FRIDAY THE 13TH AURORA WATCH: If NOAA forecasters are right, Friday the 13th could be a luck day for some sky watchers. A slow CME is expected to graze Earth on June 13th. The glancing-blow could spark minor G1-class geomagnetic storms with high-latitude auroras. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
HALF SLINKY, HALF SPIRAL GALAXY: Astronomers at the Big Bear Solar Observatory had a new toy and they *really* wanted to play with it.
In 2023, a team led by Dirk Schmidt developed a new adaptive optics system for the Goode Telescope in California's Big Bear Lake. Theoretically, it should be capable of taking the best pictures ever of the sun's atmosphere. With this in mind, the team started randomly patrolling the corona to see what they might find. Within minutes they made a discovery.
"We became astounded witnesses to a strange, short-lived object," the team writes in a Nature Astronomy article published May 27th. "We call it a twisted plasmoid."
The plasmoid is nothing like anyone has seen inside the sun's atmosphere before. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was observing at the same time and saw almost nothing. The Big Bear adaptive optics system is so good at correcting the turbulent blur of Earth's atmosphere, it outperforms space telescopes.
A movie of the plasmoid shows a narrow stream of plasma racing outward from an erupting prominence. The front of the stream "suddenly stopped and collided with its own rear half," the researchers wrote. Visually, it seemed to be half-slinky, half double-armed spiral galaxy.
The 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope in Big Bear Lake. The steady temperature of the water surface helps keep the air around the telescope calm
It's not clear whether this is a significant discovery or just something idiosyncratic and weird. We'll soon find out. The researchers plan to install the same system on the giant Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, where adaptive optics could reveal an even greater menagerie.
Let the plasmoid hunt begin!
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THE STRAWBERRY MOON: There's a full Moon today, June 11th, and it has a special name. According to folklore, it's the "Strawberry Moon." Alex Krivenyshev photographed it from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ:
The term 'Strawberry Moon' comes from Native American culture, especially the Algonquin tribe, who used it to signal the start of June's wild strawberry picking season. Don't expect the low-hanging Strawberry Moon to appear pink or red like a actual strawberry, though. More often, it is orange, the color of sunsets and smoke from wildfires.
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SOLAR SYSTEM STUD EARRINGS: These earrings have flown to the edge of space--and all eight planets are included! On May 21, 2025, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched the Solar System Stud Earrings to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight, they floated 104,655 feet high:
You can have the complete set for $149.95. Only Pluto is omitted from the collection; the dwarf planet was too small for human earlobes. The earrings come with a greeting card showing the studs in flight and telling the story of their journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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