SOLAR MINIMUM CONDITIONS ARE IN EFFECT: At the end of May, the sun unleashed the strongest solar flare since 2017. Since then ... quiet. Solar wind is blowing slowly, the sun's X-ray output is flatlining, and no sunspots have been seen for nearly 10 days. Welcome back to Solar Minimum. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
COMET NEOWISE IS BRIGHTENING: Will we finally get a naked-eye comet in 2020? New images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) suggest the answer is "yes." This week, SOHO coronagraphs are watching Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) plunge toward the sun. In only two days the comet has nearly tripled in brightness.
Click to view of 2-day movie of Comet NEOWISE recorded by the SOHO C3 coronagraph
"Comet NEOWISE has been rapidly brightening since entering the coronagraph's field of view on June 23rd," reports Qicheng Zhang, a PhD candidate in planetary sciences at Caltech. "It's jumped from magnitude +4.0 to +2.9."
If this trend continues, Comet NEOWISE will be easy to see with the unaided eye when it emerges from the sun's glare in mid-July. First, though, it has to survive the sun.
Comet NEOWISE reaches perihelion (closest approach to the sun) near the orbit of Mercury on July 3rd. SOHO will be able to follow the comet to the doorstep of that encounter. If NEOWISE it is still intact on June 28th when it leaves the coronagraph's field of view, there's a good chance it will "go the distance" and become a summer comet of first magnitude. Stay tuned!
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ARCTIC WOLF PENDANT: This wolf glows in the dark--and it's been to space. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this special pendant to the stratosphere on April 15, 2020, on board a high-altitude cosmic ray balloon. The payload of radiation sensors (and lupine jewelry) traveled 107,611 feet above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the wolf in flight and describing its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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