Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Northern Lights

New one:

Spaceweather.

BE ALERT FOR STEVE: Northern spring is less than a week away. That means hot ribbons of plasma are starting to flow in Earth's magnetosphere.

STEVE : short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement"--was long thought to be a type of aurora borealis. But it's not. Auroras appear when particles rain down from space. STEVE, on the other hand, does not require "rain." Instead, Satellite measurements show that it is a ribbon of hot (3000°C) gas speeding through the upper reaches of Earth's magnetic field faster than 10,000 mph. The ribbon's purple hue is still a mystery; some research suggests the color comes from heated nitrogen, but the jury's still out.

Studies show that, while STEVE may be seen at any time of year, he appears most often in weeks around equinoxes--that is, now. If you live at high latitudes, be alert for purple ribbons in the sky.

Cheers Graham .... will keep an eye out 🙂

K

There is no doubt that it took a great amount of skill to create that wonderful image. I suspect that having spent too many years in a self build process, and more recently cleaning moss off my roofing, and clearing gutters, my eye was automatically drawn to the rather strange drainage solution for the lowest gutter.

Sorry if I spoiled the pic for anyone. It can be impossible to un-see something once pointed out..!

I suspect I may never capture an image anywhere as nice as Steve`s of the Northern Lights.

Spaceweather.

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters say that a minor G1-class geeomagnetic storm is likely on March 20th when a stream of high-speed solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing faster than 600 km/s from a Southern hole in the sun's atmosphere.

All that natural beauty and the gutters were one of the first things I noticed too, not sure what that makes us George?
I wouldn't worry about it though.

The photographer is Ivan Hawick, Steve is a phenomenon described fully in Graham's post above.

But Ivan does take phenomenal photographs

He certainly does!

Spaceweather.

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters say that a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm is likely on March 21st when a stream of high-speed solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing faster than 600 km/s from a Southern hole in the sun's atmosphere.

Spaceweather.

GEOMAGNETIC STORMS THIS WEEKEND: A stream of solar wind is approaching Earth, and it could buffet our planet's magnetosphere for the next three days. According to NOAA, periods of minor G1-class geomagnetic storming are likely on March 20th, 21st and 22nd?

Cheers Graham .... will keep an eye out over the weekend

K

Spaceweather.

CME EN ROUTE : On March 20th, the sun launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. It wasn't aimed directly at Earth. Nevertheless, we might feel its effect on March 23rd when the storm cloud is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field!