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For the 3rd day in a row, energetic protons are raining down on Earth. It's an S2-class radiation storm. The protons were accelerated by X-class solar flares on Oct. 24th and 26th. As a result of the storm, a shortwave radio blackout is underway inside the Arctic Circle, and cameras on spacecraft are being fogged. Indeed, most of the speckles in the SOHO coronagraph movie highlighted below are solar protons hitting the camera. This could continue for at least another 24 hours.
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In a joint statement on Oct. 15th, NASA and NOAA announced that Solar Maximum is underway. If you saw last week's geomagnetic storm, you probably reached the same conclusion. Good news: Solar Max is not a narrow moment in time; it is a lengthy phase of solar activity that can last for 2 or 3 years. More aurora outbursts are likely in 2024 and 2025. Listen to the press conference here.
https://spaceweather.com/ Sunspot AR3848 was directly facing Earth this morning, Oct. 8th (0156 UTC), when it unleashed a powerful X1.8-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: This explosions lasted more than 4 hours, so long that it lifted a massive CME out of the sun's atmosphere. Take a look at these preliminary coronagraph images from NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft. This CME will certainly hit Earth later this week, potentially sparking a new round of geomagnetic storms. Stay tuned for a refined forecast.
https://spaceweather.com/ Confirmed: Two CMEs are now heading for Earth following consecutive X-flares (X7.1 and X9.1) from active sunspot AR3842. According to NOAA and NASA models, the first will strike Earth on Oct 4th and the second (more potent) will strike on Oct. 6th. The dual impacts could spark strong G3-class geomagnetic storms with auroras at mid-latitudes, especially on Oct. 6th.
https://spaceweather.com/ Sunspot AR3842 exploded again on Oct. 3rd, producing the strongest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25 so far. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the X9.1-category blast: Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere and caused a deep shortwave blackout over Africa and the South Atlantic. Ham radio operators in the area may have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as a half an hour after 12:18 UTC.
The explosion also produced a halo CME. Now that a full set of images has arrived from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), it's clear that the CME is potent. NOAA forecasts of a strong geomagnetic storm when it arrives on Oct. 6th are probably correct. https://spaceweather.com/ Fast-growing sunspot AR3842 erupted on Oct 1st (2220 UT), producing the second-strongest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25. The X7.1-category blast caused a shortwave radio blackout over Hawaii and hurled a CME into space. A preliminary NASA model predicts it will hit Earth on Oct. 5th. Stay tuned for the geomagnetic storm forecast.
The Moon is about to pass directly in front of the sun, producing a 'ring of fire' solar eclipse. The path of annularity passes almost entirely over remote parts of the Pacific Ocean: Above: Eclipse visibility map created by Spaceweather.com reader Peter Zimnikoval Land masses where people can see the ring of fire include Easter Island and the southern tips of Argentina and Chile. Only ~175,000 people live in the path of annularity.
Annular eclipses occur when the Moon is a little too small to cover the entire sun. All around the circumference of the Moon, the sun peeks out from behind lunar craters and mountain ranges, producing the ring-of-fire effect. https://spaceweather.com/ The quiet has ended. Earlier today, sunspot AR3842 produced an M7.6-class solar flare (movie) and a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean. AR3842 has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for even stronger X-class flares.
https://spaceweather.com/ New sunspot AR3825 erupted again today, producing a very strong X4.5-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a deep shortwave radio blackout over South America and the mid-Atlantic Ocean: map. Ham radio operators and mariners may have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as 30 minutes after the flare's peak (1529 UTC).
A CME is emerging from the blast site, but it is too soon to say whether it has an Earth-directed component. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text more images: from Warren Spreng of Mason, Ohio https://spaceweather.com/ SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission took flight Tuesday morning (Sept. 10th @ 5:23 a.m. EDT) when a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Conrad Pope watched the rocket roar into space from Wilmington, North Carolina: "I wasn’t sure it was going to launch due to weather in Florida," says Pope. "But when it did, it was spectacular!"
