FARSIDE SUNSPOTS: There is a sunspot group on the farside of the sun so large it is affecting the way the sun vibrates. Its helioseismic echo may be seen in this farside map. The sun's rotation will bring this northern active region onto the Earthside of the sun later this week. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
DRAMATIC GROUND-BASED IMAGES OF ASTEROID STRIKE: Yesterday, NASA's DART spacecraft hit asteroid Dimorphos--an incredible, dramatic bullseye 11 million kilometers from Earth. Surprising even NASA, ground-based telescopes had no trouble seeing the impact. Astronomers with the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Hawaii recorded a bright cloud of debris:
This was the result of the 1,340-pound spacecraft plunging into Dimorphos at 14,000 mph. Most of the debris is probably asteroid dust, but some of DART may be in there, too. A similar video was recorded by the 1-meter Lesedi telescope in South Africa.
Mission scientsts say DART hit the asteroid less than 17 meters off center. Think about that: 17 meters off at a distance of 11 million kilometers. NASA still has the right stuff.
Now that the dust has cleared, astronomers are monitoring Dimorphos's orbit to find out whether or not it has changed in response to the strike. Even a slight shift would prove that human tech can alter an asteroid's trajectory--a possible strategy for future Planetary Defense.
more images: from Gianluca Masi using the Klein Karoo Observatory in South Africa; from Ernesto Guido using a remotely controlled 0.61-meter telescope in Chile; from Eliot Herman using a remotely controlled telescope in Siding Spring Australia
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UNEXPECTED GEOMAGNETIC STORM: This was not in the forecast. A CME sideswiped Earth's magnetic field on Sept. 26th (~2200 UT), sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. "Bright gaudy colors danced across the heavens for more than an hour," says Christopher Mathews, who took this picture from his backyard in Hraunborg, Iceland:
Bright auroras were sighted in multiple locations around Iceland, Norway, and Canada. They even dipped into the United States with green pillars over Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
We're not sure where the instigating CME came from. Probably, it is one of two CMEs that left the sun on Sept. 23rd. Neither was supposed to hit Earth and, indeed, this was not a direct hit. The off-target CME passed nearby, snowplowing dense (73 protons/cc) solar wind plasma onto Earth's magnetic field. The sudden load triggered the geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
more images: from Thomas Spence of Tofte, Minnesota; from Markus Varik of Tromsø, Norway; from Natalia Robba of Hella, Iceland; from Petr Horálek of Tromsø, Norway; from Matthew Merrell of central Minnesota; from Wil Cheung of Hof, Iceland; from Dirk S. Miller of Rice Lake, Wisconsin
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RARE MR. SPOCK ORNAMENT: It's the logical way to decorate your Christmas tree--with a rare Mr. Spock ornament. This one has been to the edge of space. On Sept. 22, 2022, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched Spock to the stratosphere on board a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $129.95. The students are selling Spock ornaments to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Made by Hallmark in the 1990s, the ornament comes with a greeting card showing the science officer in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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