THE PHOTO GALLERY IS BACK: Spaceweather.com's Realtime Photo Gallery is (mostly) back following a hardware failure two weeks ago. All 123,000 images in the gallery were rescued, and we're ready for more. Submit your images here. Note that some minor bugs are still being squashed. The work should be complete by the end of this week. Thanks for your patience!
BRIGHT RED SPRITES: According to NASA, cosmic rays are intensifying. Martin Popek of Nýdek, Czechia, witnessed a likely side-effect last Friday night. "Red sprites exploded from the tops of two thunderstorms in front of my cameras," he says.
"The sprites were huge, and I could see them from quite a distance," he adds. "One storm was in the Adriatic sea about 550 km away, with a closer storm over Slovakia distance at a distance of 115 km."
Hundreds of kilometers may sound like a long way, but a bit of separation helps when it comes to observing sprites over the tops of towering thunderheads. Here's why.
Cosmic rays are increasing because of Solar Minimum. During this phase of the solar cycle, radiation from deep space penetrates the sun's weakening magnetic defenses and enters Earth's atmosphere in greater numbers than usual. Some researchers believe that cosmic rays provide the ionizing "spark" that triggers many sprites.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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HOLES IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: Earth is about to be strobed by three streams of solar wind--each flowing from a hole the sun's atmosphere. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the gaseous spigots on July 29th:
These are "coronal holes"--places where the sun's magnetic field peels back and allows solar wind to escape. Coronal holes look dark in extreme ultraviolet images of the sun because glowing-hot plasma normally contained there is missing.
The first of the streams is expected to arrive on Aug 1st, followed by two more in rapid succession on Aug. 4th. Polar geomagnetic unrest and possibly some minor magnetic storms are possible on those dates. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, especially in the southern hemisphere where winter darkness favors visibility. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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STERLING SILVER MOONSTONE PENDANT: 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