THE NEXT STREAM OF SOLAR WIND: A hole in the sun's atmosphere is facing Earth and spewing a minor stream of solar wind in our direction. Eatimated time of arrival: Oct. 13-14. Arctic auroras are likely on those dates even though the stream is probably not potent enough to trigger a full-fledged geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
JUST ONE MONTH UNTIL THE TRANSIT OF MERCURY: Mark your calendar: On Monday, Nov 11th, Mercury will pass directly in front the sun. The rare transit begins at 12:35 UT (7:35 am EST) and lasts for almost six hours. Mercury's tiny form—jet black and perfectly round—will glide slowly across the solar disk, as shown in this movie created by science-artist Larry Koehn of ShadowandSubstance.com:
People in every continent except Australia can see at least a portion of the crossing. In the USA, the best place to be is on the Atlantic coast, where the entire transit is visible. On the Pacific coast the transit will already be in progress at sunrise.
Warning! Do not stare at the sun during the transit. Mercury covers a tiny, tiny fraction of the solar disk, so the sun remains as bright as ever. Eye damage can occur.
Ordinary eclipse glasses will keep your eyes safe, but they won't do much to help you see tiny Mercury. The planet is only 1/194th of the sun's apparent diameter. To watch this event, a safely-filtered telescope with a magnification of 50x or more is recommended.
Nothing beats a telescope equipped with an H-alpha filter. H-alpha filters are narrowly tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen. They reveal the sun as a boiling inferno cross-crossed by dark seething magnetic filaments. On Nov. 11th, the tiny form of Mercury will navigate this starscape.
Here's a sample H-alpha image taken during the last transit of Mercury on May 9, 2016:
Paul Andrew took the picture from his backyard observatory in St. Margarets at Cliffe, Dover, UK. "The background prominence made Mercury look like it had a comet's tail," he says. More images may be found here and here.
Transits of Mercury occur only 13 times each century. The next one won't occur until Nov. 13, 2032. Don't miss this unusual event!
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FROSTY THE SPACE TOILET: How do you go to the bathroom in space? The space toilet, of course! On Oct. 6, 2019, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this unique ornament to the stratosphere (108,893 feet altitude) onboard one of their cosmic ray balloons. Just imagine how this will look on your Christmas tree:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling edge of space ornaments to support their cosmic ray balloning program. Each ornament comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.
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