Space In General

The squabble between "anthroparians" and "deniers" will be receiving a major datapoint as our Sun now enters a deep minimum unprecedented for centuries. Even now, west coast cosmic ray counts are up 13% and east coast counts up by 20% in just the last two years. I think the key measurement to look at for the next few years is going to be percentage of global ocean area covered by clouds.
 
tarnheld
Yesterday we had a micromoon and i took some pics with the same camera and objective i used for the supermoon pic last November. Here is the result, a nice comparison gif of a micromoon vs. supermoon:
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To be honest, the micromoon seemed huge at the horizon and i couldn't tell the difference until i made a photo and compared it to the supermoon pic.
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I took some comparison photos too a while back =)
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Dotini
The squabble between "anthroparians" and "deniers" will be receiving a major datapoint as our Sun now enters a deep minimum unprecedented for centuries. Even now, west coast cosmic ray counts are up 13% and east coast counts up by 20% in just the last two years. I think the key measurement to look at for the next few years is going to be percentage of global ocean area covered by clouds.
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Is that increase in cloud cover going to cause a net increase or decrease in temperatures? Last I'd heard they still didn't know. There are persuasive arguments either way but again, to my knowledge they don't know.
 
BobK
Is that increase in cloud cover going to cause a net increase or decrease in temperatures? Last I'd heard they still didn't know. There are persuasive arguments either way but again, to my knowledge they don't know.
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My understanding and experience is that clouds covering the land at night cause warming and clouds covering the land in day cause cooling. I believe the net effect is in the direction of cooling. Similarly with oceanic clouds, though I have little direct experience. But because oceans predominate in area over continents, the effect of clouds over the ocean is somewhat more important. There is probably a website or satellite report somewhere that monitors cloud coverage on a global basis. So in the next 2-4 years, we should be easily able to know for sure the magnitude of cosmic ray forcing on the climate.

We should bear in mind that while the combined magnetic field strengths of the sun and Earth - now both rapidly weakening - both defend us from cosmic rays, and while the universal flux of cosmic rays is likely constant, that the peculiar orbit of our solar system through the Milky Way takes us through regions (between the arms) where the flux of cosmic rays goes down considerably. Here, my understanding is that our solar system is currently passing through a spur branch.
 
BobK
The mantra is "Humans Are Responsible for Global Warming Climate Change" and people pointing out inconvenient facts are Science Deniers.
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Or "useful idiots" for Big Oil.
 
DK
Or "useful idiots" for Big Oil.
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^Probably a little off topic.

Even so, there's no denying the utility of liquid fuel - GTPers will be particularly aware of that. But I'm prepared to say oil should no longer be used wasted as a heating fuel. It's too precious, fracking notwithstanding.

Airliners are probably putting more CO2 into the upper atmosphere, disproportionate to any other sources. So a great deal of moral guilt for anthropogenic climate change must be ascribed to passengers, operators and manufacturers of jet airliners, even holders of their stocks. On the other hand, the contrails laid down by jets often form into clouds. :D
 
Gigantic jets, people, GIGANTIC JETS!
The Earth is a weird place, now sending these yuuuuge sparks into the heavens. Enjoy. They may become more common.
-from today's edition of spaceweather.com

GIGANTIC JETS OVER HAWAII: Every night, the Gemini cloudcam atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii monitor storms approaching some of the world's largest telescopes. It often captures bright bolts of lightning lancing down to the ground below the towering dormant volcano. On July 24th it captured something lancing up:



"This amazing lightning-like phenomenon is known as a Gigantic Jet," says Frankie Lucena of Puerto Rico, who processed the video. "They are related to sprites, but more powerful and easier to see with the naked eye."

Cloudcam video caught at least three of these jets springing from the tops of a powerful growing thunderstorm. The tallest of them reached all the way to the ionosphere some 80 km overhead.

"Gigantic Jets are much more rare than sprites," says Oscar van der Velde, a member of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. "While sprites were discovered in 1989 and have since been photographed by the thousands, it was not until 2001-2002 that Gigantic Jets were first recorded from Puerto Rico and Taiwan." Only a few dozen Gigantic Jets have ever been seen, mostly over open ocean.



Sometimes called "space lightning," Gigantic Jets and their cousins the sprites are true space weather phenomena. They inhabit the upper atmosphere alongside auroras, meteors and noctilucent clouds. Some researchers believe they are linked to cosmic rays: subatomic particles from deep space striking the top of Earth's atmosphere produce secondary electrons that could, in turn, provide the spark for these upward bolts.

The link to cosmic rays is particularly interesting at this time. For the past two years, space weather balloons have observed a steady increase in deep space radiation penetrating our atmosphere. This increase is largely due to the decline in the solar cycle. Flagging solar wind pressure and weakening sunspot magnetic fields allow more cosmic rays into the inner solar system--a trend which is expected to continue for for years to come. These changes could add up to more Gigantic Jets in the future. Stay tuned!
 
Astronomers have captured the best ever images of a gamma ray burst. This is what happens when a Star runs out of fuel, collapses on itself, and forms a neutron star, quark star or a black hole.

This is really cool stuff, and to put a gamma Ray burst in perspective, these are the second most powerful explosions known in the universe, second only to the Big Bang.

