This week, Earth passed through the orbital plane of Comet Pan-Starrs. This allowed observers to see the comet's fan-shaped tail edge on. Veteran astrophotographer Chris Schur of Payson, Arizona, judged it "the finest long anti-tail we have ever imaged in the past 35 years of comet photography!" This picture, taken by Pete Lawrence of Selsey UK, shows less than half of the comet's tail:

"Wow - as Earth crossed the orbital plane of comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, the comet's orbital plane spike or 'anti-tail' became very impressive, stretching for more than 7 degrees across the sky," says Lawrence.

The narrow linear structure is called an anti-tail because it points toward the sun, opposite the usual direction of comet tails. In fact, this is an artifact of the viewing geometry. Gas and dust evaporating from the comet is not being sucked back toward the sun.

Amateur astronomers with mid-sized backyard telescopes can see the anti-tail for themselves. Comet Pan-Starrs is shining like a 9th magnitude star not far from Polaris, the North Star. More: NASA video, 3D orbit, ephemeris, light curves.

ELECTRON STORM: In the past 24 hours, the flux of high-energy electrons swarming around Earth has increased more than tenfold. The source of this "electron storm" is a 700 km/s stream of solar wind buffeting Earth's magnetic field. NOAA cautions satellite operators that "satellite systems may experience significant charging" in response to accumulated electrons.

NOCTILUCENT CLOUD SEASON BEGINS: Over the weekend, sky watchers in northern Europe and Canada spotted electric-blue tendrils of light reaching out of the western sky at sunset. This signals the beginning of the 2013 season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Photographer Silvar Mehik sends this picture from the island of Saaremaa in Estonia:

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. In the upper atmosphere, 80+ km high, tiny ice crystals nucleate around meteoroids and other aerosols. When the crystals catch the rays of the setting sun, they glow electric blue. For reasons that are not fully understood, these highest and coldest of clouds form during the warmest months on the ground--late spring and summer.

Noctilucent clouds first appeared in the 19th century after the eruption of super-volcano Krakatoa. At the time, people thoght the clouds were caused by the eruption, but long after Krakatoa's ash settled, the clouds remained. In those days, NLCs were a polar phenomenon confined mainly ro far-northern places such as Scandinavia or Alaska. In recent years they have intensified and spread with sightings as far south as Utah and Colorado. Could this be a sign of climate change? A NASA spacecraft named "AIM" is in orbit to investigate.

NEW! Daily images from AIM are now published here on Spaceweather.com. To find them, look in the left column of the home page and scroll down below the coronal holes.

High latitude sky watchers should be alert for NLCs in the evenings ahead. Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you've probably spotted a noctilucent cloud.

SUNSET PLANET SHOW: Last night, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury converged to form a bright triangle in the sunset sky. "It was an absolutely amazing sunset planet show," says Marek Nikodem, who photographed the apparition from Szubin, Poland:

At closest approach, the three planets fit inside a circle less than 3o wide. It was a rare event. There won't be another triple conjunction this tight until 2026.

However, the show's not over. The triangle will stretch and eventually break apart in the nights ahead--and the contortions are worth watching. Keep an eye on the sunset sky all week long. NASA: video, full story.
www.spaceweather.com

starseedawakenings·15 videos

Who are we? Why are we here? Its time to remember. These courageous individuals spoke their truth for the better of this world. Its time we all do our part for global unity. 2012 was not the end of the world. It was the beginning.

Music by Enya - 'The memory of trees'

U.S. loses major weather satellite: A satellite designed to track severe weather in the US, has failed on the eve of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. Experts fear it could not have happened at a worse time. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the satellite, which provides coverage for the entire US eastern seaboard, is relied upon to track hurricanes threatening cities along the coast. The NOAA gave a warning that this year’s hurricane season – the first since hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey shorelines last October – is likely to be “extremely active.” The Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season begins this week and lasts for six months. The NOAA has predicted as many as 13 to 20 tropical storms could threaten homes, with half of those likely to strengthen.