Polaris Dawn is funded and led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, the founder of financial firm Shift4 Payments. SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis and retired US Air Force pilot Scott Poteet round out the crew of four. A highlight of the mission will be their attempt to perform a spacewalk without an airlock. Opening the door of the Crew Dragon capsule will expose all four crew members to the vacuum of space. Only their spacesuits will keep them safe. Also, differences in pressure may make it difficult to relock the vehicle’s hatch. It's actually a daring maneuver, and we wish the crew good luck when they try it later this week. https://spaceweather.com/ Active sunspot AR3777 just produced its most powerful solar flare yet--an X1.3-class explosion on Aug. 8th (1935 UT). NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere and caused a shortwave radio blackout from North America to the Hawaiian islands. Mariners and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the flare.
Of greater interest is a possible CME. The US Air Force is reporting a strong Type II radio burst. This type of natural radio emission comes from shock waves at the leading edge of a fast CME. Confirmation awaits fresh data from SOHO coronagraphs. Stay tuned. https://spaceweather.com/ This picture may be the first of its kind. On June 27th, photographer Tom Warner of South Dakota caught a bunch of Green Ghosts in a geomagnetic storm: "This was a huge bucket list item for me," says Warner. "An MCS thunderstorm was moving through the area, so I set up my camera to photograph sprites. The auroras and the Green Ghosts were NOT expected!" Everyone knows what auroras are. Green Ghosts are still new to many observers. They're the green blobs on top of the red sprites. Experienced observers say they appear in as few as 0.2% of sprite photos. "Tom Warner's green ghost is very clear--and certainly an unusual sight combined with aurora!" says Oscar van der Velde, an upper atmospheric lightning researcher at the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. Green Ghosts were discovered in May 2019 by Hank Schyma, a Houston Texas-based storm chaser. Initially, researchers thought they might be a form of green airglow activated by sprites when they touched a layer of oxygen 80 to 90 km above Earth's surface. Indeed, Ghost is an acronym: "Green emissions from excited Oxygen in Sprite Tops." New research casts doubt on that explanation. A paper recently published in Nature Communications reports a Herculean effort to decode the color of Green Ghosts. About a month after Schyma discovered the phenomenon, a team of lightning scientists led by María Passas Varo of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía began chasing thunderstorms, hoping to catch a Green Ghost in the slit of their spectrograph. It wasn't easy. Green Ghosts appear unpredictably and often last for no more than a fraction of a second. Four years and 2000 spectra later, they managed to capture just one spectrum of a Green Ghost strong enough to study. The results surprised them. Green Ghosts, it seems, are made of metal. Spectrum of a Green Ghost over the Mediterranean in Sept. 2019. [full caption] [source] "We identified a mix of spectral lines, including mainly iron, nickel, oxygen and nitrogen, that when combined, produced a green-yellow glow," says van der Velde, a co-author of the study. "There were also traces of sodium and silicon."
This metal-rich stew is more like meteor debris than airglow. Iron atoms deposited by meteors burning up in Earth's atmosphere peak in abundance 85 km high--about right for the tops of the tallest sprites. Green Ghosts might thus be a type of "meteor fluorescence." Or not. These conclusions are based on just one spectrum, and Green Ghosts may be far more varied than that. Stay tuned for updates as the research continues. https://spaceweather.com/ By the time you finish reading this story, there could be a new star in the night sky. Recurrent nova T CrB (pronounced "tee-core-bore") is poised on the knife edge of a once-in-a-lifetime explosion. "Our best estimate for the time of eruption is close to now," says Brad Schaefer, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Louisiana State University. Schaefer is a leading expert on T CrB. He's been studying the star since he was a teenager. "When I was 18 year old, I calculated when T CrB should erupt again. The answer was 'around 2026' -- and I've been waiting for this moment ever since," he says. Above: A T CrB infographic created by South Korean astronomer Bum-Suk Yeom T CrB is a "recurrent nova." That means it erupts not just once, but over and over again. Its explosion in 1866 was the first nova anyone had ever seen in detail. "No one knew what caused it," says Schaefer. Another blast in 1946 established its period (79 or 80 years) and led astronomers to the modern interpretation: T CrB is a binary star system consisting of an ancient red giant circled by a hot white dwarf. Hydrogen from the red giant spills onto the surface of the white dwarf. It takes about 80 years to accumulate a critical mass, then--BOOM--a thermonuclear explosion occurs. "It's an H-bomb that blows up on an incredibly large scale," says Schaefer. After an explosion, the process resets and repeats. Looking at old light curves, Schaefer realized that T CrB tells us when it's about to explode. Approximately 1.1 years before each blow-up, there's a "pre-eruption dip" in brightness. This dip foretells the next blast. Above: The pre-eruption dip in March 2023 Start the clock! "T CrB started its pre-eruption dip in March 2023. If the star behaves in 2023-2024 as it did in 1945-1946, then the next eruption should take place in 2024.4+-0.3," says Schaefer. "That's May 2024 plus or minus a few months."
The explosion will be visible to the naked eye. Schaefer expects it to be about as bright as the North Star. When it blows, T CrB will burst forth as an extra jewel in the "Northern Crown" (the constellation Corona Borealis), easy to find high in the summer night sky between Hercules and Bootes. "T CrB will be the brightest nova for generations," says Schaefer. "It's a chance for everyone in the world to step outside, look up, and see the hellfire." Observing tips: (1) Go out tonight to see what Corona Borealis normally looks like: sky map. Then, when the nova explodes, you'll be able to see the difference. (2) Sign up for Space Weather Alerts. All subscribers (Basic and Pro) will receive an immediate text message when the nova explodes. https://spaceweather.com/ The night sky is about to get a new star. Sometime this summer, astronomers believe, a nova will explode in the constellation Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown). The exploding star will be bright enough to see with the naked eye even from light-polluted cities. A NASA artist's concept of the T CrB binary star system "It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event," says Rebekah Hounsell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. "I believe it will create a lot of new astronomers out there." T Coronae Borealis (T CrB) is a binary system 3,000 light-years from Earth. It consists of a white dwarf orbiting an ancient red giant. Hydrogen from the red giant is being pulled down onto the surface of the white dwarf, accumulating toward a critical mass. Eventually, it will trigger a thermonuclear explosion. The last time T CrB exploded was in 1946. About a year before that blast, the system suddenly dimmed--a pattern astronomers called the "pre-eruption dip." In 2023, T CrB dipped again, heralding a new eruption. If the 1946 pattern repeats itself, the nova should occur between now and September 2024. A sky map showing the location of T CrB (red circle) The outburst will be brief. Once it erupts, the nova will be visible to the naked eye for a little less than a week – but Hounsell is confident it will be quite a sight to see. The expected magnitude is between +2 and +3, similar to stars in the Big Dipper.
"Typically, nova events are faint and far away," says Elizabeth Hays, chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA Goddard. "This one will be really close, with a lot of eyes on it. We can’t wait to get the full picture of what's going on." https://spaceweather.com/ Old sunspot AR3664 (now AR3697) isn't as big as it used to be, but it is still very active. Today at 1437 UT, it produced an X1.4-class solar flare: Note: The jiggling of the sun in this movie is not caused by the X-flare. Calibration offsets were underway during the flare. Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory. A lengthy pulse of extreme ultraviolet radiation produced a deep shortwave radio blackout over the Americas. Ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal at all frequencies below 30 MHz for 60 to 90 minutes following the onset of the flare.
This explosion was remarkable for its duration. The X-class phase alone lasted more than an hour--plenty of time to lift a CME out of the sun's atmosphere. Indeed, SOHO coronagraphs have detected a bright CME emerging from the blast site: movie. We will find out in the hours ahead whether or not the storm cloud has an Earth-directed component. Stay tuned! https://spaceweather.com/ |
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