NEW SUNSPOTS: Several new sunspots are emerging in both of the sun's hemisphere. Amateur astronomers, here is where to look to witness sunspot genesis. It is too soon to say if these young active regions will eventually pose any threat for flares. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
TONGA VOLCANIC ERUPTION TOUCHED THE MESOSPHERE: When a volcano exploded out of the Pacific Ocean near Tonga on Jan. 15th, scientists immediately realized they were witnessing something special. Little did they know how special. A new analysis of images from Earth-orbiting satellites shows that the plume punched a hole in our atmosphere all the way up to the mesosphere.
"The intensity of this event far exceeds that of any storm cloud I have ever studied," said Kristopher Bedka, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Langley who specializes in studying extreme storms.
Bedka and colleagues combined images from two satellites: NOAA's GOES-17 and Japan's Himawari-8, both of which observed the eruption using similar infrared cameras from different points in geosynchronous orbit. Using the mathematics of stereo geometry, the team calculated that the plume rose to 58 kilometers (36 miles) at its highest point.
For comparison, the largest known volcanic plume in the satellite era before Tonga came from Mount Pinatubo, which spewed ash and aerosols up to 35 kilometers (22 miles) into the air above the Philippines in 1991. The Tonga plume was 1.5 times the height of Pinatubo, making it the tallest of the Space Age.
The extreme height of the Tonga plume means it could potentially affect space weather phenomena such as sprites, airglow, and noctilucent clouds, which also occur in the mesosphere. Indeed, there was a surge of noctilucent clouds after the eruption (possibly coincidental) as well as ripples in the airglow layer over the Pacific Ocean. Tonga was truly out of this world.
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'TONGA SUNSETS' CONTINUE: A month and a half after the Tonga volcano erupted, sky watchers are still seeing unusual sunsets. Petr Horálek sends this picture from Thoddoo Island in the Maldives:
"Yesterday people on the beach experienced a truly colorful sunset," says Horálek. "Since no ordinary dust now appears in the atmosphere over the Maldives, I think this might be caused by the Tonga volcano.
The purple color in Horálek's photo is a classic sign of volcanic sunsets. Fine volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere scatter blue light which, when mixed with ordinary sunset red, produces a purple hue. According to atmospheric scientist Ghassan Taha of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, aerosols from Tonga could stay in the stratosphere for a year or more.
More Tonga sunsets: from Heiko Ulbricht of Altenberg, Saxony, Germany; from Fabiano B. Diniz of Pontal do Paraná, Brazil; from Cassiano Macedo of Sao Paulo, Brazil; from Peter Lowenstein of Mutare, Zimbabwe; from Daniele Gasparri of Atacama, Chile; from Ray Pickard of the Bathurst Observatory, NSW Australia;
THE CRESCENT VENUS PENDANT: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider the Crescent Venus Pendant. This one flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon on Jan. 8, 2022:
You can have it for $142.95. The opal crescent is framed by sterling silver with a matching hypoallergenic chain. It comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere.
Why is it a crescent? Because Venus itself was a crescent on the date of the flight. On Jan. 8, 2022, the second planet was at inferior conjunction with the sun. From Earth it looked like a slender crescent--the most beautiful phase of the Goddess of Love.
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