Aurora caught over Karlstad, Sweden on September 27, 2011. Credit: Socrates2013 on Flickr
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Readers have submitted some great images of aurorae taken last night (Sept. 26 or early morning of Sept. 27). Why all the auroral activity? Sunspot region 1302 is big and bad, spewing out some nasty stuff. NASA says the sunspot’s magnetic field is currently crackling with sub-X-class flares that could grow into larger eruptions as the sunspot continues to turn toward Earth.
Here are some reader photos of the sunspot and the aurorae it created. A stunning view from Karstad Sweden, from Flickr user Socrates 2013, is above.
Massive sunspot 1302 on Sept. 25, 2011, with an Earth inserted for size reference. Credit: Ron Cottrell
This massive sunspot region has already produced two X-flares (X1.4 on Sept. 22nd and X1.9 on Sept. 24th). The dark cores in the sunspots this image from reader Ron Cottrell is larger than Earth, (see inserted Earth for reference) and the entire active region stretches more than 100,000 km from end to end.
“Even with a small aperture, 40mm, Hydrogen – Alpha telescope the image details are amazing,” Cottrell emailed us. “I captured this image from my patio in Oro Valley, Arizona.” He used a webcam to do some image post processing.
Aurora on Sept. 26, 2011 at Porsgrunn, Norway. Credit: Kjetil Vinorum
Kjetil Vinorum sent us some aurora photos from Porsgrunn, Norway (59° 09′ 33.3″N, 9° 39′ 46.9″E) and says this is the first time he’s seen aurora so far south in a decade.
This all-sky time-lapse of the aurora on Sept. 26-27, 2011 is from Arne Danielsen of Vestby, Norway (N59°36’18” E10°45’40” A84m).
The video shows a total of 726 images, which were obtained from Sunset to Sunrise. North is up and West is right. Be patient to see the aurora! Via Cosmos4U on Twitter
The aurora over Vernon, British Columbia Canada, sent to us by UT reader Marcel.
This beautiful shot was taken on the evening of September 27, 2011 by Marcel in British Columbia, Canada. The view is overlooking an orchard in the Coldstream Municipality.
The H-Alpha Sunspot 1302 09-25-2011. Credit: John Chumack
Here’s another view of the active region 1302 from John Chumack of Galactic Images.
The region has unleashed M8.6 and M7.4 flares on Sept. 24 and an M8.8 flare early on Sept. 25. None of the blasts have been squarely Earth-directed, but this could change, NASA says, as the sunspot turns toward our planet in the days ahead. AR1302 is growing and shows no immediate signs of quieting down.
Aurora at 21:20 UTC on Sep. 26, 2011 from Königswinter, Germany. Credit: Daniel FischeAurora caught over Karlstad, Sweden on September 27, 2011. Credit: Socrates2013 on Flickr.
This image from Monty Leventhal shows the sunspots in region 1302 spreading across the face of the Sun for approximately 186,000 km. He used a Canon 300D with an Hydrogen-alpha filter with a Meade S.C. 10 inch telescope.
Predicted auroral oval over the North Pole, for Sept. 27, 2011. Credit: NOAA Space Weather Center
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Skywatchers in northern Europe are already seeing some aurora activity as a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is in progress, according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center and SpaceWeather.com. The fuel for this storm was a coronal mass ejection over the weekend that has now reached Earth. This is great news for skywatchers, as both the Northern and Southern lights should be spectacular. But this is not so good news for satellite companies. The Goddard Space Weather Lab reports a “strong compression of Earth’s magnetosphere. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma [has penetrated] close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 13:00 UT.” Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields.
Predicted auroral oval over the South Pole, for Sept. 27, 2011. Credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
The active region on the Sun will be pointed straight at Earth in few days as the Sun rotates, so this could be a week of high auroral activity. If you are able to capture images, send the to Universe Today via email or upload them to our Flickr page, and we’ll share them! See an image below of the Sun from September 25, 2011, showing the Active Region 1302, courtesy of John Chumack.
Sun Set with the Massive Sun Spot 1302 (Upper left on the Sun) Credit: Adrian Scott
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A highly active region on the Sun threatens to deliver powerful geomagnetic storms over the week ahead. Highly energetic solar eruptions are likely heading in our direction to give Earth’s magnetic field a significant glancing blow!
Over the past few days the new sunspot AR1302 has been incredibly active, hurling massive X-class solar flares into space and it will soon face Earth.
The massive sunspot, many times larger than the Earth (see images below) is expected to increase in size and energy, and is expected to release powerful solar flares, sparking strong geomagnetic storms.
