SLIGHT CHANCE OF GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY TODAY: A CME hurled into space 3 days ago by an erupting magnetic filament on the sun could graze Earth's magnetic field today. The weak glancing blow could cause geomagnetic unrest, but probably not a full-fledged storm. CME impact alerts: SMS Text
RETURN OF A POTENTIALLY-DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: NOAA numbered a new sunspot today: AR3691. We've seen it before, though. The sunspot is an old firiend emerging from a two-week trip around the far side of the sun. Formerly known as AR3663, the sunspot unleashed five X-class solar flares in early May.
This movie shows the sunspot rotating back onto the Earthside of the sun on May 26th. It is smaller than it used to be, but also growing again, so it could soon reclaim its former potency. Indeed, it has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for more X-class solar flares. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
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LUNAR POLLEN CORONA: It's springtime in Finland, and you can see the signs in the heavens. Pine pollen in the air is creating beautiful rings of light around the sun and Moon. Pentti Arpalahti photographed this example on May 24th from Helsinki:
"The 99.7% full Moon rose at midnight surrounded by a beautiful pollen corona," says Arpalahti.
Pollen coronas are colorful rings of light that surround the sun and Moon when their light is scattered from the outside of pollen grains. "Rings" isn't quite the right word, though. The coronas are actually lumpy and elliptical, mimicking the shape of the underlying grains.
This photo of pine pollen seen through a microscope shows what's going on:
They look like Mickey Mouse hats. The "ears" are air sacs that help the pollen catch the wind. When the air is moving, these sacs align the grains, allowing them to scatter light coherently. The sacs also distort the shape of the diffraction pattern, transforming it from a circle into a lumpy ellipse.
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18K GOLD TOTAL ECLIPSE PENDANT: This pendant has touched the shadow of the Moon. On April 8, 2024, during a total eclipse of the sun in Texas, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Floating more than 118,110 feet high, the locket spent 3 minutes and 45 seconds wrapped in lunar shadow:
You can have it for $199.95. The 18K gold-plated locket is inscribed with the words "I love you to the Moon and back," and opens to hold a personal photo or other small item. It comes with a greeting card showing the locket in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space during the total eclipse.
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