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JUPITER SPACECRAFT PHOTO-OP: The European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter on a mission to discover new habitats for alien life. It launched this morning from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Amateur astronomers may be able to photograph Juice as it leaves Earth using these observing tips.
THE SODIUM TAIL OF MERCURY: Astronomy used to be so simple. Comets had tails, and planets did not. Mercury is making things complicated. When Dr. Sebastian Voltmer of Spicheren, France, photographed the planet this week, it exhibited a magnificent plume of gas flowing behind it:
"Mercury is NOT a comet, but it sure looks like one," says Voltmer. "Solar wind and micro-meteorites hitting the planet eject sodium atoms from Mercury's surface. This creates a yellow-orange tail of sodium gas that is around 24 million kilometers long."
First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was discovered in 2001. The gaseous plume is made of many elements from Mercury's rocky surface, not only sodium. Sodium, however, dominates the scattering of sunlight and gives the tail its striking yellow hue.
People watching Mercury climb up the evening sky this month may be wondering "why didn’t I see a tail?" Answer: A special filter is required. "I used a 589 nanometer filter tuned to the yellow glow of sodium," says Voltmer. "Without such a filter, Mercury's tail is almost invisible to the naked eye."
Mercury's tail waxes and wanes in brightness as it orbits the sun. The predictable pattern is shown in this movie from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which spent years observing Mercury’s tail from close range:
For reasons having to do with the Doppler shift of sodium absorption lines in the solar spectrum, Mercury's tail is most luminous when the planet is ±16 days from perihelion (closest approach to the sun).
This means the tail's maximum luminosity is only a few days away. Mercury will be 16 days past perihelion on Monday, April 17th, located in the sunset sky almost directly below Venus. If you have a sodium filter, take a look!
more images: from Nicolae-Adrian Corlaci of Bucharest, Romania; from Paul Robinson near Memphis, TN
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STORM TROOPER WHISKEY GLASS: If you like your drink cold--really cold--this glass is for you. It has flown to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon. At the apex of the flight (117,109 ft), the temperature was a frosty -63C:
You can have it for $99.95. This double-walled whiskey glass is cast from one of the original molds for Storm Trooper helmets used in Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. Made of high quality borosilicate, the glass is thin, hard and lead-free. It makes a great Christmas gift for Star Wars fans.
The glass comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight, and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
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Every night, a network of
NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.
On Apr 14 2023, the network reported 8 fireballs.
(8 sporadics)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (
PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding
new ones all the time.
On April 14, 2023 there were 2327 potentially hazardous asteroids.
 |
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: | Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2023 FX13 | 2023-Apr-09 | 8.2 LD | 13.3 | 27 |
| 2023 FY13 | 2023-Apr-09 | 18.5 LD | 11.9 | 55 |
| 2023 FP5 | 2023-Apr-09 | 10.7 LD | 14.1 | 40 |
| 2023 FC4 | 2023-Apr-09 | 19.6 LD | 10.1 | 57 |
| 2023 FG5 | 2023-Apr-10 | 9.5 LD | 9.4 | 25 |
| 2023 FT1 | 2023-Apr-10 | 19.5 LD | 6.6 | 34 |
| 2023 GG | 2023-Apr-11 | 4 LD | 10.6 | 74 |
| 2023 GE1 | 2023-Apr-11 | 4.6 LD | 14.1 | 29 |
| 2023 GQ | 2023-Apr-11 | 0.3 LD | 20.6 | 7 |
| 2023 GB1 | 2023-Apr-11 | 9.9 LD | 5.8 | 15 |
| 2023 FE5 | 2023-Apr-11 | 11.6 LD | 5.8 | 28 |
| 2023 GW | 2023-Apr-12 | 15.4 LD | 13 | 44 |
| 2023 FS10 | 2023-Apr-12 | 3.2 LD | 7.6 | 21 |
| 2019 GK21 | 2023-Apr-13 | 15.2 LD | 8.1 | 27 |
| 2022 YK9 | 2023-Apr-13 | 19.9 LD | 9.9 | 175 |
| 436774 | 2023-Apr-13 | 12.5 LD | 17.6 | 719 |
| 2023 GZ | 2023-Apr-15 | 2 LD | 8.6 | 11 |
| 2023 GC1 | 2023-Apr-15 | 15.4 LD | 6.6 | 16 |
| 2023 FN13 | 2023-Apr-15 | 2.6 LD | 4.5 | 12 |
| 2020 BV14 | 2023-Apr-16 | 17.8 LD | 8.2 | 81 |
| 2020 FQ6 | 2023-Apr-16 | 13.1 LD | 9.7 | 36 |
| 2023 GU | 2023-Apr-17 | 10.9 LD | 11.2 | 31 |
| 2023 GM | 2023-Apr-17 | 8.5 LD | 20.1 | 112 |
| 2023 GO | 2023-Apr-17 | 18.3 LD | 6.7 | 29 |
| 2023 GS | 2023-Apr-18 | 5.9 LD | 8.5 | 22 |
| 2023 GR | 2023-Apr-18 | 18.7 LD | 9 | 62 |
| 2006 HV5 | 2023-Apr-26 | 6.3 LD | 17.4 | 400 |
| 2023 GG1 | 2023-Apr-26 | 12.6 LD | 10 | 40 |
| 2021 JF2 | 2023-Apr-28 | 16.6 LD | 8 | 19 |
| 2018 VS6 | 2023-May-01 | 5.2 LD | 11.6 | 14 |
| 2011 KY15 | 2023-May-18 | 19.9 LD | 14.3 | 54 |
| 2021 JK7 | 2023-May-22 | 16.7 LD | 22.9 | 48 |
| 2019 UJ3 | 2023-May-23 | 15.5 LD | 9.8 | 21 |
| 2023 CL3 | 2023-May-24 | 18.9 LD | 7.3 | 121 |
| 2021 KO2 | 2023-May-29 | 15.8 LD | 13.9 | 9 |
| 2012 KP24 | 2023-May-31 | 10.3 LD | 12.4 | 19 |
| 2018 KR | 2023-Jun-07 | 6.5 LD | 4.9 | 19 |
| 2017 UJ2 | 2023-Jun-07 | 5.3 LD | 5.6 | 2 |
| 488453 | 2023-Jun-12 | 8.3 LD | 21.5 | 493 |
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. | | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere |
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth's surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.
Latest results (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-year low:
What's going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun's strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called "Forbush Decreases." The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.
.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
Technical notes: The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Data points in the graph labeled "Stratospheric Radiation" correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Regener and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
| | The official U.S. government space weather bureau |
| | The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
| | Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
| | 3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory |
| | Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
| | information about sunspots based on the latest NOAA/USAF Active Region Summary |
| | current counts of failed and deployed Starlink satellites from Jonathan's Space Page |
| | Authoritative predictions of space junk and satellite re-entries |
| | from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| | fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. |
| | from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| | the underlying science of space weather |
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