CONTINUED CHANCE OF STRONG FLARES: For the fifth day in a row, sunspot AR3889 poses a threat for strong Earth-directed solar flares. The sunspot's delta-class magnetic field is unstable and harbors energy for significant explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of X-flares on Nov. 12th. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
TRIMETHYL ALUMINUM CLOUDS OVER NORWAY: They're completely harmless, says NASA. Twisting clouds of trimethyl aluminum (TMA) appeared over Norway on Nov. 10th during a minor geomagnetic storm. Ivar Sandland photographed them from Narvik, a small town inside the Arctic Circle:
Moments earlier, Sandland watched a rocket climb through colorful auroras. "It was a rocket launch from Andoya Space center in northern Norway," he explains. "Moments later, the clouds appeared."
The NASA rocket carried 16 canisters of trimethyl aluminum, which were released into the upper atmosphere. Glowing clouds were visible from the ground, allowing researchers to study waves and vortices in air ~100 km above Earth's surface, a region which also contains the turbopause. This is fundamental research that may help improve computer models of our planet's atmosphere.
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JABBA THE HUTT JUMBO SPACE MUG: Want a cup of coffee with one of the Galaxy's most powerful gansters? The Jabba the Hutt Space Mug is for you! On Nov. 10, 2024, it flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $99.95. This extra large ceramic mug holds 26 oz. of piping hot coffee. It's also a great soup bowl. At the apex of the flight, the cup floated 107,773 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains while sensors inside the balloon's payload gathered radiation data for a student science project.
The cup comes with a greeting card showing Jabba in flight, and certifying that the cup traveled to the edge of space and back again. Get yours now!
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A DOPPLER IMAGE OF THE SUN: Amateur astronomer Richard Schrantz was photographing the sun yesterday, Nov. 11th, when a magnetic filament lifted off the sun. His full-disk dopplergram shows the blueshift of material heading almost straight for Earth:
Schrantz is an expert photographer of the sun, who uses a homemade spectroheliograph to capture near-daily images. During his Monday morning photo shoot, he gathered data shifted by +/-0.31 Angstroms to investigate the velocity of structures on the solar disk. "I noticed the filament material moving toward me, as the blueshifted color shows," he says.
Blueshifted means "it's coming our way." Much of the filament's mass was angled toward Earth. We might not get hit, however. SOHO coronagraphs have not detected a significant CME associated with this eruption. The filament may have fallen back and been reabsorbed after Schrantz finished his observing session. That phase of the eruption, if it occured, would have been redshifted.
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