THE SOLAR WIND HAS ARRIVED: Earth is entering a high-speed stream of solar wind flowing from an equatorial hole in the sun's atmosphere. Gusts have produced speeds as high as 900 km/s (2 million mph). NOAA forecasters say that minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on Oct. 12-13 as our planet moves deeper into the stream. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
AUTUMN COMET LEMMON: Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is now a naked-eye object. A few days ago, it brightened past 6th magnitude, now almost 5th, which makes it visible to human eyes in dark-sky sites. The sky was *not* dark on Oct. 9th when Petr Horálek photographed it in almost full moonlight:
"After many cloudy nights, I was finally lucky enough to shoot the brightening Comet Lemmon, which is currently south of the Big Dipper," says Horálek. "Despite the strong moonlight, the tail of the comet seems to be significant and most likely will show even nicer structures when darkness comes again."
The darkness is coming. This week, the Moon will rapidly thin to a narrow crescent, allowing Comet Lemmon to be seen without a camera or telescope. For most observers in the northern hemisphere, it is located well above the eastern horizon before sunrise. Take a look! Sky maps: Oct. 12, 13.
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MARTIAN SPACE SEED EXPERIMENT: This is a student science project--and you can participate. On Oct. 4, 2025, the young scientists of Earth to Sky Calculus launched six test tubes of garden seeds into the stratosphere, where they floated as high as 100,676 feet for almost three hours:
Supervised by Marvin the Martian, these okra, tomato, and jalapeño pepper seeds were exposed to temperatures as low as -63 C and cosmic ray fluxes 100x Earth-normal. In the Spring, the students will plant these seeds alongside control samples to discover the difference space travel makes.
You can do the same experiment! For $99, you can have a test tube of flown seeds and a packet of control seeds that remained on Earth. We'll be eager to hear what happens in your own space garden.
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