The NOAA announced that a spare satellite had been activated while attempts are made to fix the failed one, but added there was currently “no estimate on its return to operations”. The organization’s three current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) were built by Boeing and designed to last 10 years. The failed satellite, GOES-13, was launched in 2006. NOAA typically operates two GOES spacecraft over the country, overlooking the East and West coasts, plus one on-orbit spare. The satellites are fitted with technology enabling them to watch for clouds and developing storms. The first sign of trouble with GOES-13, the primary East coast satellite, emerged late last Wednesday when it failed to relay expected images, NOAA reports showed. If a second GOES should fail, NOAA would operate its remaining satellite to get a full view of the US every half-hour. The organization would also depend more on other information relayed by polar-orbiting weather satellites. –Independent UK ;   http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/

May 25, 2013 – SPACE – The new movie Europa Report offers a compelling look into a future manned space mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, as a prelude to human colonization. The views of Europa in the film are amazingly detailed, and the methods used by the crew to probe the moon and its icy crust appear to be pulled straight out of concepts by NASA and other space agencies for exploring the icy Jovian satellite. Europa has long been a tantalizing target for scientists because its thick icy crust appears to hide a vast ocean of liquid water. Interactions between that ocean and Europa’s tidally heated interior could potentially serve as an energy source for primitive life, if it exists at all on the Jupiter moon.

The European Space Agency plans to launch a real-life mission to Europa in 2022 to explore it and several other Jupiter moons as part of the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer mission, nicknamed JUICE. NASA will provide a radar instrument for the JUICE spacecraft to peer beneath Europa’s surface, but the mission will be completely robotic — no astronauts aboard. So it looks as if Wayfare’s “Europa Report” will be the closest humanity comes to a manned mission to Jupiter for the foreseeable future. Let’s hope the next try goes a bit better. –NBC News

Lethal radiation from Jupiter: Europa is thought to have a liquid-water ocean underneath its icy exterior. The access to this liquid-water ocean is a major difficulty, but the abundance of water on Europa is a benefit to any considerations for colonization. Not only can water provide for colonists’ drinking needs, it also can be broken down to provide breathable oxygen. Oxygen is also believed to have accumulated from the radiolysis of the ice on the surface that has been convected into the subsurface ocean and may prove sufficient for oxygen-using marine life.

The colonization of Europa presents numerous difficulties. One is the high level of radiation from Jupiter’s radiation belt, which is about 10 times as strong as Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts. As Europa receives 540 rem of radiation per day (500 rem is a fatal dose). A human would not survive at or near the surface of Europa for long without significant radiation shielding. Colonists on Europa would have to descend beneath the surface when Europa is not protected by Jupiter’s magnetotail, and stay in subsurface habitats. This would allow colonists to use Europa’s ice sheet to shield themselves from radiation. Another problem is that the surface temperature of Europa normally rests at −170 °C (103 K) (-275°F). However, the fact that liquid water is believed to exist below Europa’s icy surface, along with the fact that colonists would spend much of their time under the ice sheet in order to shield themselves from radiation, may somewhat mitigate the problems associated with low surface temperatures.

The low gravity of Europa may also present challenges to colonization efforts. The effects of low gravity on human health are still an active field of study, but can include symptoms such as loss of bone density, loss of muscle density, and a weakened immune system. Astronauts in Earth orbit have remained in microgravity for up to a year and more at a time. Effective countermeasures for the negative effects of low gravity are well-established, particularly an aggressive regimen of daily physical exercise. The variation in the negative effects of low gravity as a function of different levels of low gravity are not known, since all research in this area is restricted to humans in zero gravity. The same goes for the potential effects of low gravity on fetal and pediatric development. It has been hypothesized that children born and raised in low gravity would not be well adapted for life under the higher gravity of Earth.

It is also speculated that alien organisms may exist on Europa, possibly in the water underlying the moon’s ice shell. If this is true, human colonists may come into conflict with harmful microbes, or aggressive native life forms. More-recent studies have indicated that the action of solar radiation on the surface of Europa might produce oxygen, which could be pulled down into the subsurface ocean by upwelling of the interior. If this process occurs, Europa’s subsurface ocean could have an oxygen content equal to or greater than that of the Earth’s, possibly providing a home to more complex life. –Wikipedia

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/in-2022-esa-plans-a-mission-to-jupiters-moon-europa-to-search-for-life-but-the-moon-harbors-many-perils/

May 25, 2013 – COLORADO - What is life going to look like as our precious water resources become increasingly strained and the western half of the United States becomes bone dry? Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century in the western half of the country in 1000 years, and now things appear to be reverting to their normal historical patterns. But we have built teeming cities in the desert such as Phoenix and Las Vegas that support millions of people. Cities all over the Southwest continue to grow even as the Colorado River, Lake Mead and the High Plains Aquifer system run dry. So what are we going to do when there isn’t enough water to irrigate our crops or run through our water systems?

