UNDER THE AURORAL OVAL: Heavy snow. Cloudy skies. Almost no solar wind. With conditions like these, no wonder tourists in Abisko, Sweden, didn't expect to see any auroras last night. Then, suddenly, this happened:
"It was a beautiful display!" says Allison Stevenson, who took the picture on Jan. 20th. "I'm a tour guide for Lights over Lapland, and I was leading a group of 10 people," she explains. "At first they didn't believe me when I told them there was a good chance of auroras despite the gloomy forecast. Now they are very happy!"
How did she know? Everyone in Abisko knows. The Arctic village is located underneath Earth's persistent auroral oval--a flickering ring of Northern Lights that waxes and wanes, but never completely goes out. Residents see it, more often than not, thanks to a local meteorological phenomenon called "The Blue Hole of Abisko." Nearby mountains conspire with winds to create a clear patch of sky that can open up even during the gloomiest weather. It's a good place to be during Solar Minimum. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
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NEUTRONS ON A PLANE: Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have just landed in Stockholm. They'll be in Scandinavia for the next week launching cosmic ray balloons. During the 8 hour flight from the USA to Sweden, the team used bubble chambers to measure neutrons inside the airplane. Here's what one of the chambers looked like midway through the flight:
In the photo, above, each bubble shows where a neutron passed through the chamber and vaporized a superheated droplet. By the time the flight was over, we measured almost 20 uSv (microsieverts) of radiation from neutrons–double the dose from a typical X-ray at your dentist's office.
Where do these neutrons come from? Outer space. When cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of subatomic debris including neutrons, protons, and alpha particles. Because they are uncharged, neutrons find it relatively easy to reach the ground--passing through airplanes on the way down.
Later this week, these same neutron chambers will fly to the polar stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray balloon. X-ray and gamma-ray sensors will go as well, providing a complete profile of low-energy cosmic rays in the atmosphere over this part of the world. Stay tuned.
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INFINITY PENDANT FOR VALENTINE'S DAY: Valentine's Day is less than one month away. Nothing says "I Love You" like an Infinity Pendant from the edge of space. On Jan. 8, 2020, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon. This authentic Swarovski crystal pendant hitched a ride, traveling 113,209 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. The glittering heart-shaped crystal is wrapped in a silver-embossed infinity clasp, symbolizing unending love. Each one comes with a romantic card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.
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