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:

Astronomers spot best views ever of gamma-ray burst

https://usat.ly/2w3Wf13

Also, in around 3 weeks here we have a total solar eclipse. Really excited for that, I bought some goggles to view it with. It's one of those things, I wouldn't drive really far to see it, but it's pretty cool I happen to be in the narrow band that cuts across the U.S. Hotels are sold out everywhere around here, and people are driving from as far as Canada to see it. It will be a neat experience. :)

Edit: fun fact I just read on Gamma Ray Bursts, even a relatively mild GRB, puts out more energy then our sun has, in its entire 5 billion year existence.
 
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@prousonhairy they look much cooler in Elite. Up close and personal.

On a more serious note, sometimes it's hard to get my head around such awesome specticals. The universe is such an amazing place and too many people care only about what's down on earth.
 
ProjectWHaT
I can't wait for the eclipse! I have my gear ready.

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Good 👍. Tried finding glasses for the event over these last couple weeks and have pretty much given up because nearly every dealer is basically sold out that is ISO approved. Those that aren't are only doing bulk sales as their default lowest purchase, one site would only sale you 25 glasses nothing lower. So I'll probably watch it on the web and wait for 2024 and hope a friend bought a pair.
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
Good 👍. Tried finding glasses for the event over these last couple weeks and have pretty much given up because nearly every dealer is basically sold out that is ISO approved. Those that aren't are only doing bulk sales as their default lowest purchase, one site would only sale you 25 glasses nothing lower. So I'll probably watch it on the web and wait for 2024 and hope a friend bought a pair.
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We're not in the direct line of sight though so not sure how good it will actually be.

Edit: Maybe better than I thought according to this handy page.
 
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LMSCorvetteGT2
Good 👍. Tried finding glasses for the event over these last couple weeks and have pretty much given up because nearly every dealer is basically sold out that is ISO approved. Those that aren't are only doing bulk sales as their default lowest purchase, one site would only sale you 25 glasses nothing lower. So I'll probably watch it on the web and wait for 2024 and hope a friend bought a pair.
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Surely you should buy 100 pairs now and sell 99 of them on in 2024 at a gross profit? :D
 
TenEightyOne
Surely you should buy 100 pairs now and sell 99 of them on in 2024 at a gross profit? :D
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No thanks.
R1600Turbo
We're not in the direct line of sight though so not sure how good it will actually be.

Edit: Maybe better than I thought according to this handy page.
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Which is why I wanted them, I already looked into it, you don't have to be in the direct line. That just gets you the full chance of seeing a total eclipse with corona, we still experience a partial of good degree.
 
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Unless the Great Red Spot has doubled in size recently I'll assume there's some distortion there.
 
Eclipse 2017

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm3nyLpP


_DSC6895-5 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC6921-13 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC6956-20 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7000-26 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7017-31 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7043-40 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7077-48 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7096-52 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7118-57 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


_DSC7148-64 by Harry Dang, on Flickr


It was an amazing experience. If you can, I definitely recommend seeing totality. It is something you just have to experience.
 
PeterJB
Unless the Great Red Spot has doubled in size recently I'll assume there's some distortion there.
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The ship is just really close to the planet and sees a small area. The rest of the planet is behind the horizon. I guess you can call it a "fish-eye distortion"?
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Bizarre, baroque, extremely difficult to explain. What is it? It has to do with electrical discharges, but that's about as far as it goes.
- from today's edition of spaceweather.com:

A NEW KIND OF SPRITE? Barely 30 years ago, many researchers did not believe that upper atmospheric lightning existed—until 1989 when researchers from the University of Minnesota captured them on video tape. Now there is a menagerie of accepted forms: sprites, elves, gigantic jets, gnomes. These "transient luminous events" (TLEs) appear above thunderclouds, reaching toward space rather than lancing down to the ground like regular lightning.

On Aug.14th, Thomas Ashcraft may have spotted a new kind of sprite. "I was photographing a cluster of sprites over a thunderstorm in western Oklahoma when something curved snaked up behind the main cluster." This frame from his video of the event shows the strange form:



What was it? Experts aren't sure.

Lightning researcher Oscar van der Velde at the Technical University of Catalonia says it could be a troll—a type of TLE that sometimes appears underneath sprites, crawling up tendrils dangling beneath the luminous clusters. "I have recorded many trolls," says van der Velde, "but never such weird curving ones. This is a really exceptional display."

Jozsef Bo'r of the Geodetic and Geophysical Research Institute in Hungary thinks it might be a type of gigantic jet. Gigantic jets are like sprites on steroids—powerful and bright. "A working hypothesis is that the red sprites in the photo occurred first and deposited a cloud of positive charge above the thundercloud. A subsequent gigantic jet was itself rich in positive charge and had to bend around the positive cloud on its way up."

Or it could be something unprecedented. "Even after almost 30 years of sprite observations, we are still seeing new things," says Walter Lyons, past president of the American Meteorological Society and a longtime observer of sprites. "Over the years I have seen thousands of sprites, but only a few curved structures like this -- so this is pretty rare."

"I don't know what to call them," says Ashcraft, who regularly monitors the sky around his private observatory in New Mexico for strange phenomena, "but I am going to keep my eyes open for more."
 

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