COSMIC RAY EXPEDITION TO ECHO LAKE: Will six times be the charm? Today, Dr. Tony Phillips is leading a team of climbers to a 12,000 ft glacier overlooking Echo Lake in California's Eastern Sierra. Their mission: To chisel a cosmic ray balloon payload full of radiation sensors out of the ice. Twist: They have to find it first. The payload has been lost for more than a year, but clues obtained from their 5th expedition to the balloon's landing site two weeks ago may lead them to it. Today's edition of Spaceweather.com will be only lightly updated while the staff are away.
GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): Another CME is heading for Earth. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) saw it leaving the sun on Nov. 9th:
Estimated time of arrival: Nov. 11th. NOAA and NASA models agree that the cloud will strike on Saturday around 1800 UT. Its impact could spark a G2-class geomagnetic storm--not quite as strong as the G3-class event of Nov. 5th, but still enough to produce auroras in northern-tier US states from New York to Washington.
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VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT: This is a must-have Christmas ornament for space fans: The Voyager Golden Record. On Oct. 31, 2023, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $99.95. The 3-inch aluminum disk is imprinted with instructions intended for extraterrestrials, telling them how to play the phonographs now sailing through interstellar space onboard NASA's Voyager probes. Having touched the edge of space, it's the closest thing on Earth to an actual Golden Record.
The students are selling these unique ornaments to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the ornament in flight and extra materials decoding the markings on the disk.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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