GEOMAGNETIC UNREST POSSIBLE: Today, Jan. 10th, Earth is expected to cross through a fold in the heliospheric current sheet-- a "solar sector boundary crossing." Shortly thereafter, a minor stream of solar wind will likely hit Earth's magnetic field. The one-two punch could cause minor geomagnetic unrest and auroras around the Arctic Circle. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
A DREAM CATCHER IN THE SKY: The first big snow of the year blanketed the high country of North Carolina last week. Todd Bush of Banner Elk knew just what to do. "I launched a drone to look around," he says. "And this is what it saw."
"BIG surprise," he says. "It looked like a dream catcher!"
Close. It was a sun halo made of diamond dust. The cold morning air was filled with jewel-like ice crystals of exceptional purity called "diamond dust." A close look at the picture shows specks of light in the air. Those are individual crystals.
Diamond dust halos are famously sharp and bright. The drone captured four types of halo: A pair of sundogs, a pair of sub-sundogs (subparhelia), a 22-degree ring, a fraction of a parhelic circle, and a lower sun pillar. Apparently, that's what it takes to make a dream catcher in the sky.
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A FAR-OUT VALENTINE'S GIFT: Valentine's Day is coming. To get ready for the most romantic day of the year, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a crystal bouquet of roses to the stratosphere on Jan. 1, 2021. Here it is floating on a cosmic ray balloon 102,690 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have them for $129.95. The students are selling space roses to fund their cosmic ray ballooning program. The flowers are made of high-quality Borosilicate Crown Crystal often used in lenses and prisms. That's why they glitter so colorfully in high-altitude sunlight. Each bouquet comes with a greeting card showing the flowers in flight and telling the story of their journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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