AURORA WARNING ISSUED FOR MARS: Yesterday's X2.7-class solar flare hurled a CME into space. It won't hit Earth, but it will hit Mars. According to a NASA model, the CME will reach the Red Planet on May 18th. The impact could spark global auroras and erode a small amount of the planet's carbon dioxide atmosphere. CME impact alerts: SMS Text
FIZZY TRI-HYDROGEN AURORAS ON JUPITER: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new type of aurora fizzing and popping on Jupiter. Unlike auroras on Earth, which come from oxygen and nitrogen, Jupiter's arise from a completely different compound: Ionized trihydrogen (H3+).
"We expected Jupiter's auroras to fade in and out ponderously, perhaps over a quarter of an hour or so," says astronomer Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester, who led the observing team. "Instead, we observed the whole auroral region fizzing and popping with light, sometimes varying by the second.”
Trihydrogen auroras have been seen before, especially on Neptune, but these auroras on Jupiter are changing faster than models predict. "The overall temporal variation of Jupiter's emission is not well understood," says Nichols and his team in a paper just published in Nature Communications.
Jupiter's auroras also feature "extinction events." Bright regions in the auroral zone can suddenly go dark in a matter of seconds. This graphic from their paper (Figure 3) highlights one such event:
"The radiance at this location increased steadily for the several minutes [before it] dropped precipitously, reducing in brightness by around 40%," say the researchers.
Why are these auroras so dynamic? The answer could lie on one of Jupiter's moon. Io is an intense source of volcanic activity, and its eruptions pepper Jupiter's upper atmosphere with energetic particles. These particles, in turn, react with molecular hydrogen (H2) normally present in Jupiter's atmosphere to produce some of the trihydrogen (H3+) required for auroras. No other planet in the solar system has a volcanic moon like Io; perhaps that explains why Jupiter's auroras are so variable.
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LASER-ETCHED FULL MOON CRYSTAL NIGHT LIGHT: This crystal night light comes from the edge of space bearing a message: "I Love You to the Moon and Back." On April 23, 2025, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a giant helium balloon:
You can have it for $135.99. Made of high-quality K9 crystal, the rectangular mini-monolith contains a 3D laser-etched full Moon floating above the text "I Love You to the Moon and Back." It also comes with an LED base, which allows the crystal to be used as a red, green or blue night light.
The students are selling space crystals to pay the helium bill for their high altitude ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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