Space Weather

[sidherose]

Trust me, you would be too.......

[Jherrith]

SPACE LIGHTNING OVER CHINA: On Aug. 13th in China, photographer Phebe Pan was photographing the night sky, hoping to catch a Perseid meteor. Instead, he witnessed a spectacular bolt of "space lightning." Working atop Shi Keng Kong, the highest mountain peak in the Guangdong province, "I was using a fisheye lens to capture as much of the sky as possible," says Pan. "Suddenly we saw a flash of blue and purple ejected from the top of a nearby thundercloud. It just looked like a tree with branches, and grew up very fast. So awesome!"





"It just looked like a tree with branches, and grew up very fast," says Pan. "It lasted just less than one second. So awesome!"

Oscar van der Velde, a member of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, explains what Pan saw: "This is a very lucky capture of a gigantic jet. It's the first time I've seen one captured using a fisheye lens!"

Think of them as sprites on steroids: Gigantic jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the tops of thunderstorms, reaching all the way to the ionosphere more than 50 miles overhead. They're enormous and powerful.

"Gigantic jets are much more rare than sprites," says van der Velde. "While sprites were discovered in 1989 and have since been photographed by the thousands, it was not until 2001-2002 that gigantic jets were first recorded from Puerto Rico and Taiwan." Only a few dozen gigantic jets have ever been seen.

Like their cousins the sprites, gigantic jets reach all the way up to the edge of space alongside meteors, noctilucent clouds, and some auroras. This means they are a true space weather phenomenon. Indeed, some researchers believe cosmic rays help trigger these exotic forms of lightning, but the link is controversial.

[sidherose]

Sprites on steroids - NO DOUBT!

What a catch! It's beautiful, but boy I wouldn't want to be anywhere within ten miles of that thing out there.

[Aelin]

Terrific!

[thelufias]

That was amazing indeed. 

[Jherrith]

SUNSET CONJUNCTION: When the sun goes down tonight, Aug. 27th, step outside and look west. Venus and Jupiter are having an amazing close encounter--only 1/15th of a degree apart. If you hold a pencil at arm's length, the eraser would cover both planets at once. The best place to see this conjunction is from the southern hemisphere. Stephen Mudge sends this picture from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia:




"I captured the 2 planets (plus Mercury) above Brisbane's iconic Story Bridge using a Canon 6D and 35mm lens," Mudge says. "It was a beautiful evening."

This conjunction is easy to see in the southern hemisphere where the planets are high in the sky. Not so on the other side of the equator. In the northern hemisphere, Venus and Jupiter hug the horizon at sunset, barely visible in the orange glow of early twilight. This shot from Manhattan shows what to expect.

[sidherose]

Great shot! I've seen that conjunction twice with the moon and it was spectacular both times.

[sidherose]

Then there's this:

SOLAR SECTOR BOUNDARY CROSSING: On Aug. 28th, Earth will cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet. This "solar sector boundary crossing" could disturb our planet's magnetic field and spark auroras at high latitudes. NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% to 30% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms.

[thelufias]

Awesome image.......

[Jherrith]

ASTEROID BUZZES EARTH, HEADS FOR MOON: Newly discovered asteroid 2016 RB1 flew past Earth on Sept 7th only 25,000 miles above our planet's south pole. Because of the asteroid's southern trajectory, it did not pass within the orbits of any communication or weather satellites--but it was close. After it buzzed Earth, the space rock turned and headed for the Moon, executing a wider flyby of 179,000 miles on Sept. 8th. Researchers say 2016 RB1 is ~50 ft in diameter, about the size of a grey whale.

Ernesto Guido used a remotely-controled telescope in Siding Spring, Australia, to photograph the asteroid as it was approaching Earth on Sept. 7th:

"It was shining about as brightly as a 12th magnitude star," says Guido. The asteroid was also photographed by Marian Urbanik of ÄŒadca in the Slovak republic (photo) and Gianluca Masi of Ceccano, Italy (photo).

Where to next? This asteroid spends all of its time in the inner solar system. In Oct. 2017 it will fly by Venus. In March 2020 it will fly by Venus again before returning to Earth in June of the same year. Not one of these encounters is expected to result in an impact. This table from NASA lists the many close approaches of 2016 RB1.

Asteroid 2016 RB1 was discovered on Sept. 5th by astronomers using   the 60-inch Cassegrain reflector telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey,   located at the summit of Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of   Tucson, Arizona.