic to learn more:
PRO PLAN subscribers get a text message whenever a crack is opening in Earth's magnetosphere. Magnetic cracks are caused by south-pointing magnetic fields ("BsubZ") in the solar wind, which partially cancel Earth's magnetic defenses. Solar wind pours in through these cracks to fuel bright auroras and geomagnetic storms. Veteran aurora chasers know that watching "BsubZ" is the best way to anticipate geomagnetic activity. Now your cell phone can do this job for you, alerting you when cracks are forming in the invisible magnetic field overhead.
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