Sun Spot AR1302 through the clouds Credit: Tavi Greiner
What does this mean for the Earth and it inhabitants?
The Earth experiences material ejected from the Sun on a daily basis and we are protected by the Earth’s own magnetic field. This is normal and has been happening since the birth of the solar system. But occasionally the Sun erupts and sends vast quantities of solar material our direction in the form of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s).
This can trigger very powerful geomagnetic storms, which can damage satellites in orbit and cause problems for communications and power networks. One positive outcome, though, is amazing displays of aurorae at the poles (Northern and Southern Lights).
Sunspot 1302 is expected to eject material towards Earth over the next few days, so look for news of strong geomagnetic activity and displays of aurorae.
Several observers are reporting that AR1302 is easily visible on the Sun at sunset or sunrise. Never ever look at the sun with your eyes, or any other optical aid! This will damage your eyesight permanently! The Sun should only be viewed using specialist equipment.
Aurora over Cumbria 5/6th August 2011 Credit: Raymond Gilchrist
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On the evening of the 5th of August 2011 the Aurora Borealis, Northern Lights were seen as far South as Southern England! At approximately 18:00 Universal Time (19:00 BST) the Earth’s magnetosphere was hit by a coronal mass ejection from the sun, triggering a powerful geomagnetic storm and Aurora.
This storm measured 8 on the K index (aurora richter scale) which ranges from 0 – 9 so this was a big storm.
It is quite common to see Aurora in Northern Scotland, but at approximately midnight, aurora was seen as far south as Berkshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire in Southern England. It is incredibly rare to see aurora this far south — the last time I remember was in 2003.
I was incredibly lucky to briefly see the pale greenish hue of the aurora through clouds from my back garden in West Berkshire.
Unfortunately a lot of people in England and Scotland were under thick cloud and missed this fantastic display, but thanks to fantastic astrophotographers such as Raymond Gilchrist (@RayGil on twitter) we are able to see the aurora through his images.
Did you see any aurora activity in your location? Geomagnetic activity remains high as I write this article, so I hope the sky clears and we are given another fantastic display of this rare phenomenon soon. Aurora on the River Tay, Newburgh, Fife, Scotland Credit: photosbyzoe
Cassini crossed the radio aurora of Saturn on 17 October 2008, at a distance of 4 Saturn's radii above the atmosphere. These radio emissions, generated by fast electrons, are strongly beamed. They were characterised by simultaneous observations of three different experiments. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Iowa/CNES/Observatoire de Paris
Saturn’s mysterious aurora has fascinated astronomers and space enthusiasts since it was first observed back in 1979. Now, the Cassini spacecraft has made the first observations from within the giant radio aurora of Saturn. The spacecraft flew through an active auroral region in 2008, and scientists say there are both similarities and contrasts between the radio auroral emissions generated at Saturn and those at Earth. Additionally, Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) took data to create a new movie (above) showing Saturn’s shimmering aurora over a two-day period. All this new data are helping scientists understand what drives some of the solar system’s most impressive light shows.
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“So far, this is a unique event,” said Dr. Laurent Lamy at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome this week. “Whereas the source region of Earth’s radio aurora has been studied by many missions, this is our first opportunity to observe the equivalent region at Saturn from the inside. From this single encounter, we have been able to build up a detailed snapshot of auroral activity using three of Cassini’s instruments. This gives us a fascinating insight into the processes that are generating Saturn’s radio aurora.”
See an animation created from the radio instrument on Cassini at this link. On the left hand side are the radio sources as seen from Cassini. The right hand side shows the projection of the radio sources down onto the southern pole of the planet. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Iowa/CNES/Observatoire de Paris
Separately, Tom Stallard, lead scientist on a joint VIMS and Cassini magnetometer collaboration, presented the VIMS movie at the conference.
In the movie, the aurora phenomenon clearly varies significantly over the course of a Saturnian day, which lasts around 10 hours 47 minutes. On the noon and midnight sides (left and right sides of the images, respectively), the aurora can be seen to brighten significantly for periods of several hours, suggesting the brightening is connected with the angle of the sun. Other features can be seen to rotate with the planet, reappearing at the same time and the same place on the second day, suggesting that these are directly controlled by the orientation of Saturn’s magnetic field.
Image of Saturn’s aurora seen at ultraviolet wavelengths. The spiral shape seen here is similar to the distorted radio aurora visualised by the team and also indicates enhanced auroral activity. Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble
“Saturn’s auroras are very complex and we are only just beginning to understand all the factors involved,” Stallard said. “This study will provide a broader view of the wide variety of different auroral features that can be seen, and will allow us to better understand what controls these changes in appearance.”
Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth’s northern and southern lights. Particles from the solar wind are channeled by Saturn’s magnetic field toward the planet’s poles, where they interact with electrically charged gas (plasma) in the upper atmosphere and emit light. At Saturn, however, auroral features can also be caused by electromagnetic waves generated when the planet’s moons move through the plasma that fills Saturn’s magnetosphere.
This false-color composite image shows Saturn’s rings and southern hemisphere. The composite image was made from 65 individual observations by Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer in the near-infrared portion of the light spectrum on Nov. 1, 2008. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
If you’ve even seen the Aurora Borealis live, you know how awe-inspiring it can be. But if you live too far south, or aren’t a night owl, there’s now a way for to you see the aurora, via the web, every night. Last night was the world premier of AuroraMAX – an online observatory which began streaming Canada’s northern lights live over the Internet. “Armchair skywatchers everywhere can now discover the wonder of the northern lights live on their home computer screen,” says Canadian Space Agency President Steve MacLean. “We hope that watching the dance of the northern lights will make you curious about the science of the sky and the relationship we have with our own star, the Sun.”
In addition to nightly broadcasts of the aurora, AuroraMAX will help demystify the science behind the phenomenon, offer tips for seeing and photographing auroras, and highlight Canadian research on the Sun-Earth relationship. The website will also include an image gallery with still photos and movies from previous nights.
Auroras occur as charged particles from the Sun collide with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The launch of AuroraMAX coincides with the beginning of aurora season in northern Canada, which generally begins in late August or early September and ends in May. Aurora enthusiasts will be able to follow AuroraMAX through solar maximum, the most active period of the Sun’s 11-year cycle, which should produce more frequent and intense auroras on Earth. Solar maximum is currently expected in 2013.
AuroraMAX is a collaborative public engagement initiative between the CSA, the University of Calgary, the City of Yellowknife and Astronomy North.
An aurora seen over the South Pole, from the ISS. Credit: Doug Wheelock, NASA.
For many people around the world the ability to see the Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australis is a rare treat. Unless you live north of 60° latitude (or south of -60°), or who have made the trip to tip of Chile or the Arctic Circle at least once in their lives, these fantastic light shows are something you’ve likely only read about or seen a video of.
But on occasion, the “northern” and “southern lights” have reached beyond the Arctic and Antarctic Circles and dazzled people with their stunning luminescence. But what exactly are they? To put it simply, auroras are natural light displays that take place in the night sky, particularly in the Polar Regions, and which are the result of interaction in the ionosphere between the sun’s rays and Earth’s magnetic field.
Description:
Basically, solar wind is periodically launched by the sun which contains clouds of plasma, charged particles that include electrons and positive ions. When they reach the Earth, they interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, which excites oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. During this process, ionized nitrogen atoms regain an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms return from an excited state to ground state.
High-speed particles from the Sun, mostly electrons, strike oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Credit: NASA
Excitation energy is lost by the emission of a photon of light, or by collision with another atom or molecule. Different gases produce different colors of light – light emissions coming from oxygen atoms as they interact with solar radiation appear green or brownish-red, while the interaction of nitrogen atoms cause light to be emitted that appears blue or red.
This dancing display of colors is what gives the Aurora its renowned beauty and sense of mystery. In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the Aurora Borealis, named after the Roman Goddess of the dawn (Aurora) and the Greek name for the north wind (Boreas). It was the French scientist Pierre Gassendi who gave them this name after first seeing them in 1621.
In the southern latitudes, it is known as Aurora Australis, Australis being the Latin word for “of the south”. Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red. The auroras are usually best seen in the Arctic and Antarctic because that is the location of the poles of the Earth’s magnetic field.
The South Pole Telescope under the aurora australis (southern lights). Credit: Keith Vanderlinde
Names and Cultural Significance:
The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history and a great deal of significance to a number of cultures. The Cree call this phenomenon the “Dance of the Spirits”, believing that the effect signaled the return of their ancestors.
To the Inuit, it was believed that the spirits were those of animals. Some even believed that as the auroras danced closer to those who were watching them, that they would be enveloped and taken away to the heavens. In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the auroras were commonly believed to be a sign from God.
According to the Norwegian chronicle Konungs Skuggsjá (ca. 1230 CE), the first encounter of the norðrljós (Old Norse for “northern light”) amongst the Norsemen came from Vikings returning from Greenland. The chronicler gives three possible explanations for this phenomena, which included the ocean being surrounded by vast fires, that the sun flares reached around the world to its night side, or that the glaciers could store energy so that they eventually glowed a fluorescent color.