Already we are seeing some ominous signs that Dust Bowl conditions are starting to return to the region.  In the past couple of years we have seen giant dust storms known as “haboobs” roll through Phoenix, and 6 of the 10 worst years for wildfires ever recorded in the United States have all come since the year 2000. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, “the average number of fires larger than 1,000 acres in a year has nearly quadrupled in Arizona and Idaho and has doubled in every other Western state” since the 1970s. But scientists are warning that they expect the western United States to become much drier than it is now. What will the western half of the country look like once that happens?

In a recent National Geographic article contained the following chilling statement…The wet 20th century, the wettest of the past millennium, the century when Americans built an incredible civilization in the desert, is over. Much of the western half of the country has historically been a desolate wasteland. We were very blessed to enjoy very wet conditions for most of the last century, but now that era appears to be over. To compensate, we are putting a tremendous burden on our fresh water resources. In particular, the Colorado River is becoming increasingly strained.

Ecosystem crash: Without the Colorado River, many of our largest cities simply would not be able to function. The following is from a recent Stratfor article: “The Colorado River provides water for irrigation of roughly 15 percent of the crops in the United States, including vegetables, fruits, cotton, alfalfa and hay. It also provides municipal water supplies for large cities, such as Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas, accounting for more than half of the water supply in many of these areas.” In particular, water levels in Lake Mead (which supplies most of the water for Las Vegas) have fallen dramatically over the past decade or so.

The following is an excerpt from an article posted on Smithsonian: “And boaters still roar across Nevada and Arizona’s Lake Mead, 110 miles long and formed by the Hoover Dam. But at the lake’s edge they can see lines in the rock walls, distinct as bathtub rings, showing the water level far lower than it once was—some 130 feet lower, as it happens, since 2000. Water resource officials say some of the reservoirs fed by the river will never be full again.” Today, Lake Mead supplies approximately 85 percent of the water that Las Vegas uses, and since 1998 the water level in Lake Mead has dropped by about 5.6 trillion gallons. -TECB

May 26, 2013 – ITALY – Mount Etna is spitting lava more violently than it has in years, and scientists are baffled as to why. Despite being the world’s most-studied volcano, the Sicilian mountain is also its most unpredictable. The volcano is raging. Fountains of lava, some taller than the Eiffel Tower, shoot from its mouth every few weeks, flowing in red-hot streams into the surrounding valleys. There have been 13 eruptions since the beginning of February.

Mount Etna, 3,329 meters (10,922 feet) high, towers majestically above the Sicilian city of Catania. In June, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will decide whether to list it as a World Heritage Site. Etna is considered the most heavily studied volcano in the world, and it is thoroughly wired with sensors. In addition to lava, Etna spits out vast amounts of data — several gigabytes a day, coming from magnetic field sensors, GPS altimeters and seismic sensors. Despite this wealth of data, Etna still poses a conundrum to scientists.

“The eruptions in recent weeks have been unusually fierce and explosive,” reports German volcanologist Boris Behncke, who monitors the mountain together with a few hundred colleagues at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). “There have been lava fountain events in the past, but rarely in such rapid succession.”  Behncke has fallen under Etna’s spell. During the day, he maps the lava flows; at night, he hikes along its slopes. His Twitter hash tag is “@etnaboris.” The volcano is the first thing he sees when he looks out of his bedroom window every morning. “This time, the range of ash fall is much wider than usual,” says Behncke.

A layer of black ash covers cars as far as 50 kilometers (31 miles) away. Even in ancient times, people marveled at the forces that were capable of shooting fountains of lava into the sky. In Greek and Roman mythology, the volcano is represented by a limping blacksmith swinging his hammer as sparks fly. Legend has it that the natural philosopher Empedocles jumped into the crater 2,500 years ago. What he found there remained his secret, because he never returned. All that remained of him were his iron shoes, which the mountain later spat out.

