Strange Skies
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Sun

Sun halo in Colorado captures people's eye and imagination

Jonathan Romeo
The Journal
Sun, 12 Nov 2017 15:31 UTC
Sun halo over Colorado
© Aspen Emmett McCarthy
A mysterious ring in the sky around Durango on Sunday afternoon had some people wondering if life from another planet had finally arrived to Earth or if the sight was long-awaited evidence of Russian meddling.

And given how unpredictable 2017 has been so far, it wouldn't have been that out of the ordinary.

"It's the Aliens!!" wrote Darrin Strickland on one of Durango's local Facebook pages.

"Russia!!!" Daniel Galloway added.

But alas, Sunday's spectacle was a rather recurrent optical phenomenon known as a sun halo.
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Camera

Caught on camera rarely seen colourful displays of the Northern Lights across the UK

Phoebe Weston
Daily Mail
Wed, 08 Nov 2017 11:46 UTC
Sinclair & Girnigoe Castle in Caithness, Scotland
© Maciej WiniarczykSinclair & Girnigoe Castle in Caithness, Scotland
Northern lights could turn UK skies a dazzling green again tonight following on from last night's display which an expert described as 'almost like being in Iceland'.

The natural phenomenon swept across parts of Scotland and northern England, while areas as far down as South Wales also caught a glimpse of last night's ethereal event.

Strong conditions, such as dark, clear skies, will remain for the next few days, and experts from AuroraWatch UK say we could be in for a dazzling show in the same places tonight.

'The bigger the disturbance, the stronger the Aurora and the more likely it is to be seen,' Dr Case, a space physicist at Lancaster University and an AuroraWatch UK team member told the Express.

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Cassiopaea

Rare blue auroras seen in the Arctic Circle


Spaceweather.com
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 08:20 UTC
blue aurora
© Daniel DrelciucTaken by on October 26, 2017, at Tromso, Norway
Around the Arctic Circle, people see green auroras almost every night. It's nothing to write home about. Blue auroras, on the other hand, are very unusual. That's why this photo taken on Oct. 26th by Oliver Wright in Abisko, Sweden, is so remarkable:

"It was totally blue," says Wright, a veteran aurora tour guide who has witnessed hundreds of geomagnetic storms. "I've never seen anything quite like it!" In Tromso, Norway, Daniel Drelciuc saw it, too--"a big blue mass next to the classic green aurora," he says.

In auroras, blue is a sign of nitrogen. Energetic particles striking ionized molecular nitrogen (N2+) at very high altitudes can produce a cold azure glow, most often seen during intense geomagnetic storms. On Oct. 26th, however, geomagnetic activity was not intense.

Maybe these weren't auroras, after all. Another theory is emerging for the blue apparition. On Oct. 26th, the Russian military staged a nuclear battle drill and test-launched a number of ballistic missiles from land, sea and air. At least one of them created a magnificent cloud of blue exhaust. Alexey Yakovlev photographed the display from Strezhevoy, Russia:

Comment: Perhaps the Russians did it, but perhaps we tend to blame the Russians a bit too much. They're not gods y'know!

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Question

Massive glowing ball over Siberian sky puzzles locals

Will Stewart & Shivali Best
Daily Mail
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:34 UTC
glowing light russia
© Sergey AnisimovThe extraordinary scenes were captured by leading Siberian photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard which straddles the Arctic Circle.
Russia has been hit by a wave of reports of a giant UFO in the sky last night with spectacular pictures of an enormous glowing ball illuminating northern Siberia.

Social media erupted with claims of 'aliens arriving' and locals in far flung parts of the country told of 'shivers down their spines'.

While the source of the light has not been confirmed, some have suggested that it was the trace of four rockets launched by the Russian military that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky.

A similar light was seen in the skies over Norway in December 2009, which was caused by a failed missile. During that incident, the peculiar spiral shaped light pattern was created from reflection of the sun in the leaking fuel.

Vasily Zubkov posted: 'I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world.'

The extraordinary scenes were captured by leading Siberian photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard which straddles the Arctic Circle.

'I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening,' he said.
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Question

Bizarre glowing light seen over Siberia


Sputnik News
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 20:51 UTC
Aurora borealis
© AP Photo/M. Scott MoonThe aurora borealis, or northern lights, fill the sky early Sunday, March 17, 2013, above the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox church in Kenai, Alaska. The bright display at times filled the sky.
People in Siberia were stunned Thursday night by a one-in-a-kind spectacle: a huge glowing ball rising up in the sky. What was it? A UFO? A portal to a different dimension?

"I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world," said Vasiliy Zubkov, according to the Siberian Times.

The website published spectacular photos by Sergey Anisimov, a photographer from the northernmost city of Salekhard.

"'At first I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening," Anisimov told the Times.

"The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction," he explained. "My first thought was of a very powerful searchlight, but the speed [the spectacle] changed everything around changed [my] idea."
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Rainbow

Spectacular 'fire rainbow' spotted over nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, UK

Tara Cox
Cambridge News
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:58 UTC
Fire rainbow over Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire
© Glynis Pierson/National TrustThe rare phenomenon captured at Wicken Fen is also known as a ‘sun dog’ or ‘fire rainbow’ .
These amazing photos show a vivid upside-down rainbow above skies at Cambridgeshire's Wicken Fen nature reserve.

