SpaceWeather.com Archive — Tue, Jul 9, 2024

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ALL QUIET: No CMES are heading for Earth, which means geomagnetic storms are unlikely for the next 3 days. At the same time, no sunspots are flaring above category C. It all adds up to a potentially quiet week for space weather. Solar flare alerts: SMS Tex t

WHERE THE NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS ARE: This summer, noctilucent clouds (NLCs) have spilled out of the Arctic Circle as far south as France and Italy. A display on June 28th was so widespread, astronomers in Latvia were able to do an unusual experiment. Here are the results:

"The Latvian Astronomical Society is running a citizen science project to triangulate NLCs," explains Juris Seņņikovs. "Made of frosted meteor smoke, these clouds are so high above Earth (82 km), they can be seen by widely-separated observers on the ground. Here is an example of photos from 5 observers located up to 400 km apart on June 28th at 01:30 local time."

"I projected the images onto a map, revealing the spatial distribution of the NLCs," he says. "The original photos were taken by Mārtiņš Mamis, Kārlis Šuvcāns, Rūdolfs Gills, Jānis Šatrovskis, Valentīna Siliniece."

Congratulations to the Latvian team. Detailed maps of NLCs are rare, and not routinely available even from Earth-orbiting satellites. Regular maps of this kind could help researchers understand the dynamics of NLCs and why they are so abundant this year despite the ice-destroying effects of Solar Max.

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STERLING SILVER RAINBOW DRAGONFLY (GOLDEN HEART): Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider a rainbow dragonfly from the edge of space. On June 3rd, this sterling silver pendant hitched a ride onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:

You can have it for $172.95. The dragonfly's heart is a golden Celtic love knot, and its wings are decorated with a spray of rainbow-colored crystals. The students are selling dragonfly 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 trip to the stratosphere and back again.