SOLAR CYCLE 25 IS COMING TO LIFE: There's no longer any doubt. Solar Cycle 25 is coming to life. A new sunspot emerged on Monday, crackling with minor flares and adding to a string of new-cycle active regions spread across the face of the sun. Is Solar Minimum over? Find the answer here.
A SUNSPOT TURNS TOWARD EARTH: New-cycle sunspot AR2770 is turning toward Earth, revealing the structure of its multiple dark cores. Martin Wise sends this picture from Trenton, Florida:
"This sunspot was an easy target for my solar telescope," says Wise, who uses an 8-inch 'scope with safe solar filters. The sunspot's primary dark core is about as wide as the planet Mars, and it is trailed by several moon-sized "spotlets." These dimensions make it one of the largest sunspot groups of the current Solar Minimum.
AR2770 has emitted several B-class flares since it appeared earlier this week, causing minor waves of ionization to ripple through Earth's upper atmosphere. Other than that, the sunspot has not yet caused any notable space weather. It is, however, slowly growing, so increased activity is possible in the days ahead. Auroras alerts: SMS Text.
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A PERSEID RADAR ECHO--WITH MOON BOUNCE: Last night, a Perseid meteor flew over the GRAVE space surveillance radar in France. Hundreds of miles away, Heiko Ulbricht of Freital, Germany, recorded the echo. Click on this dynamic spectrum to hear what a Perseid sounds like:
GRAVES is used by the French government to track Earth-orbiting satellites. The massive array also picks up airplanes, meteors, and even the Moon. Amateur radio operators around Europe have learned how to listen to the GRAVES soundtrack. Ulbricht does it using a Yagi antenna and a radio receiver tuned to 143 MHz (the operating frequency of the radar).
"There's more to this echo than a meteor," notes Ulbricht. "The Moon was also in the beam of my antenna, and it reflected the radar signal as well! The Moon Bounce echo can be heard in the audio file as a much quieter, but regular sound before and after the Perseid fireball."
Ulbricht is excited about the nights ahead. Earth is moving deeper into the Perseid debris stream, with a peak in activity expected on August 11-13. Literally thousands of echoes are in the offing. Stay tuned!
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A STORM TROOPER IN THE STRATOSPHERE: It's the ultimate gift for a Star Wars fan--a Storm Trooper bobblehead from the edge of space. On July 23rd, this minion of the Emperor hitched a ride to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon. Here he is floating 117,454 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of California:
You can have him for $109.95. The students of Earth to Sky are selling Storm Troopers to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each bobblehead comes with a card showing it floating through the stratosphere, and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space and back again.
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