SpaceWeather.com Archive — Thu, Jun 20, 2019

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MYSTERIOUS MOISTURE IN THE MESOSPHERE: The 2019 season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) has been remarkable, maybe the best ever, with NLCs appearing as far south as Los Angeles CA and Albuquerque NM. What's going on? NASA satellites have just found an important clue. An unusual wave of moisture is surging through the mesosphere, boosting water concentrations to their highest level in at least 12 years: full story.

GIANT PALM TREE SPRITE: Last night in Texas, a flurry of red sprites exploded from the top of a powerful thunderstorm. One of the the red forms was so tall and bright, it was witnessed by naked-eye observers 200 miles away in Oklahoma. "My boys and I saw it with our unaided eyes," marvels Paul Smith, who photographed the event from the shores of Lake Thunderbird, OK. This may be the first time that a sprite's reflection has been captured in water:

Naked-eye sightings of sprites are rare, mainly because they are so fleeting. But this one left an impression. "My eleven-year-old son Thomas described it as a 'huge orange-y-brown flash of lines high in the sky,'" says Smith. "My seven-year-old James just exclaimed 'what the heck was that?'"

At first glance, Smith's capture resembles a Gigantic Jet--that is, a type of "sprite on steroids." But lightning expert Oscar van der Velde of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya thinks it may be something even more unusual.

"In early days of sprite research, they were called 'palm trees' by researchers from the University of Alaska," van der Velde explains. "It is, basically, a bushy group of red sprites on top, with a secondary purple sprite hanging below. These types of events are quite rare. You need a big, active mesoscale convective system to produce them."

Palm tree sprites are a topic of cutting edge research. "We haven't even been able to confirm that they indeed originate from the thundercloud," says van der Velde.

"Last night was so much fun," adds Smith. "In addition to the sprites, my son Thomas photographed Jupiter and our Moon with the Nikon coolpix 80x zoom camera. We also saw a nice bolide exploding over the storms. The kid's reactions were priceless."

Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery
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APOLLO 11 PROOF SILVER DOLLAR: To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the United States Mint has created a commemorative 2019 Proof Silver Dollar. We decided to celebrate even more by flying the coins to the edge of space. On June 13th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this 99.9% silver dollar 99,022 feet above Earth's surface:

You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling the coins to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. The silver dollar is curved and reproduces the helmet of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Reflected in Buzz's visor are Neil Armstrong, the United States flag, and the lunar lander. The opposite side of the coin shows Neil's first footprint on the Moon. Each of these coins comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and a certificate of authenticity.