Really Rocket Science

Not only are we expecting a space weather event…

After producing a pair of R3 (Strong) Radio Blackouts in quick succession yesterday morning (10/1142 and 10/1252 UTC), active Region 2087 produced yet another R3 event today at 11/0906 UTC. Impacts from this activity were short lived and affected HF communications for the daylit side of Earth at the time of the flare. Continuing chances for more events R3 or greater events exists. Unlike yesterday, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is not believed to be associated with this latest impulsive event. A CME assoicated with the activity yesterday morning has been observed moving at a flank from Earth and a glancing blow to Earth from this event is expected on June 13. An outside chance of at most G1 (Minor) Geomagnetic storms remains in the forecast.

…but we’ve got the Spain-Netherlands match, too! Group B is definitely this World Cup’s “group of death.”

Red Aurora Australis from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.

Oy!, nice video, mate!.

After chasing it for more than two years I was finally rewarded with two displays of Auroa Australis (Southern lights) within a week visible from Mornington peninsula, not far from Melbourne. The nights were warm an clear and the Moon was not in the sky either – I could not have asked for better conditions.

The red color of this aurora is caused by the charged particles from the Sun exciting oxygen atoms high in the Earth’s atmosphere. Hopefully there will be more to come as Sun’s activity increases in 2012-13.

Being able to photograph it all night I came up with a nice video. The brighter Aurora happened on January 22nd and the smaller one, featured in the middle section, was from January 16th, followed by a rather bright Moonrise.

From our friends at SpaceWeather.com, report of a huge sunspot…

NOAA forecasters have upgraded the chance of X-class solar flares today to 20%. The source would be AR1339, one of the biggest sunspots in many years. The active region rotated over the sun’s eastern limb two days ago and now it is turning toward Earth. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

The sunspot has already unleashed one X-flare on Nov. 3rd around 2027 UT. A movie from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the extreme ultraviolet flash.

The flare created waves of ionization in Earth’s upper atmosphere, altering the normal propagation of radio waves over Europe and the Americas. In Ireland, the flare’s effect was felt even after dark.

A cloud of plasma or “CME” raced away from the blast site at 1100 km/s. The CME is not heading for Earth. It is, however, heading for Mercury and Venus.

Check out the storm track.