ALL QUIET: Solar and geomagnetic activity are low. The quiet is expected to continue for at least another 2 to 3 days. Then, a possible farside sunspot will rotate onto the Earthside of the sun, bringing a chance of renewed activity. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
IT IS RAINING PLASMA ON THE SUN: The sun is quiet ... except for one spot on the northwestern limb. There, a giant prominence is raining plasma onto the surface of the sun. Philippe Tosi sends this picture from Nîmes, France:
"The prominence is more than 10 times taller than Earth," says Tosi, who inserted an image of our planet for scale. "To photograph the structure I used a refracting telescope and an H-alpha filter tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen."
Prominences are clouds of plasma held above the surface of the sun by magnetic fields. A closer look at Tosi's photo reveals state-sized "raindrops" falling back to the surface. Magnetic forces holding the prominence up are clearly leaky.
Other amateur astronomers are photographing this prominence, too. It's big, rainy and a great target for properly-filtered backyard telescopes. More images: from James Roger Samworth of Nailstone, Nuneaton, UK; from Richard N Schrantz of Nicholasville, KY; from Apollo Lasky of Naperville, IL.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
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20 YEARS AGO, A SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM: What a difference 20 years makes. Unlike today's almost-blank sun, the solar disk of March 30, 2001, was blemished by a monsterous sunspot: AR9393, the biggest sunspot of Solar Cycle 23. AR9393 hurled a pair of CMEs toward Earth. The first one struck on March 31, 2001, sparking a severe (G5-class) geomagnetic storm.
"I was fortunate to witness and photograph the event when I was just a teenager," recalls Lukasz Gornisiewicz, who watched the show from Medicine Hat, Alberta:
Sky watchers as far south as Texas, southern California and Mexico saw bright Northern Lights after the impact. In Bishop, California, home of Spaceweather.com, Dr. Tony Phillips made notes describing "red and green auroras dancing for hours" over the Sierra Nevada mountains at latitude +37 degrees.
Browse the photo gallery from 20 years ago. Almost all the pictures were taken on film! :)
March 30-31, 2001, Aurora Photo Gallery
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STERLING SILVER HUMMINGBIRD PENDANT: This hummingbird has touched space. The sterling silver pendant hitched a ride to the stratosphere on Jan. 15, 2021, when the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a cosmic ray balloon. Here it is, floating 111,202 feet above the snow-capped Sierra Nevada of central California:
You can have it for $142.95. The students are selling hummingbird pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the hummingbird in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. It makes an out-of-this-world birthday, anniversary, or Mother's Day gift!
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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