Space Weather

[thelufias]

That is awesome stuff.  Saw it but forgot to put it up in here....glad you did...

[Jherrith]

CRYOVOLCANIC ERUPTION ON A COMET: The British Astronomical Association (BAA) is reporting a new outburst of cryovolcanic comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann. On Nov. 22nd, amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins watched 29P increase in brightness by more than 4 magnitudes--a sign that a major eruption was in progress. On Nov. 23rd, André Debackère used the Faulkes Telescope North in Hawaii to photograph the expanding shell of debris:



The Pac-Man shape of the ejecta shows that this is not a uniform global eruption. Instead, it is coming from one or more discrete sources on the comet's surface.

This fits a leading model of the comet developed by Dr. Richard Miles of the British Astronomical Association. Miles believes that 29P is festooned with ice volcanoes. There is no lava. The "magma" is a cold mixture of liquid hydrocarbons (e.g., CH4, C2H4, C2H6 and C3H8) akin to those found in lakes and streams on Saturn's moon Titan. The cryomagma is suffused with dissolved gases N2 and CO, much like carbonation in a soda bottle. These bottled-up volatiles love to explode when a fissure is opened by the warming action of sunlight.

A new image just taken by Cai Stoddard-Jones using the Faulkes Telescope North adds weight to the idea that a single volcano or active zone is involved. Processing the data with a rotational gradient filter, Stoddard-Jones found an intense condensation of debris at position angle 330 degrees:



This narrow plume probably leads back to the primary source the eruption. The plume is currently streaming away from the nucleus at 75 m/s (270 km/hr) and stretches more than 11,000 km from end to end. If an eruption like this were happening on Earth, it would jut far outside our planet's atmosphere; it's huge.

These dimensions, plus the integrated brightness of the comet (magnitude +11), put 29P within easy range of many backyard telescopes. If past eruptions are any guide, Pac-Man should grow much larger in the nights ahead.

[Jherrith]

POSSIBLE CME IMPACT: A shock wave in the solar wind hit Earth's magnetic field today, Nov. 25th, at approximately 0230 UT. It might have been the belated arrival of a CME that left the sun on Nov. 19th, hurled in our direction by an erupting filament of magnetism. So far the weak impact has not caused a geomagnetic storm.

[thelufias]

Space Weather Gallery 2022

[thelufias]

Great post Rad....Gotta look this one up but it makes sense...kinda LOL 

[Radkres]

  How Earth REALLY moves in space!

[thelufias]

THE 'TAURID SWARM' IS COMING: Have you ever heard of the "Halloween Fireballs?" Astronomers call them Taurid meteors. They appear every year from late October through early November when Earth passes through a stream of debris associated with Comet 2P/Encke. Dan Bush photographed this Taurid exploding over Albany, Missouri:


"Fireball season has arrived," says Bush. "I have caught many with my meteor camera system including this Taurid fireball above the clouds on Oct. 27th and another good one on Oct. 28th"

We're about to see a lot more of these. Forecasters believe that a swarm of Taurid meteoroids is approaching Earth, and it could double the usual rate of fireballs--not only on Halloween, but also through the early weeks of November.

Taurid meteors are thought to be debris from a giant comet that broke apart in the inner Solar System 10 to 20 thousand years ago. The breakup produced a mixture of dust and larger bodies that are still present today. Comet 2P/Encke itself may be just one of the fragments.

Over the years, Jupiter's gravity has shepherded some of these meteoroids into a well-defined cloud--the "Taurid Swarm." It visits Earth every 3 or 7 years. Previous encounters with the Swarm in 2005 and 2015 produced showers of fireballs observed around the world. The last outburst was 7 years ago, which means 2022 should be a Swarm year, too.

[thelufias]

This is a very interesting page.... Starlink Statistics

[thelufias]

This is a interesting place to visit.  ASGARD

[Agent0013]

Here the clear night skies are being picky; choosing nights that are relatively uneventful to be clear. On nights when there is an event or more happening we get overcast, or rain, and sometimes thunderstorms. So looks like I'm not getting to see much either.

A couple of weeks ago I as looking at Scorpio (in the south from here), and a bright meteor streaked across the constellation. Next I look straight up where Cygnus the Swan was clearly visible, and another bright meteor streaked across its neck area. Cygnus points its head toward the south, but it is a northern hemisphere constellation, sharing the northern sky with Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor; the two constellations that contain respectively the Big and Little Dippers. Crazy thing is, as I was about to end my observations, another meteor streaked through the cup of the Big Dipper! It was less bright, but it still caught my eye, though I was not looking directly in that direction. That was the last eventful night I was able to see any astronomical events! It was in early August, or very late July.