CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters say there is a 60% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on Jan. 24th when a stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing ~600 km/s from a hole in the sun's atmosphere. Arctic auroras are likely this Thursday. Aurora Alerts: SMS text, email.
A METEOROID HITS THE MOON DURING LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Jan. 21st at 04:41:43 UT, a meteoroid slammed into the Moon. We know this because many amateur astronomers witnessed or photographed the explosion. Petr Horálek was one of them; he captured the fireball from Boa Vista, one of the islands of Cape Verde:
"As I was sorting through my pictures of the eclipse, I was trying to avoid images with dusty specks or hot pixels," says Horálek. "Upon closer inspection, I realized this was no hot pixel. It was a flash of light on the Moon--and other astronomers had photographed it as well."
At least a dozen reliable still images and videos of the impact have surfaced so far. Analyzing a sharp image taken by Christian Fröschlin of the Netherlands, geologist and amateur astronomer Justin Cowart has estimated the selenographic coordinates of the impact site: 29.47S, 67.77W +/- 4km. This puts it just to the west of the lunar crater Lagrange H. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter may be able to use such coordinates to target its cameras and photograph the crater.
Meteoroids hit the Moon all the time. Literally. NASA has been observing the impact flashes since 2005. Recently, other groups in Europe have joined the hunt. Flashes are typically observed once every 2 or 3 hours of observing time. Impactors range in size from softballs to boulders, liberating energies equal to tons of TNT when they strike.
Spain's MIDAS survey recorded this video of the Jan 21st lunar meteor strike
The rare thing about this strike is that it was photographed during a full Moon, when lunar glare usually overwhelms the glow of any fireball. During the eclipse, Earth's shadow turned lunar day into almost-night for an hour, allowing the fireball to be seen.
Readers, were you taking pictures of the eclipse around 04:41 UT? Inspect your images! You might have captured an explosion. Submit your images here.
Realtime Eclipse Photo Gallery
FULL MOON VALENTINE'S GIFT: Poets, lovers, and artists have long known this simple truth: Nothing is more romantic than a full Moon. Now you can give the full Moon as a Valentine's Gift--the full Moon space pendant, that is. This one flew to the stratosphere on Dec. 26, 2018, onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon:
You can have it for $119.95. The students are selling these spherical glass pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a Valentine's card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
THE BLUE LUNAR ECLIPSE: Lunar eclipses are supposed to be red, yet when the Moon passed through Earth's ruddy shadow on Jan. 20th, many observers witnessed a different color: turquoise blue. Heiko Ulbricht and Dirk Landrock photographed the phenomenon from Radebeul, Germany:
"The colors were wonderful--red and blue," says Ulbricht.
The source of the turquoise is ozone. Prof. Richard Keen, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through the stratosphere, and is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This can be seen, he says, as a turquoise fringe around the red.
Blue appears during every total eclipse of the Moon. Naked-eye observers often miss it because it is fleeting, best seen only during the opening and closing minutes of totality. Binoculars and telescopes improves visibility. "We used a 14-inch Maksutov-Newton telescope," notes Ulbricht.
The blue eclipse was also seen in Argentina, Arizona, Oklahoma, Illinois, Italy, the Netherlands, and Kansas ... just to name a few.
Realtime Eclipse Photo Gallery
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery