CHANCE OF STORMS TODAY: NOAA forecasters say there is a chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms today, Feb. 20th, as a stream of high-speed solar wind engulfs Earth. The gaseous material is flowing faster than 500 km/s from an equatorial hole in the sun's atmosphere. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

CIR HITS EARTH, SPARKS ARCTIC AURORAS: Last night, a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit Earth's magnetic field. High above Norway, "it looked like the sky split open," says aurora tour guide Marianne Bergli, who sends this picture from Kvaløya, Tromsø:

"The auroras dancing over our heads were unbelievably beautiful," says Bergli.

A CIR is like a mini-CME (coronal mass ejection). It's a transition zone between slow- and fast-moving streams of solar wind. Density gradients inside CIRs can mimic the shock fronts of CMEs, and often do a good job sparking auroras.

A good job? "It was great," says Markus Varik, also in Tromsø. "The pinks and reds were the best we've seen in years."

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THIS IS *REAL* MONEY FROM SPACE: The US Mint has just released a reverse-proof dollar coin honoring the Hubble Space Telescope. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus took it one step further, flying a whole roll of Hubble coins to the edge of space. Here they are floating 35.3 km (115,814 ft) above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:

You can have one for $39.95. The students are selling Hubble coins to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each coin comes with a greeting card showing the money in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere. Best of all, this is real money! You can actually spend it. All sales support hands-on STEM research.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education

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