Auroras on Other Planets:
However, Earth is not the only planet in the Solar System that experiences this phenomena. They have been spotted on other Solar planets, and are most visible closer to the poles due to the longer periods of darkness and the magnetic field.
Image of Saturn’s aurora taken by the Huddle Space Telescope and seen in ultraviolet wavelengths. Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble
For example. the Hubble Space Telescope has observed auroras on both Jupiter and Saturn – both of which have magnetic fields much stronger than Earth’s and extensive radiation belts. Uranus and Neptune have also been observed to have auroras which, same as Earth, appear to be powered by solar wind.
Auroras also have been observed on the surfaces of Io, Europa, and Ganymede using the Hubble Space Telescope, not to mention Venus and Mars. Because Venus has no planetary magnetic field, Venusian auroras appear as bright and diffuse patches of varying shape and intensity, sometimes distributed across the full planetary disc.
An aurora was also detected on Mars on August 14th, 2004, by the SPICAM instrument aboard Mars Express. This aurora was located at Terra Cimmeria, in the region of 177° East, 52° South, and was estimated to be quite sizable – 30 km across and 8 km high (18.5 miles across and 5 miles high).
Mars has magnetized rocks in its crust that create localized, patchy magnetic fields (left). In the illustration at right, we see how those fields extend into space above the rocks. At their tops, auroras can form. Credit: NASA
Though Mars has little magnetosphere to speak of, scientists determined that the region of the emissions corresponded to an area where the strongest magnetic field is localized on the planet. This they concluded by analyzing a map of crustal magnetic anomalies compiled with data from Mars Global Surveyor.
More recently, an aurora was observed on Mars by the MAVEN mission, which captured images of the event on March 17th, 2015, just a day after an aurora was observed here on Earth. Nicknamed Mars’ “Christmas lights”, they were observed across the planet’s mid-northern latitudes and (owing to the lack of oxygen and nitrogen in Mars’ atmosphere) were likely a faint glow compared to Earth’s more vibrant display.
In short, it seems that auroras are destined to happen wherever solar winds and magnetic fields coincide. But somehow, knowing this does not make them any less impressive, or diminish the power they have to inspire wonder and amazement in all those that behold them.
New experiments that create a man-made aurora are helping researchers better understand how nitrogen in our atmosphere reacts when it is bombarded by the solar wind. Scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory fired electrons of differing energies through a cloud of nitrogen gas to measure the ultraviolet light emitted by this collision, and the findings show our previous understanding of the processes that create the aurorae – which can also adversely affect orbiting satellites– may have been in error.
For more than 25 years, our understanding of terrestrial space weather has been partly based on incorrect assumptions about how nitrogen — the most abundant gas in our atmosphere –reacts when it collides with electrons produced by energetic ultraviolet sunlight and solar wind.
The new research has found that well-trusted measurements published in a 1985 journal paper by researchers Ajello and Shemansky contain a significant experimental error, putting decades of space weather findings dependent on this work on unstable ground.
New technology has allowed the researchers to better create and control the collisions and avoid the analytical pitfalls that plagued the 1985 findings.
The new results from the team at JPL suggest that the intensity of a broad band of ultraviolet light emitted from the collision changes significantly less with bombarding electron energies than previously thought.
The researchers studied ultraviolet light within the so called ‘Lyman-Birge-Hopfield’ (LBH) band to better understand the physical and chemical processes occurring in our upper atmosphere and in near-Earth space.
“Our measurement of LBH energy-dependence differs significantly from widely accepted results published 25 years ago,” said Dr. Charles Patrick Malone from JPL. “Aeronomers can now turn the experiment around and apply it to atmospheric studies and determine what kind of collisions produce the observed light.”
In addition to helping researchers to better understand space weather, which can help protecting the ever-growing population of satellites in Earth orbit, the new findings will also help further our understanding of phenomena like Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights) and similarly the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights), which are caused by collisional processes involving solar wind particles exciting terrestrial oxygen and nitrogen particles at the North and South Pole.
The researchers are hopeful that their findings will also assist the Cassini project understand happenings on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, as LBH emissions have been detected by the orbiting robotic spacecraft.
The research was published in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics.
"Fly through Aurora at 28,000kmh. Happy 1,000 tweets :-)" Tweeted astronaut Soich Noguchi.
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What an amazing pic of the International Space Station “flying through” an aurora at orbital speeds of 28,000 kmh (17,500 mph)! Super-space-photographer and Tweeter Soichi Noguchi captured this spectacular image earlier today, taking advantage of some rare solar activity. “Fly through Aurora at 28,000kmh. Happy 1,000 tweets” Noguichi wrote on Twitter. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center sent out a notice early this morning saying : “A geomagnetic storm began at 05:55 AM EST Monday, April 5, 2010. Space weather storm levels reached Strong (G3) levels on the Geomagnetic Storms Space Weather Scale.”
