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EVENING SKY SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look south. The waxing crescent Moon and Jupiter are in conjunction, beaming brightly side by side. Try looking before the evening sky fades to black. A bright conjunction framed by twilight blue has a special beauty that you won't want to miss. Sky maps: Jan. 9, 10.
WEEKEND AURORA WATCH: "For the third day in a row, the aurora forecast has been correct and just looking out the window is a true pleasure!" reports Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. This is what he saw on Jan. 8th:
Bonus: "While hunting for auroras I also got a stray meteor up my sleeve for the first time," says Broms. "It always pays off to be outside in the dark (well.. green)."
NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of continued geomagnetic activity during the next 24 hours, a result of an ongoing solar wind stream blowing around Earth. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.
more images: from Frank Olsen of Ersfjordbotn, Norway; from Hanneke of Tromsø, Norway; from Helge Mortensen of Kvaløya, Norway; from Thorbjørn Riise Haagensen of Kvaløya, Norway; from Frank Olsen outside Tromsø, Norway
TRIPLE PUNCH HOLE CLOUDS: "I've lived by the sea for many years, but never seen anything like this," reports Wesley Tyler of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "On Friday, Jan. 7th, there were three punch hole clouds in the same place." He grabbed his camera and recorded the phenomenon:
Considered a mystery for many years, punch hole clouds appear on rare occasions all over the world, sometimes attracting widespread attention, e.g., the famous Moscow UFO cloud of 2009. Recently meteorologists have penetrated the mystery: punch holes form when airplanes fly through thin layers of high altitude clouds. If water droplets in the cloud are supercooled (below freezing but still liquid), they can suddenly turn to snow when shocked by the passage of the plane. This mini-snowstorm occurs over a circular area much wider than the airplane itself.
Not all flights through banks of clouds will produce snow. According to Wired Magazine, only about 7.8 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with clouds at the right elevation for supercooled droplets to form. Because jet aircraft don’t generally cruise at those altitudes, they may only form hole-punch clouds when they take off or land.
The apparition of three rare cloud-holes in one small area suggests a busy airspace around Myrtle Beach. Indeed, the Myrtle Beach International Airport is just miles from where the photo was taken. Or maybe punch hole clouds are a bit of a mystery after all.
Solar Eclipse Photo Gallery
December 2010 Aurora Gallery
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