Space Weather

[Jherrith]

POLAR STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS: Earth's stratosphere is *not* a cloudy place. On rare occasions, however, during the coldest weeks of northern winter, tiny crystals of ice in the stratosphere gather themselves into swarms called "PSCs"--polar stratospheric clouds. On Dec. 29th, Frank Olsen photographed a rare PSC floating over Sortland, Norway:



"The pastel-colored clouds appeared alongside some faint green auroras," says Olsen. "I have never seen PSCs and auroras together before."

Also known as "nacreous" or "mother of pearl" clouds, PSCs form in the lower stratosphere when temperatures drop to around minus 85ºC. That's how cold it has to be for ice to crystalize in the dry stratosphere.

"I took the picture around 6 p.m., long after sunset," continues Olsen. "This makes me wonder if the rising moon, just below the horizon, is what illuminated the PSCs."

High-altitude sunlight--or, in this case, moonlight--shining through tiny ice particles ~10µm across produce the characteristic bright iridescent colors of PSCs. "Polar stratospheric clouds far outshine and have much more vivid colours than ordinary iridescent clouds, which are very much poor relations and seen frequently all over the world," writes atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Once seen they are never forgotten."

[Star4mation]

Fantastic images!! :)

[Aelin]

Gorgeous spectacle to start the year!  :binoc:

[sidherose]

Great pics and 'tales'. Just gorgeous!

[Jherrith]

QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is about to pass through a narrow stream of debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. According to the International Meteor Organization, the shower will peak on Monday morning, Jan. 4th, during the hours around 0800 UT (3 a.m. ET). The timing favors observers in North America who could see dozens of meteors per hour flowing from a radiant near the North Star. Too cold to go outside? Cozy up by the fire and listen to Quadrantid radar echoes on Space Weather Radio.

[thelufias]

Saw that this morning in the Newsletter...pretty cool indeed...

[Jherrith]

UN-DEAD SUNSPOT EXPLODES AGAIN: Sunspot AR2473, the source of the New Year's geomagnetic storm, appears to be in a state of advanced decay. It's not dead yet, though. During the early hours of Jan. 2nd it unleashed a strong M2-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion:

Note the tornado of plasma that briefly rises up and falls back to the sun's surface. The twister was wider than our entire planet.

This explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space: movie. Almost all of the storm cloud is  heading away from Earth--almost all. NOAA analysts say the CME could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 3rd with a chance of G2-class geomagnetic storms, post-impact. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras

[Aelin]

Well, another possibility on poles to have auroras.
And for Quadrantid meteor shower, we can't even try in France; wind, clouds and rain are present.

[Jherrith]

Turns out we had some rain here in my part of the globe as well, must have been a light drizzle as I heard naught

[sidherose]

I can't help but wonder if this isn't some sort of 'phase' at the culmination of 'so many' Minimums & Maximums' cycles that we haven't seen since we've been charting them.

It comes to mind that the Aztecs speak of a 'new sun' beginning in 2012. I think that was supposed to be the end of the last solar maximum. So is this like a 'gestation period' of much belching and barfing' like a baby?

I really hope the little guy straightens out his act before he totally blows our grids o.O