NEW SOLAR FLARE ACTIVITY: June has started with a bang. Earth-orbiting satellites detected a long-duration B-class solar flare on June 1st. The source is hiding behind the sun's southeastern limb. This event signals the approach of a new active region (possibly a sunspot) which will turn toward Earth later this week. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
INTRODUCING THE GREEN GHOST: Want to discover something new? Keep an eye on the tops of thunderstorms. Sprites, trolls, elves and pixies: These are just a handful of the exotic phenomena that have surprised researchers monitoring cloudtops since the 1980s. In fact, a new one has just been discovered. Introducing, the Green Ghost.
Thomas Ashcraft caught one over New Mexico on May 25th. Play his movie, and look for the green afterglow following the flash of this magnificent jellyfish sprite:
"In the past week I’ve captured two Green Ghosts over west Texas that were generated by strong peak current lightning strokes," says Ashcraft. "The one on May 25th registered 118 kAmperes on the National Lightning Detection Network and saturated VLF lightning sensors as far away as Great Britain and Germany."
"As far as I know there are no scientific journal articles regarding this new phenomenon and a handful of citizen scientists are leading the way," says Ashcraft.
Green Ghosts were discovered only 1 year ago by Hank Schyma, a Houston Texas-based storm chaser better known to his fans as Pecos Hank. "It was May 25, 2019," recalls Schyma. "I video-recorded some sprites over a storm in Oklahoma. Later, when I reviewed the footage, I noticed a mysterious green afterglow above some of the larger sprites."
Above: From the archives of Thomas Ashcraft, a Green Ghost photographed in 2014. “At the time I did not realize what I had captured,” he says.
Schyma worked closely with another storm chaser, Paul M. Smith. "We shared the footage with scientists and others on social media. Nobody had heard of it before. Many argued it might be a camera sensor artifact. Over the following weeks and months, Paul captured multiple other ghosts at high resolution, silencing the skepticism."
At the moment, no one knows for sure what causes Green Ghosts. Their color may be a clue. Green is commonly seen in auroras and airglow, two upper atmospheric phenomena that get their verdant hue from excited atoms of oxygen. The same could hold true for Green Ghosts. When the tops of strong sprites hit the airglow layer 96-97 km above Earth’s surface, oxygen atoms might briefly glow green.
Right or wrong, this hypothesis inspired the name Ghost. "It is an acronym for Green emissions from excited Oxygen in Sprite Tops," explains Schyma. "More importantly, we named them ghosts to maintain the theme of other transient luminous events such as sprites, trolls, elves and pixies."
In the USA, sprite season is just getting underway as summer approaches, bringing severe electrical storms. Stay tuned for more ghost stories.
Realtime Sprite Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
THE INFINITY BLACK PEARL: It came from Tahiti--and now it's been to the edge of space. On April 15, 2020, this genuine Black Tahitian South Sea Cultured Pearl flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon, soaring 107,611 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $249.95. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling these exotic space pearls to fund their cosmic ray monitoring program.
Measuring 9 mm in diameter, the pearl is mounted on a 925 sterling silver infinity twist and suspended on a matching 17 inch long sterling silver chain. Each pearl comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter