The solar wind has arrived

Tags

coronal hole, solar wind

THE SOLAR WIND HAS ARRIVED: Earth is entering a stream of high-speed solar wind flowing from a wide gash in the sun’s atmosphere. NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on March 15th as the gaseous material envelops our planet. (From SpaceWeather.com online .)

There is a funny story posted on The Watchers website today about this particular event that is interesting – funny, but still interesting:

Solar storm mania makes headlines

According to many media sources, a massive solar storm is supposed to be ravaging Earth today. Some MSM channels, and several well-known alternative, went as far as posting fake news about a ‘massive X-class solar flare hitting Earth’ today… they claim that Russian Academy of Sciences is the source of this dire warning. But it’s not…

“The stories are overblown,” Dr. Tamitha Skov said, referring to fake news stories about a massive solar storm that is supposed to be ravaging Earth today.

https://watchers.news/2018/03/15/solar-storm-mania-makes-headlines/

 

Sounds of Aurora Borealis

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Sounds of Aurora

A Minnesota Planetarium Video- Natural Radio: When solar flares hit the Earth’s magnetic field, the skies at both poles can light up with auroras. The particles also create very low frequency electromagnetic waves, a type of natural radio that can be picked up around the globe.

Every year sound recordist Steve McGreevy heads north where the reception is best and points his receiver at the sky. (Made for use in the Planetarium dome, thus the circular frame of the images.)

Produced for Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center
http://mplanetarium.org/

Produced by Joel Halvorson
NASA Earth-Sun Museum Alliance (ESMA)

Aurora over clouds

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APOD, auroras, Iceland

Image Credit & Copyright: Daniele Boffelli

Explanation: Auroras usually occur high above the clouds. The auroral glow is created when fast-moving particles ejected from the Sun impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, from which charged particles spiral along the Earth’s magnetic field to strike atoms and molecules high in the Earth’s atmosphere. An oxygen atom, for example, will glow in the green light commonly emitted by an aurora after being energized by such a collision. The lowest part of an aurora will typically occur at 100 kilometers up, while most clouds usually exist only below about 10 kilometers.

The relative heights of clouds and auroras are shown clearly in the featured picture from Dyrholaey, Iceland. There, a determined astrophotographer withstood high winds and initially overcast skies in an attempt to a capture aurora over a picturesque lighthouse, only to take, by chance, the featured picture along the way.

(This is the Nasa APOD from 24 November 2015. Click here for many more wonderful images. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html)

Rosetta mission extended

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comet, Comet 67P, Rosetta, spacecraft

 

23 June 2015The adventure continues: ESA today confirmed that its Rosetta mission will be extended until the end of September 2016, at which point the spacecraft will most likely be landed on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Rosetta was launched in 2004 and arrived at the comet in August 2014, where it has been studying the nucleus and its environment as the comet moves along its 6.5-year orbit closer to the Sun. After a detailed survey, Rosetta deployed the lander, Philae, to the surface on 12 November. Philae fell into hibernation after 57 hours of initial scientific operations, but recently awoke and made contact with Rosetta again.

Rosetta’s nominal mission was originally funded until the end of December 2015, but at a meeting today, ESA’s Science Programme Committee has given formal approval to continue the mission for an additional nine months. At that point, as the comet moves far away from the Sun again, there will no longer be enough solar power to run Rosetta’s set of scientific instrumentation efficiently.

“This is fantastic news for science,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta Project Scientist. “We’ll be able to monitor the decline in the comet’s activity as we move away from the Sun again, and we’ll have the opportunity to fly closer to the comet to continue collecting more unique data. By comparing detailed ‘before and after’ data, we’ll have a much better understanding of how comets evolve during their lifetimes.”

Comet on 5 June 2015 – NavCam

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will make its closest approach to the Sun on 13 August and Rosetta has been watching its activity increase over the last year. Continuing its study of the comet in the year following perihelion will give scientists a fuller picture of how a comet’s activity waxes and wanes along its orbit.

The extra observations collected by Rosetta will also provide additional context for complementary Earth-based observations of the comet. At present, the comet is close to the line-of-sight to the Sun, making ground-based observations difficult.

As the activity diminishes post-perihelion, it should be possible to move the orbiter much closer to the comet’s nucleus again, to make a detailed survey of changes in the comet’s properties during its brief ‘summer’.

In addition, there may be an opportunity to make a definitive visual identification of Philae. Although candidates have been seen in images acquired from a distance of 20 km, images taken from 10 km or less after perihelion could provide the most compelling confirmation.

During the extended mission, the team will use the experience gained in operating Rosetta in the challenging cometary environment to carry out some new and potentially slightly riskier investigations, including flights across the night-side of the comet to observe the plasma, dust, and gas interactions in this region, and to collect dust samples ejected close to the nucleus.

As the comet recedes from the Sun, the solar-powered spacecraft will no longer receive enough sunlight to operate efficiently and safely, equivalent to the situation in June 2011 when the spacecraft was put into hibernation for 31 months for the most distant leg of its journey out towards the orbit of Jupiter.

In addition, Rosetta and the comet will again be close to the Sun as seen from the Earth in October 2016, making operations difficult by then.

However, with Rosetta’s propellant largely depleted by that time, it makes little sense to place the spacecraft in hibernation again.

“This time, as we’re riding along next to the comet, the most logical way to end the mission is to set Rosetta down on the surface,” says Patrick Martin, Rosetta Mission Manager.

“But there is still a lot to do to confirm that this end-of-mission scenario is possible. We’ll first have to see what the status of the spacecraft is after perihelion and how well it is performing close to the comet, and later we will have to try and determine where on the surface we can have a touchdown.”

If this proposed scenario were played out, then the spacecraft would be commanded to spiral down to the comet over a period of about three months.

It is expected that science operations would continue throughout this period and be feasible up to very close to the end of mission, allowing Rosetta’s instruments to gather unique data at unprecedentedly close distances.

Once the orbiter lands on the surface, however, it is highly unlikely to be able to continue operations and relay data back to Earth, bringing to an end one of the most successful space exploration missions of all time.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_mission_extended

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 Rosetta’s MIRO Instrument Maps Comet Water

This image, by the Rosetta navigation camera, was taken from a distance of about 53 miles (86 kilometers) from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on March 14, 2015. The image has a resolution of 24 feet (7 meters) per pixel and is cropped and processed to bring out the details of the comet’s activity.

Since last September, scientists using NASA’s Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) on the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft have generated maps of the distribution of water in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as the comet’s orbit brings it closer to the sun.

MIRO is able to detect water in the coma by measuring the direct emission from water vapor in the coma and by observing absorption of radiation from the nucleus at water-specific frequencies as the radiation passed through the coma.

For the rest of the article, click here:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/rosettas-miro-instrument-maps-comet-water

New Brown Dwarf discovered

Tags

Brown dwarf star, gas giant planet

Close neighbor of the Sun and the coldest of its kind
ScienceDaily.com
25 April 2014

Artist’s conception of the brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5. The Sun is the bright star directly to the right of the brown dwarf.
Credit: Robert Hurt/JPL, Janella Williams/Penn State University
[Click to enlarge image]

A “brown dwarf” star that appears to be the coldest of its kind — as frosty as Earth’s North Pole — has been discovered by a Penn State University astronomer using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object’s distance at 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our Sun.

“It is very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close,” said Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a researcher in the Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. “In addition, its extreme temperature should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures.”

Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight. The newfound coldest brown dwarf, named WISE J085510.83-071442.5, has a chilly temperature between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius). Previous record holders for coldest brown dwarfs, also found by WISE and Spitzer, were about room temperature.

Although it is very close to our solar system, WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is not an appealing destination for human space travel in the distant future. “Any planets that might orbit it would be much too cold to support life as we know it” Luhman said.

“This object appeared to move really fast in the WISE data,” said Luhman. “That told us it was something special.” The closer a body, the more it appears to move in images taken months apart. Airplanes are a good example of this effect: a closer, low-flying plane will appear to fly overhead more rapidly than a high-flying one.

WISE was able to spot the rare object because it surveyed the entire sky twice in infrared light, observing some areas up to three times. Cool objects like brown dwarfs can be invisible when viewed by visible-light telescopes, but their thermal glow — even if feeble — stands out in infrared light.

After noticing the fast motion of WISE J085510.83-071442.5 in March, 2013, Luhman spent time analyzing additional images taken with Spitzer and the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile. Spitzer’s infrared observations helped to determine the frosty temperature of the brown dwarf.

WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is estimated to be 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter. With such a low mass, it could be a gas giant similar to Jupiter that was ejected from its star system. But scientists estimate it is probably a brown dwarf rather than a planet since brown dwarfs are known to be fairly common. If so, it is one of the least massive brown dwarfs known.

Combined detections from WISE and Spitzer, taken from different positions around the Sun, enabled the measurement of its distance through the parallax effect. This is the same principle that explains why your finger, when held out right in front of you, appears to jump from side to side when you alternate left-eye and right-eye views.

In March of 2013, Luhman’s analysis of the images from WISE uncovered a pair of much warmer brown dwarfs at a distance of 6.5 light years, making that system the third closest to the Sun. His search for rapidly moving bodies also demonstrated that the outer solar system probably does not contain a large, undiscovered planet, which has been referred to as “Planet X” or “Nemesis.”

“It is remarkable that even after many decades of studying the sky, we still do not have a complete inventory of the Sun’s nearest neighbors,” said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages and operates Spitzer. “This exciting new result demonstrates the power of exploring the universe using new tools, such as the infrared eyes of WISE and Spitzer.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140425162339.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+–+ScienceDaily%29

NASA spots massive coronal hole on sun

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coronal hole

Photo: ESA & NASA/SOHO. Taken on July 18.

NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has captured images of an unusually large coronal hole on the surface of the Sun. At one point, it was so large that it covered nearly a quarter of the Sun’s visible disk — a distance equivalent to 50 Earths placed side-by-side.

As dramatic as this sounds, coronal holes are nothing to worry about. The phenomenon happens every 11 years as the solar cycle comes to an end and the Sun attains its solar maximum — a regularly occurring event in which the magnetic fields on the Sun reverse and new coronal holes appear near the poles with the opposite magnetic alignment.

These holes are dark, low density regions located in the outermost region of the atmosphere. They contain little solar material and are significantly cooler than their surroundings, which gives them their darker appearance.

According to NASA, coronal holes can influence some aurora on Earth. After magnetic forces open them up, they spew solar material at roughly twice the speed found on other parts of the solar surface.

[Via NASA]

http://io9.com/nasa-spots-a-massive-hole-near-the-suns-north-pole-974116785

Coronal rain on the sun

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coronal rain, Sun

Astronomy Picture of the Day
26 February 2013

Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however, was what happened next. Plasma in the nearby solar corona was imaged cooling and falling back, a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Because they are electrically charged, electrons, protons, and ions in the rain were gracefully channeled along existing magnetic loops near the Sun’s surface, making the scene appear as a surreal three-dimensional sourceless waterfall. The resulting surprisingly-serene spectacle is shown in ultraviolet light and highlights matter glowing at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. Each second in the above time lapse video takes about 6 minutes in real time, so that the entire coronal rain sequence lasted about 10 hours.

Video Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, SVS, GSFC, NASA; Music: Thunderbolt by Lars Leonhard

As spectacularly beautiful as the coronal rain is — and it is indeed, God’s marvelous handiwork that has gone on for many thousands of years with no human able to enjoy it — I am amazed at the technology that brought this video to me. The satellite observatory that holds the camera. The beams that sent the images back to earth. The scientists and administrators that decided to share these images with the world. The internet that enabled them to do it. The computer on my desk with the color screen that allows me to view it.

Daniel 12:4 “… many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

Knowledge. Data. Information. Whatever is learned, discovered or invented on earth was inspired in men by God, whether or not they acknowledge it. Some of it is practical; the study of our star is quite practical in the minds of scientists. The survival of our species, our entire solar system, may depend on it.

But some is also wonderfully beautiful, great art, great music, great images of space, and of the coronal rain.

For more fascinating information and images, visit Solar Dynamics Observatory: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Radiation storm in progress

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Radiation storm

RADIATION STORM: A low-level radiation storm is underway as solar protons swarm around our planet. Ranked S1 on NOAA space weather scales, the storm poses no serious threat to astronauts or satellites.

Nevertheless it is a nuisance. Minor radiation storms can cause occasional reboots of computers onboard spacecraft and add “snow” to spacecraft imaging systems. This SOHO coronagraph image of the sun, taken during the early hours of July 20th, is a good example:

Each of the speckles in the image are caused by protons hitting the spacecraft’s CCD camera. During minor storms it is possible to see through this kind of snow. During severe storms, such images become practically opaque.

The protons were accelerated toward Earth by an M7-class solar flare on July 19th. Although the blast site (sunspot AR1520) was on the farside of the sun, the protons were able to reach Earth anyway, guided toward our planet by backward-spiralling lines of magnetic force.

http://spaceweather.com/

Coronal Hole 3 July 2012

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coronal hole

Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on July 4-5. Credit: SDO/AIA.

Sunspots 4 July 2012

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AR1515, sunspots