WEAK IMPACT: Arriving a day earlier than expected, a coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on May 10th around 17:20 UT. The impact was weak, barely rattling our planet's magnetosphere. Geomagnetic storms are probably not in the offing--although stay tuned for updates. Enhanced magnetic fields in the CME's wake might yet cause a disturbance. Aurora Alerts: SMS Text.
FALSE AURORAS OVER THE UK: Last night in Scotland, Sam Cornwell saw colorful lights floating in the sky. They looked like auroras--but they couldn't be. Geomagnetic activity was nil. "Here they are over Cavers Church," says Cornwell. "It was a spectacular view."
These are light pillars, caused by ice crystals in the air which intercept manmade lights and spread them into colorful columns. No solar activity is required for the phenomenon. The only ingredients are ice and light pollution.
Cornwell's friend Daniel Monk saw the same display across the border in England. "Light pillars were visible all around the horizon, I kept moving the camera due to the excitement!" he says.
"They were easily visible with the naked eye. I even managed to catch a meteor in one of the images!"
The colors of light pillars come from the various color temperatures of street lights. Warm orange ones come from traditional high pressure sodium lamps whereas yellow to bright white pillars come from new LED lamps.
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HALOBACTERIA IN THE STRATOSPHERE: If there's life on Mars, it could have a cousin on Earth: halobacteria. Astrobiologists have long thought that the salt-loving extremophile might be able to survive conditions on the Red Planet. To find out, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown approximately 100 billion of the microbes to the stratosphere. They're inside these test tubes 113,241 ft above the snow-capped Sierras of central California:
The microbes hitched a ride on a cosmic ray balloon, which the students launch about once a week to monitor atmospheric radiation. After a 3-hour flight on April 28th, they parachuted back to Earth, landing in a Joshua Tree forest in western Nevada.
Why send halobacteria to the stratosphere? Because conditions in Earth's stratosphere are remarkably similar to the surface of Mars: low air pressure, strong ultraviolet radiation, extremely low temperatures, intense cosmic rays. Visiting the stratosphere is like taking a trip to the Red Planet. The microscopic astronauts are now being cultured in an incubator in Earth to Sky's makeshift biology lab. Stay tuned to learn how many survived.
PS. Yes, that's Marvin.
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