For many geologists today, Etna is still the most inscrutable volcano in the world. The mountain is located at precisely the spot where the African and European tectonic plates rub against each other like two giant ice floes. At this plate margin, lava with low viscosity flows upward from a depth of 30 kilometers into a reservoir of magma two kilometers beneath the summit. “The stream of magma doesn’t move uniformly, but in spurts, vibrating as if it were in a hydraulic pump,” explains Stuttgart geophysicist Rolf Schick. “This makes Etna so unpredictable.

” Schick has been a star among volcanologists since 1972, when he caused a stir with his new discoveries about Etna. Using seismic sensors, he discovered a “pulse rate” of sorts in the stream of magma, which is forced through the vent at a rate of 72 beats per minute — coincidentally, at a rate similar to that of the human heartbeat. –ABC News

SOLAR WIND STORM: Solar wind is blowing around Earth faster than 600 km/s (1.3 million mph) as our planet moves through the wake of a CME that struck on May 24th. This is causing geomagnetic unrest around the poles. Aurora sightings have been few, however, because of the competing glare of the full Moon.

SUNSET PLANET SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. Venus, Jupiter and Mercury have converged to form a bright triangle in the sunset sky. Richard Sears sends this picture from Atwater, California:

"I took the picture on May 25th," says Sears. "What a way to end the day!"

Tonight will be even better. On Sunday, May 26th, the planets fit within a tightening circle less than 3o wide. There won't be another triple conjunction like this until October 2015, so don't miss it! NASA: video, full story.

minutephysics·94 videos

Published on 2 Apr 2013

Oh, Hey! MinuteEarth! http://youtube.com/minuteearth
.........and you can also subscribe to MinutePhysics! http://dft.ba/-minutephysics_sub

MinutePhysics is on Google+ - http://bit.ly/qzEwc6
And facebook - http://facebook.com/minutephysics
And twitter - @minutephysics

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Music by Nathaniel Schroeder http://www.soundcloud.com/drschroeder
Drums by Jason Burger http://masonjarmusic.com

Thanks to Nima Doroud and TED-Ed for contributions.

May 23, 2013 – CHINA - Steady deterioration of water bodies is one of the most pressing problems facing the world today. In Asia, degradation of water quality and the problems it spawns are so extensive and serious that they are threatening to harm economic growth and affect the health and quality of life of billions of people. China’s high economic growth has had an adverse impact in terms of access, volume and quality of water as well as equity, management and investment requirements. While the magnitude of the water quality problem has steadily widened, planning, management and institutional capacities have not improved commensurately and thus complicated matters further.

Water scarcity and pollution of water sources are two of the most serious problems for China. Pollution has now spread from the coastal region to inland water bodies, affecting both surface water and groundwater. More than 53 billion tons of (untreated or inadequately treated) wastewater is discharged into China’s water bodies every year. And as early as 2006, water in a stretch of more than 25,000 km of rivers failed to meet the quality standards for aquatic life and about 90 percent sections of rivers in and around urban areas were seriously polluted. The World Bank estimates that water scarcity and pollution are costing China about 2.3 percent of GDP – 1.3 percent due to water scarcity and the rest as a direct impact of water pollution.

Water quality is a bigger problem in North China, where shortage of water prevents pollutant discharges from being diluted. In the northern region, about 40 percent of the rivers have the two worst water quality standards: grades V and VI. This means water is so highly polluted that it is not only unsafe to drink (a serious health issue in itself), but also very difficult and expensive to treat. Pollution is a serious problem in rural areas, too. Ministry of Water Resources data show that more than 300 million people don’t have access to safe drinking water. While in terms of money the cost is a staggering 66 billion yuan ($10.72 billion), the main cost is in terms of human life as diseases like diarrhea, cholera and cancer continue to afflict people. Although the impact of water pollution on health is very serious, it cannot be quantified because of lack of reliable data both on the pollutants and the households that use poor quality water.

