SpaceWeather.com Archive — Tue, Jul 23, 2024

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GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): A halo CME is heading for Earth. NOAA's forecast model predicts it will arrive during the early hours of July 24th (around 0200 UT), potentially sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. If that forecast is correct, the storm could produce photographic auroras over northern-tier US states during the night of July 23/24 in North American time zones. Aurora alerts: SMS Tex t

FARSIDE CME PEPPERS EARTH WITH HARD PROTONS: Something just exploded on the farside of the sun--and it managed to touch Earth. Debris from the blast emerged in the form of a full halo CME, shown here in a movie from the Solar and Helospheric Observatory (SOHO):

Shock waves at the leading edge of the CME are accelerating protons and spraying them throughout the solar system. Some of those protons are raining down on Earth right now. NOAA's GOES-18 satellite is monitoring an intensifying S1-class solar radiation storm rich in "hard protons" with energies > 100 MeV.

Hard protons are good at charging spacecraft bodies, fogging their cameras, and causing reboots of onboard computers. Indeed, you can see a hint of the "fog" in the SOHO movie above. Each speckle is a hard proton striking the spacecraft's digital camera.

Europe's Solar Orbiter (SolO) spacecraft is going to get good data on this event. A NASA model of the CME predicts that it will directly hit SolO on July 24th. Stay tuned for updates from the spacecraft's energetic particle detectors. Proton storm alerts: SMS Tex t

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REAL MONEY FROM SPACE: On July 16, 1969, the world watched as a Saturn V rocket launched Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon. Exactly 55 years later, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched the US Mint's limited edition Saturn V dollar coin to the stratosphere:

You can have a single coin for $49.95 or an entire unbroken roll for $249.95. No longer available from the US Mint, these rare coins flew 121,665 feet above the Sierra Nevada on July 16, 2024. One side shows the mighty Saturn V rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral; the other side features the Statue of Liberty in profile.

The students are selling space coins to support to support their cosmic ray research program. (Helium is expensive!) Each order comes with a greeting card showing the coins in flight and telling the story of their journey to the stratosphere and back again.