Earth & Space Weather

~ Space Weather Update~ SOLAR WIND STORM~ Windspeed 642, Almost 900 Yesterday

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SOLAR WIND STORM: Solar wind is blowing around Earth faster than 600 km/s (1.3 million mph) as our planet moves through the wake of a CME that struck on May 24th. This is causing geomagnetic unrest around the poles. Aurora sightings have been few, however, because of the competing glare of the full Moon. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

 

SUNSET PLANET SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. Venus, Jupiter and Mercury have converged to form a bright triangle in the sunset sky. Richard Sears sends this picture from Atwater, California:

"I took the picture on May 25th," says Sears. "What a way to end the day!"

Tonight will be even better. On Sunday, May 26th, the planets fit within a tightening circle less than 3o wide. There won't be another triple conjunction like this until October 2015, so don't miss it! NASA: video, full story.

SUNSET PLANET SHOW

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Spaceweather.com-5/25/13

 

 

When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. Venus, Jupiter and Mercury are converging to form a bright triangle in the sunset sky. The best evening to look is May 26th, when the planets will fit within a circle less than 3o wide. Petr Horálek photographed the convergence over the Czech republic on May 24th:

 

Link: Spaceweather.com

Flooding forces people from homes in Norway

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euronew.com- 5/25/13

 

 

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes after heavy rain caused flooding in southeastern Norway.

In Nesbyen, a mudslide reached properties, filling some basements with water.

A river overflowed its banks in Kvam, sending water through the centre of the village. Around 250 people had to be evacuated.

Roads and rail services have also been affected by the bad weather, including the busy E6 highway, which links Oslo to the Mjosa region and northern parts of the country.

 

For more on this story and video please click here.

Breakup Continues on the Wilkins Ice Shelf

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earthobservatory.nasa.gov- 5/25/13

 

Breakup Continues on the Wilkins Ice Shelf

 

 

An ice shelf is a thick plate of ice attached to a coastline on one side and floating over the ocean on the other side. Many ice shelves fringe Antarctica, including the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, which underwent a series of breakup events in 1998, 2008, and 2009.

Just as earthquakes can sometimes leave landscapes more prone to future quakes, the breakups on the Wilkins Ice Shelf left it vulnerable to further disintegration. In addition, the sea ice that had long pressed the shelf up against the coastline moved out, putting the remnants of the shelf in direct contact with open water. Ocean waves went to work on the ice, and in early 2013 the fracturing continued.

 

Galaxies fed by funnels of fuel

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Phys.org/5/25/13

 

Galaxies fed by funnels of fuel

 

(Phys.org) —Computer simulations of galaxies growing over billions of years have revealed a likely scenario for how they feed: a cosmic version of swirly straws.

 

The results show that cold gas—fuel for stars—spirals into the cores of galaxies along filaments, rapidly making its way to their "guts." Once there, the gas is converted into new stars, and the galaxies bulk up in mass.

"Galaxy formation is really chaotic," said Kyle Stewart, lead author of the new study appearing in the May 20th issue of the Astrophysical Journal. "It took us several hundred computer processors, over months of time, to simulate and learn more about how this process works." Stewart, who is now at the California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif., completed the majority of this work while at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

 

~ Space Weather Update~ CME STRIKES Wind Speed 555

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CME STRIKE: As expected, a CME propelled into space by the M5-class explosion of May 22nd delivered a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on May 24th around 1800 UT. NOAA forecasters estimate a 55% chance of polar geomagnetic storms in response to the strike. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras shining through the bright moonlight. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

 

BACTERIA FLY INTO RADIATION STORM: Two days ago, high school students in Bishop, California, using a suborbital helium balloon launched a petri dish full of extreme-loving halobacteria into the strongest radiation storm of the year. They wanted to know how the extremophiles would fare when peppered with protons at the edge of space. Here is a picture of the sample 108,000 feet above Earth's surface:

What's in a Name? Asteroid, Meteor, Meteorite, Meteoroid

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Accuweather.com- 5/24/13

 

A fireball over the Netherlands and German skies taken in October 2009

 

A couple of month's ago we watched Russia's fireball situation in part fascination and part horror. Since then, we have been asked a lot of questions about what that was and why NASA did not warn us? Well, let's get into a couple of terms and see if we can make some sense of this.

Simply put, an asteroid is a large chunk of rock in space. In our solar system, most of asteroids are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. NASA can and does track asteroids that may interact with the Earth.

A meteoroid is smaller than an asteroid. What entered Russia's atmosphere a few months back was a meteoroid that developed into a fireball that was not tracked by NASA. Meteoroids are scattered throughout the solar system. More on fireballs below.

57: Chirinkotan Volcano erupts in Kuril Islands of Far East Russia

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Theextinctionprotocol.com-5/24/13

 

 

May 24, 2013 – RUSSIA, FAR EAST - The remote volcano in the northern Kuriles is probably in eruption, the latest SVERT report and satellite images suggest. A plume of gas and steam, and possibly some minor amounts ash was seen with the MODIS sensor onboard the NASA Terra satellite this morning. Satellite data also indicate that activity had likely already started in early May, because a small thermal anomaly can be traced back on archive pictures to 7 May. One should take into account that frequent dense cloud cover often prevents such observations, so activity could have started earlier than that. It is not known what kind of activity is occurring at the volcano. Possibilities include some minor explosive (strombolian ?) activity at the summit, or lava flows that might be reaching the sea and produce the steam plume observed. The last eruption of the volcano was (probably) in 2004.

 

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