And indeed, that solar activity created a picturesque backdrop to the ISS today! Wow!
Noguchi, a.k.a. Astro_Soichi on Twitter is setting a new standard for Twittering and Twitpics from space — and photography, too. He and his Expedition 22 crewmates recently broke the record for the amount of images taken by an ISS crew. They snapped over 100,000 images of space and Earth during their accumulated six-month Expedition, bringing the number of pictures taken from the space station to a grand total of almost 639,000 images. With the new crew arriving at the ISS this past weekend, Expedition 23 is now officially underway.
his is a locations and field of view map of the twenty all-sky imagers used in support of the THEMIS mission. Twenty all-sky imagers (ASIs) were deployed by researchers from the University of California Berkeley, the University of Calgary, and the University of Alaska in support of the THEMIS mission. Credit: THEMIS/UC Berkeley
Colliding auroras photographed by THEMIS all-sky imagers (ASIs) on Feb. 29, 2008. Credit: Toshi Nishimura/UCLA
Scientists recently discovered something about auroras they never knew before. “Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time,” said Larry Lyons of the University of California-Los Angeles,(UCLA) describing how sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light. “These outbursts are telling us something very fundamental about the nature of auroras.” These collisions can be so large, that isolated observers on Earth — with limited fields of view — have never noticed them before. It took a network of sensitive cameras spread across thousands of miles to get the big picture.
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This network of 20 cameras, set up by NASA and the Canadian Space Agency was deployed around the Arctic in support of the THEMIS mission, the “Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms.” THEMIS consists of five identical probes launched in 2006 to solve a long-standing mystery: Why do auroras occasionally erupt in an explosion of light called a substorm?
The cameras would photograph auroras from below while the spacecraft sampled charged particles and electromagnetic fields from above. Together, the on-ground cameras and spacecraft would see the action from both sides and be able to piece together cause and effect—or so researchers hoped. It seems to have worked. This three frame animation of THEMIS/ASI images shows auroras colliding on Feb. 29, 2008. Credit: Toshi Nishimura/UCLA
The breakthrough came earlier this year when UCLA researcher Toshi Nishimura assembled continent-wide movies from the individual ASI cameras. “It can be a little tricky,” Nishimura said. “Each camera has its own local weather and lighting conditions, and the auroras are different distances from each camera. I’ve got to account for these factors for six or more cameras simultaneously to make a coherent, large-scale movie.”
The first movie he showed Lyons was a pair of auroras crashing together in Dec. 2007. “It was like nothing I had seen before,” Lyons recalled. “Over the next several days, we surveyed more events. Our excitement mounted as we became convinced that the collisions were happening over and over.” A schematic diagram of Earth's magnetosphere. Earth is the circle near the middle and the plasma tail is denoted in yellow. Credit: Larry Lyons/UCLA
The explosions of light, they believe, are a sign of something dramatic happening in the space around Earth—specifically, in Earth’s “plasma tail.” Millions of kilometers long and pointed away from the sun, the plasma tail is made of charged particles captured mainly from the solar wind. Sometimes called the “plasma sheet,” the tail is held together by Earth’s magnetic field.
The same magnetic field that holds the tail together also connects it to Earth’s polar regions. Because of this connection, watching the dance of Northern Lights can reveal much about what’s happening in the plasma tail.
THEMIS project scientist Dave Sibeck of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. said, “By putting together data from ground-based cameras, ground-based radar, and the THEMIS spacecraft, we now have a nearly complete picture of what causes explosive auroral substorms,”
Lyons and Nishimura have identified a common sequence of events. It begins with a broad curtain of slow-moving auroras and a smaller knot of fast-moving auroras, initially far apart. The slow curtain quietly hangs in place, almost immobile, when the speedy knot rushes in from the north. The auroras collide and an eruption of light ensues.
How does this sequence connect to events in the plasma tail? Lyons believes the fast-moving knot is associated with a stream of relatively lightweight plasma jetting through the tail. The stream gets started in the outer regions of the plasma tail and moves rapidly inward toward Earth. The fast knot of auroras moves in synch with this stream.
Meanwhile, the broad curtain of auroras is connected to the stationary inner boundary of the plasma tail and fueled by plasma instabilities there. When the lightweight stream reaches the inner boundary of the plasma tail, there is an eruption of plasma waves and instabilities. This collision of plasma is mirrored by a collision of auroras over the poles.
Movies of the phenomenon were unveiled at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union today in San Francisco.
