Tuesday, August 10, 2010

AURORA ALERTS!

What's up in Space
August 10, 2010
from www.spaceweather.com


AURORA ALERTS: Did you miss the Northern Lights? Next time get a wake-up call from Space Weather PHONE

EARLY PERSEID METEORS: The 2010 Perseid meteor shower is underway. "Last night I counted 28 Perseids between 1 am and 4 am--including this bright one zinging past Jupiter," says Pete Glastonbury of Devizes, Wiltshire, UK. Indeed, says Bill Cooke of the MSFC, "the meteor rate is getting so high that last night we captured two Perseid fireballs at the same time using our all-sky camera in Walker County, Georgia. The shower peaks on Thursday, Aug. 12th; these early reports are a promising sign of things to come. [live meteor radar] [2010 meteor counts] [Bill Cooke's Perseid Twitter Feed]

INCOMING CME: The solar eruption of August 7th might affect Earth after all. Newly-arriving data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show a CME heading our way with a significant Earth-directed component. Click on the image to launch a "difference movie" of the expanding cloud:

The impact of this lopsided CME probably won't trigger a major geomagnetic storm---but the SOHO data show it could be bigger than expected. High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the cloud arrives probably on August 10th.

ANTARCTIC AURORAS: The stage is set for a good display of auroras over Antarctica. The skies are already shimmering even before the CME arrives. J. Dana Hrubes sends this picture from the geographic South Pole:

Hrubes is wintering over at the Amundsen-Scott Station where he oversees operations of the South Pole Telescope (SPoT), silhouetted above by aurora australis. "After one of the windiest Julys on record, we finally got some very clear skies on August 9th," he says. "The auroras were a welcome surprise. The sun will be returning to the South Pole in a little over 6 weeks, so I'm hoping for more auroras soon."

He may get them. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic activity when the incoming CME arrives. Stay tuned for Southern Lights!

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