Author: Lisa T.

DOUBLE CME STRIKE (UPDATED): Two CMEs struck Earth’s magnetic field on May 2nd. Individually, the impacts were minor, but together they sparked a strong G3-class geomagnetic storm with auroras as far south as Washington in the USA. Another CME is expected to sideswipe Earth’s magnetic field on May 4th. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

COMET 12P/PONS-BROOKS AND THE SOLAR WIND: “Solar wind” is a relatively new idea. The first scientist to think of it may have been Sir. Arthur Eddington who, in 1910, suggested that Comet Morehouse might be shaped by some unseen gaseous outflow from the sun. Astronomers didn’t think much of his suggestion. It might have been an easier sell if they had seen this picture of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks:

Michael Mattiazzo photographed the comet on April 30th from Swan Hill, Victoria, Australia. “The comet’s tail is incredibly active,” he says.

Most of the ripples, curls, and streamers captured so beautifully in Mattiazzo’s photo are caused by the buffeting of solar wind. Not only that, the comet’s tail is pointing directly away from the sun–another sign that Eddington’s “outflow” really exists.

Eventually, Eddington’s idea started to catch on among other researchers, although it was a slow process with widespread acceptance taking almost 50 years. American astrophysicist Eugene Parker coined the term “solar wind” around 1957. In January 1959, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 directly observed the solar wind and measured its strength for the first time.

This month, amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere can behold the effects of solar wind with their own eyes. Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is emerging from an April close encounter with the sun (perihelion), and its wind-sculpted tail is a beautiful sight through backyard telescopes. Point your optics here.

more images: from Mike White of Twizel, New Zealand

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter

All Sky Fireball Network 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 May 02, 2024, the network reported 13 fireballs.
(7 eta Aquarid, 6 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]

Now it’s 68hz gamma in the amplitudes at 11:00am

Amplitudes into gamma-beta, Qfactor into alpha-beta. Frequencies plummet. That’s the pattern.

Every planet has auroras because every planet has a magnetosphere because every planet has their own timing coordinates for their evolution to keep them on the cosmic circuits. This is axiomatic.

It’s only on earth that people have no clue about their proper timing coordinate because of the extraordinary evil heisting all of our energy dating back thousands of years. The combination of religion, government, and tech is trying to kill off humans, yet we persist.

The Feds Report

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G1): One or more CMEs could graze Earth on April 26-27, sparking a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm. The CMEs were hurled into space earlier this week by explosive activity in sunspot super-group AR3638-50. CME impact alerts: SMS Text

GLOBAL AURORAS ON MARS: Earth isn’t the only planet with auroras. Mars has them, too–on a global scale.

“Mars is experiencing its greatest level of auroral activity in the past 10 years,” says Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). “In February alone, there were three episodes of global auroras–an ‘aurora hat trick’ we’ve never seen before.”

Orbiting high above Mars, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft recorded the auroras on 3-4 Feb, 7-10 Feb and 15-16 Feb. This animation shows the last two of these episodes in a looping time series:

Spaceweather.com actually predicted some of these events, prompted by SOHO coronagraph observations of CMEs heading toward Mars. “Your predictions came true!” says Schneider.

Schneider leads the team for MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS), the instrument that detected the auroras. All the purple pixels in the animation are a false color representation of the aurora’s ultraviolet glow. Martian auroras probably have a visible light component, too, but MAVEN’s cameras are not able to see them.

Here on Earth we would love it if auroras were global. Seeing Northern Lights with equal ease from the equator and the poles would check off a lot of bucket lists. Be careful what you wish for, though. Martian auroras can be global because the Red Planet has almost no protection from solar storms. It lacks an Earth-like magnetic field, so particles from the sun penetrate its atmosphere with ease–everywhere.

The dramatic auroras of February 2024 were caused by “SEPs”–solar energetic particles. SEPs are accelerated by shock waves within approaching CMEs. When they strike Mars’s atmosphere, they cause it to glow.

“Mars is currently getting hit by roughly 1 to 2 CMEs every month, bringing a hefty supply of SEPs,” says Rebecca Jolitz, a member of the MAVEN Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) instrument team at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Lab. “However, a CME doesn’t actually have to hit to be effective. SEPs coming in sideways from ‘remote CMEs’ can light up the skies as well.”

Schneider and Jolitz are looking forward to the months ahead. “Solar Cycle 25 is far from over, and we expect many more CME strikes,” Schneider says. “This will give us a chance to study how solar storms affect the atmosphere of Mars–a key goal of the MAVEN mission. It’s the kind of fun we’ve been waiting for!”

Extra: Schneider notes that SEPs aren’t the only way to make auroras on Mars. Protons in the solar wind and magnetic reconnection can do the trick, too, producing their own forms and colors. Stay tuned for more stories about the rich variety of Martian auroras as Solar Cycle 25 unfolds.

Spaceweather.com

LYRID METEOR ALERT: The first significant meteor shower in months is about to begin. The annual Lyrid meteor shower peaks on the night of April 21-22 when Earth passes through a stream of debris from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). These meteors are best seen from the northern hemisphere where the radiant is high in the sky before dawn: sky map.

THIS IS THE WORST TIME TO OBSERVE ‘THE DEVIL COMET’: If you get your science news from mainstream media, you might think this weekend is a great time to observe Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, a.k.a. “The Devil Comet.” In fact, the opposite is true. The comet–barely a naked eye object on the best of nights–is almost completely overwhelmed by a combination of evening twilight and full Moonlight.

To illustrate the problem, Mike Olason photographed the comet sinking into the haze near of Tucson, Arizona, on April 20th:

“As one can see from the animation, the images were collected as twilight started to fade only to be replaced by moonshine from the 87% illuminated Moon,” says Olason. “It also did not help that the comet was at an altitude below 6 degrees. Most of the tail and coma were washed out by light pollution, twilight, Moonlight and atmospheric interference.”

The kernel of truth in mainstream reports is that Comet 12P is at perihelion on April 21st–its closest approach to the sun. Solar heat is indeed brightening the comet to its maximum luminosity. However, Earth and the comet are far apart on opposite sides of the sun, and we have to squint through the glare of the sun to see the comet.

It all adds up to poor visibility–for now. In May the comet will move away from the sun and into the night skies of the southern hemisphere. In fact, astronomer Michael Mattiazzo is already seeing it from Australia.

Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter

YOU’RE GOING TO WANT TO CLICK ON THIS IMAGE: The white-light sun is a blinding ball of featureless light. But… if you filter the light, and look only at the narrow range of wavelengths emitted by hydrogen, the true sun is revealed. This weekend in Kentucky, amateur astronomer Richard Schrantz used a spectroheliograph to do just that, and here is what he saw:

Click on the image for full resolution–and “make sure you look using a large desktop monitor,” says Schrantz. “The sunspot complex centered on AR3645 has lots of fine detail.”

A spectroheliograph is a special telescope which can photograph the sun at a single narrow wavelength of light–in this case, the “H-alpha” wavelength emitted by solar hydrogen. Schrantz’s spectroheliograph image reveals not only a large number of sunspots, but also an even larger number of filaments–magnetic tubes filled with dense hydrogen snaking across the solar disk. These filaments can erupt to produce solar flares and CMEs much like sunspots do; they significantly boost the odds of solar activity. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

I’ve created tables for my book, “Sound to Light-The Tones of Creation,” and one table is dedicated to Tone 3 consistently going into beta or gamma hertz. That’s very high for QFactor deep earth layers. What’s causing a strong pulse in Q3?

Well, it’s doing it again.