The phenomenon, called a circumzenithal arc, is caused by ice crystals refracting the sun's rays.

The rare turn in weather is also known as a 'sun dog' or 'fire rainbow' - and was captured at Wicken Fen by National Trust volunteer Glynis Pierson.

Unlike normal rainbows, which form when light shines through rain, circumzenithal arcs are likely to appear on clear, still days.
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Cloud Grey

Rare 'hole-punch clouds' shaped like UFOs seen over Dorset, UK

Harry Pettit
Daily Mail
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 13:32 UTC
Residents in Dorset were in for a surprise this week when they spotted what could easily be mistaken for a pair of UFOs
Residents in Dorset were in for a surprise this week when they spotted what could easily be mistaken for a pair of UFOs in the sky. The rare atmospheric phenomenon is a strange cloud formation, known as hole-punch, or fallstreak clouds
Residents in Dorset were in for a surprise this week when they spotted what looked like a pair of UFOs in the sky.

The rare atmospheric phenomenon is a strange cloud formation, known as hole-punch, or fallstreak clouds.

Experts say that the bizarre shapes are caused by aircraft, and are often mistaken for alien craft by confused onlookers.

The spectacular formation appeared in the sky above West Bay, Dorset, on Wednesday afternoon.

Photographer Len Copeland, 55, captured the images after noticing everyone around him was pointing their smartphone cameras toward the sky.

He said: 'People started stopping me and asking what was going on. They assumed I knew something because I was taking photographs, but of course I had no idea.
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Info

Ionospheric cold plasma discovered at the magnetopause

David Shultz
EOS Org
Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:44 UTC
Magnetospheric Multiscale
© Southwest Research Institute, CC BY 2.0Artist’s conception of the four Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft investigating magnetic reconnection at the boundary of Earth’s magnetosphere.
The Sun and Earth both produce powerful magnetic fields, and their intersection creates a complex system of physics that determines the space weather experienced by our planet.

The solar wind-a constant stream of charged particles (plasma) emitted from the Sun-collides with Earth's magnetic field, like water flowing around a rock in a river. The collision of the two magnetic fields produces a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection, in which the field lines of both the planet and its star snap together following the perturbation. The process releases jets of high-energy plasma, which can produce auroras and disrupt communication systems when they collide with Earth's magnetic field.

Scientists believe that plasma from the magnetosheath-the magnetically weak layer of the magnetosphere where Earth's field contacts the outflowing solar wind-is the dominant driver of magnetic reconnection. However, a new publication by Li et al. shows that "cold" plasma from the planet's ionosphere may play a larger role than previously thought.
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Gem

Rare red sprites in action: Mysterious electric tendrils lighting up the sky over Oklahoma filmed

Shivali Best
Daily Mail
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 18:53 UTC
This month, people in Oklahoma have been treated to a stunning and extremely rare display - a red sprite lightning storm
This month, people in Oklahoma have been treated to a stunning and extremely rare display - a red sprite lightning storm
This month, people in Oklahoma have been treated to a stunning and extremely rare display - a red sprite lightning storm.

The extraordinary weather occurrence is caused by electrical bursts of light above highly active thunderstorms, and appears as jellyfish-shaped clusters of red light.

Red sprites are rarely seen, yet one lucky videographer managed to catch the display six times during a storm earlier this month over Edmond, Oklahoma.

On October 6, videographer Paul Smith headed outdoors with his camera to capture some of the lightening forks on film, but instead he managed to capture something far more remarkable.

Sprawled out in the sky intermittently appears a spectacular series of bright red, jellyfish-shaped clusters of light, an extraordinary weather occurrence known as a 'red sprite'.

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Bizarro Earth

Supernova theory explains global warming, extinction events, ice ages says engineer

Kenneth Richard
No Tricks Zone
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 19:27 UTC
Do Supernova Events Cause Extreme Climate Changes?
"Global warming will not be reduced by reducing man made CO2 emissions" - Dr. William Sokeland
Ice Core Temps
© No Tricks Zone
In recent years, mass die-offs of large animals - like the sudden deaths of 211,000 endangered antelopes within a matter of weeks - have been described as "mysterious" and remain largely unexplained.

Determining the cause of the retreat to ice ages and the abrupt warmings that spawned the interglacial periods has remained controversial for many decades.

Dr. William Sokeland, a heat transfer expert and thermal engineer from the University of Florida, has published a paper in the Journal of Earth Science and Engineering that proposes rapid ice melt events and ice age terminations, extreme weather events leading to mass die-offs, and even modern global warming can be traced to (or at least correlate well with) supernova impact events.

The perspectives and conclusions of researchers who claim to have found strong correlations that could explain such wide-ranging geological phenomena as the causes of glacials/interglacials, modern temperatures, and mysterious large animal die-offs should at least be considered...while maintaining a healthy level of skepticism, of course.

Discovery - if that is potentially what is occurring here - is worth a look.
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