THE SOLAR WIND HAS ARRIVED: As predicted, a fast-moving stream of solar wind is blowing around Earth today, Oct. 30th. The gaseous material is flowing from an equatorial hole in the sun's atmosphere. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras shining through almost-full Moonlight. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT: After weeks of low sunspot numbers, the sun is changing course. A new sunspot in the sun's southern hemisphere is rapidly emerging to form a large double-cored group:
Designated AR3474, the sunspot has a beta-gamma magnetic field thatharbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any explosions today will be geoeffective as the sunspot is directly facing Earth. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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ECLIPSE OF THE MINERAL MOON: This weekend, the full Moon passed through the edge of Earth's shadow--a partial lunar eclipse visible from every continent except 90% of North America. Most observers saw a dark gray shadow on a light gray lunar disk. Astrophotographer Juan Carlos Casado found some other colors:
"I photographed the eclipse during a public event with the Hiking Club of Catalonia," says Casado. "From the sanctuary of Puiggraciós near Barcelona, we were able to follow the evolution of the eclipse in perfect conditions."
To the naked eye, all was gray. After the eclipse, however, Casado combined 40 images and boosted their saturation in Photoshop. The result was a lunar landscape dappled with orange, blue, and sunset red.
The colors he found are real. Blue denotes areas rich in titanium. Orange is the opposite: titanium poor. Titanium-rich zones are particularly interesting because lunar titanium is almost always attached to oxygen. A common lunar mineral named "ilmenite", for instance, is rich in titanium oxides. This oxygen may be easily extracted, providing future astronauts a source of air to breath.
The spray of red around the edge of Earth's shadow was not a sign of minerals. "This is due to sunlight filtered by Earth's atmosphere and projected onto the Moon," he says.
more Mineral Moons: from Jordi Coy of Morón de la Frontera, Seville, Spain; from Ali Rahimi of Isfahan, Iran; from Giuseppe Pappa of Pedara, Sicily;
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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.
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