Water pollution is also harming China’s south-to-north water transfer project. Along the “East Route,” for example, industrial pollution has affected many of the poorer areas of northern Jiangsu and western Shandong provinces, delaying the construction of the project. Speaking at a forum in September 2000, Zhu Rongji, then premier, said the initial stage of the project should follow the principle, “first save water, then transfer it; first clean up pollution, then let the water flow; first protect the environment, then use water.” Unfortunately, more than a decade later, pollution problems along the East Route have still not been fully solved. In addition, industrial accidents and illegal dumping of wastes often worsen the quality of water in rivers and lakes. Such incidents include the Songhua River toxic chemical spill in 2005, the algae bloom in Taihu Lake which polluted the source of drinking water for people of the surrounding areas in 2007 and the dumping of more than 13,000 pig carcasses in the Huangpu River earlier this year. –China Daily

SUBSIDING RADIATION STORM: A solar radiation storm in progress around Earth is slowly subsiding. It currently ranks S2 (moderate) on NOAA storm scales, which means that satellites in Earth orbit could experience "single event upsets" in their electronic systems. The radiation storm is also a source of noise in spacecraft cameras, giving their images a snowy appearance (see below).

M5-CLASS EXPLOSION: The ongoing radiation storm got started on May 22nd when the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1745 exploded. The blast produced an M5-class solar flare and hurled a magnificent CME over the sun's western limb:
[go to http://spaceweather.com/images2013/22may13/m5_cme_anim.gif  to watch animation]

The movie of the CME is very "snowy." That is caused by high-energy solar protons striking the CCD camera in SOHO's coronagraph. Each strike produces a brief snow-like speckle in the image. This hailstorm of solar protons is what forecasters mean by "radiation storm."

Although the explosion was not squarely Earth-directed, the CME will likely be geoeffective. The expanding cloud appears set to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on May 24th around 1200 UT. According to NOAA forecast models, the impact will more than double the solar wind plasma density around Earth and boost the solar wind speed to ~600 km/s. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.                        www.spaceweather.com

Suspicious0bservers·776 videos

Published on 23 May 2013

How to Watch the Sun - http://youtu.be/ld5ecZuHECA

Original music by Nemes1s - http://www.soundclick.com/nemes1s
Animations and Visual Effects by Xaviar Thunders [Check him out on YouTube]

TODAY's New LINKS:
Galaxy Merger: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videog...
Pavlof Volcano: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD...
Central Pacific Hurricane Season: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2...
LandSAT: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lan... [Bonus Article - Not in video, but still cool]

Radio Anomaly: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproo...
US TEC: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ustec/images...
US Windmap http://hint.fm/wind/
US Severe Weather: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-c...
UK/EU MET Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/e...
NOAA: http://www.weather.gov/forecastmaps
EU Weather Alerts: http://www.meteoalarm.eu
US Weather Warnings: http://www.weather.gov
India: http://202.54.31.51/nowcast/ http://www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dy... http://www.imd.gov.in/section/satmet/...

The REAL Climate Changer: http://youtu.be/_yy3YJBOw_o
Ice Age Soon? http://youtu.be/UuYTcnN7TQk
An Unlikely but Relevant Risk - The Solar Killshot: http://youtu.be/X0KJ_dxp170

The long-awaited sunset sky show of May 2013 is beginning. In only a few days, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury will form a tight triangle in the western sky, visible to the unaided eye around the world. Last night, Fred Espenak of Portal, Arizona, photographed the trio in the early stages of convergence:

"The three planets were easily visible to the naked eye in spite of the bright twilight glow," says Espanel. "Mercury should be even easier to spot in the coming days as it climbs higher into the sky. "

In the nights ahead, the line of planets will collapse to form a triangle. At closest approach on May 26th, they will fit within a circle less than 3o wide. Start watching tonight--it's a great way to end the day. [full story] [video]

Near-Earth asteroid 1998 QE2 is approaching the Earth-Moon system for a flyby on May 31st. There's no danger of a collision; at closest approach the asteroid will be 3.6 million miles away. Even at that distance, however, the 1.7-mile-wide space rock will be an easy target for mid-sized backyard telescopes. Using a 14-inch Celestron, Alberto Quijano Vodniza of Narino, Colombia took this picture of 1998 QE2 on May 17th:  [go to http://spaceweather.com/images2013/21may13/asteroid_anim.gif?PHPSESSID=3fs4dhuta1srh8u7a5nngrbje7 to watch a brief video of the asteroid's trajectory]

The sunlit side of the asteroid will turn more squarely toward Earth during the first week of June. At that time it will reach a maximum brightness of 11th magnitude.

NASA radars will be monitoring the flyby, too. "Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features," says radar astronomer Lance Benner of JPL. "Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin."

Stay tuned for updates and observing tips.    www.spaceweather.com