CIR SPARKS G2-CLASS GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit Earth on, June 15th, opening a crack in our planet's magnetic field and sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. CIRs are transition zones between slow- and fast-moving solar wind streams. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, producing shock-like structures that mimic CMEs. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN CREATE CLOUDS: This is a story about AI. It didn't start that way, though. On May 28th, an unusual weather system blanketed the UK. Cirrostratus clouds containing a rare mixture of gem-like ice crystals filled the sky. Sunlight shining through the crystals produced a stunning variety of ice halos widely seen and reported on BBC news.
During the display, R. J. Cobain of Conlig, Northern Ireland, spun around on his lawn taking as many pictures as he could. "By combining 11 photos I was able to capture a full parhelic circle," says Cobain.
Circling the zenith in a majestic arc, full parhelic circles are among the rarest of ice halos. They require as many as five internal reflections from millions of individual ice crytals, all catching sunbeams simultaneously. "This was by far the best display of atmospheric optics I have ever seen," Cobain says.
There was only one problem with Cobain's excellent photo. He forgot to photograph the zenith. The black gap bothered him.
"I decided to use OpenAI's DALL-E tool to fill in the gap in the panorama," says Cobain. "The prompt was just 'wispy cirrostratus clouds against a dark blue sky'." Here is the result:
"Scary how it convincingly continued with the slightly darker sky behind the 46 degree halo (a detail you wouldn't expect the AI to know)," he says.
DALL-E is the visual version of ChatGPT. It creates images from text. "It is an extension of the GPT-3 language model, designed specifically for the task of image synthesis," according to OpenAI. "DALL-E combines techniques from computer vision and natural language processing to create unique and novel images."
Cobain was not trying to decieve anyone by letting AI fill in the gap. He just wanted to see if it could do a good job. Scary good is more like it.
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THE NORTHERN LIGHTS PENDANT: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider this: The Northern Lights Pendant. Here it is, hitching a ride to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon:
You can have it for $129.95. The students are selling these 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 edge of space. It makes an out-of-this-world birthday or anniversary gift!
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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