GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters say that minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on April 27th when a CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. It was hurled into space on April 24th by an explosion in the sun's southern hemisphere. Most of the CME will sail south of Earth, but its northern flank will probably touch our planet. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
THE WILD CORONA OF LAST WEEK'S SOLAR ECLIPSE: For more than 50 years, some of the best engineers on Earth have worked to develop and improve manmade coronagraphs. There's still no substitute for the Moon. Astronomers Petr Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava), Josef Kujal, Milan Hlaváč were on Pebble Beach, Australia, on April 20th when the Moon passed in front of the sun. This is what it revealed:
"We had only 1 minute to take pictures while the total eclipse was underway," says Horálek. "That was enough. This final processed image reveals much more than the human eye could see."
The sun's corona was spikey like a porcupine--a telltale sign that Solar Max is approaching. "We also saw a CME leaving the sun," says Horálek. (Can't find it? It's here.)
To illustrate the Moon's advantage, Horálek superimposed the eclipse on top of a coronagraph image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) taken at the same time.
All of the structures match. But the eclipse reveals much more. Light scattered inside SOHO's coronagraph blinds the instrument to anything very close to the sun. The Moon, however, shows everything right down to the edge of the solar disk.
That's the science. The emotional impact was even greater. "Excitement was huge on Pebble Beach where more than 300 people parked their cars to see the 1-minute totality," says Horálek. Click here to share their view.
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SILVER SNOOPY SPACE PENDANT: Snoopy has touched space. This sterling silver pendant flew to the stratosphere on April 15, 2023, floating on a cosmic ray balloon 117,400 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $159.95. Space Snoopy makes a great birthday, anniversary or Mother's day gift. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling space 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 journey to the stratosphere and back again
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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