ALL QUIET: A slow-moving CME that might have hit Earth yesterday instead completely missed. NOAA forecasters say our planet's magnetic field should remain quiet for the next 3 days. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
FARSIDE SOLAR ACTIVITY: The Earthside of the sun is quiet. The farside is not. Yesterday, an explosion from a hidden sunspot hurled a partial halo CME into space:
The storm cloud will not hit Earth; it is traveling almost directly away from us. The active sunspot should turn to face Earth about 10 days from now when it completes its farside transit. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
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NAKED-EYE SPRITES OVER EUROPE: You know what comes out of the bottom of thunderclouds: lightning. Last night in Fuerstenfeldbruck, Germany, amateur astronomer Thorsten Boeckel photographed what comes out of the top:
"These bright oversized red sprites were easily noticed with the naked eye," says Boeckel, who photographed them using a Sony a7III camera. "They were located about 440 km away in Poland." That might seem like a long way, but it turns out to be the perfect distance to see sprites leaping above thunderstorms. Give it a try.
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STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY (GOLDEN HEART): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider a rainbow dragonfly from the edge of space. On June 3, 2022, this sterling silver pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a golden Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with a spray of rainbow-colored crystals. The students are selling dragonfly pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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