SpaceWeather.com Archive — Fri, Oct 20, 2023

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MORE CMES ARE COMING: A pair of CMEs might graze Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 21st, say NOAA forecasters. They left the sun in quick succession on Oct. 17-18, neither one squarely targeting Earth. However, two glancing blows might be enough to cause a G1-class geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

COSMIC RAY BALLOON PAYLOAD TRAPPED IN A GLACIER: Earlier this month, we reported on efforts to recover a lost Earth to Sky Calculus balloon payload. It was launched in October 2022--a full year ago--as part of our routine monitoring of atmospheric radiation. The launch went beautifully, but the landing did not. Blown off-course by winds in the stratosphere, the payload parachuted back to Earth near Echo Lake, a mile-wide pool of melted snow in California's Sierra Nevada at an altitude of 12,000 ft:

Echo Lake viewed from the landing site on Oct. 5, 2023

A year later it's still there. The payload touched down on a rocky slope almost a thousand feet above the lake. It was quickly buried by the Great Winter of 2023. at one point under as much as 30 feet of snow.

Recovery teams led by Dr. Tony Phillips have visited Echo Lake five times (Oct. & Nov. 2022, August, Sept. and Oct. 2023) each time getting a little closer to the payload, but never recovering it. On Oct. 5th, we finally reached the landing site. What we found surprised us:

The payload is buried as much as 4 ft deep in this re-glaciating snow field.

The area around the landing site has experienced a remarkable "re-glaciation" event. Rocky terrain once dessicated by years of California drought is now a dense field of ice and snow impervious to summer heat. The payload is trapped in this almost-rock hard layer of snow. Our shovels bounced off the surface with no effect.

We're going back this weekend, and this time we're taking a chainsaw. We hope to cut through the ice and find our cosmic ray sensors preserved in the frozen subsurface. If the payload is recovered, we will be able to finally stitch together a complete record of radiation data for the past year. Wish us luck, and stay tuned for updates!

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HANDMADE ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE PENDANT: This pendant has touched the shadow of the Moon. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere on Oct. 14, 2023, during the annular solar eclipse. The handmade pendant was 78,500 feet high when the Moon's shadow arrived and wrapped it in a cool twilight-like darkness:

You can have it for $129.95. The pendant left Earth from Nevada's Valley of the Moon, a remote area filled with the scent of sage and herds of wild horses. Indeed, no fewer than three mustang families approached the launch team during the eclipse to see what was going on. It was a magical experience.

The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.