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Strange SkiesS
Halos like this one around the sun or moon are caused by ice crystal high in Earth's sky. Notice the upside-down rainbow-like arc above. It's called a circumzenithal arc.
Russ Adams in Pike County, Illinois caught this beautiful scene on December 22, 2016. The upside-down rainbow-like arc above is called a circumzenithal arc. The circle around the setting sun is called a 22-degree halo, and this halo has two sun dogs, or bright spots, visible on it.
© James Helmericks
"This was the brightest pink display I have ever seen, at one time even giving the snow a pink tinge," he says.
The pink color is probably a sign of nitrogen. Most auroras are green--a verdant glow caused by energetic particles from space hitting oxygen atoms 100 km to 300 km above Earth's surface. Seldom-seen pink appears when the energetic particles descend lower than usual, striking nitrogen molecules at the 100 km level and below. Such deep-penetrating particles are being produced by the solar wind stream now blowing around Earth.
On the days and nights around Christmas 2016, the pinks became so intense, they appeared white, not only to cameras, "but also to the naked eye," says Sarah Skinner, who witnessed the strange colors several nights in a row from Abisko, Sweden. "It looked like someone had photoshopped the sky!" she says
© Markus VarikPink or white auroras appear when energetic particles from space descend lower than usual
"I've been working more than 400 nights as a Northern Lights guide, and although sometimes I think I've seen it all, never have i witnessed white auroras like that," says Varik. "It was amazing to see it unravel white like that in front of my eyes. Pure magic!"
Auroras get their colors from specific elements in Earth's upper atmosphere. Green auroras, for instance, come from atomic oxygen; blue is associated with molecular nitrogen. No element produces white. So where did it come from?
Comment: From Spaceweather.com:
This is a "coronal hole"--a region in the sun's atmosphere where the magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape. We've actually seen this coronal hole before -- at least twice. For the third month in a row, a large hole in the sun's atmosphere is turning toward Earth. It is rotating around with the sun, strobing Earth like a lighthouse every ~27 days. The last two times we experienced its solar wind (Oct. 25-28 and Nov. 23-26), G1- and G2-class magnetic storms sparked bright polar auroras.
For the third day in a row, Earth is inside a stream of solar wind blowing out of a large hole in the sun's atmosphere. This is causing magnetic unrest and bright auroras around the poles. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on Dec. 24th.
- Aurora borealis makes spectacular rare appearance in UK and Ireland
- Saturn's polar hexagon has mysteriously changed colors
© ESOArtist’s impression of Gliese 710, a sun-like star that will travel through our Solar System’s Oort Cloud in about 1.3 million years.
Gliese 710 is currently 64 light-years from Earth, but for all intents and purposes, it's heading straight for us. A new study published in the journal Astronomy and Physics projects the close encounter will happen about 1.35 million years from now, and that the star will come within 13,365 AU of our sun (where 1 AU is equal to the average distance of the Earth to the sun), or 1.2 trillion miles. At that distance, it would take light 77 days to reach the Earth.
That's obviously far, but not in cosmological terms. That distance is well within the Solar System's Oort Cloud—a large bubble of ice and rock that surrounds the sun to a distance as far as 50,000 to 200,000 AU. So while Gliese 710 is sure to avoid a direct hit with any object in the inner Solar System, it'll likely travel through the Oort Cloud. And with its tremendous gravitational influence (it's about 60 percent the size of our sun), it'll perturb the many large rocks currently sitting idle way out there in the outer reaches. This star is poised to send a shower of comets into the inner Solar System, possibly causing a serious impact event with Earth.
© Via Facebook/Arnaldo Costajr Redeluz
Arnaldo Costajr Redeluz recorded this really strange sky phenomenon on December 12, 2016.
So there a three spots where rays from the sun pass through. And in one of these holes you have two incandescent balls of fire. Do we have actually more suns than only one?
© NASA/JPL-CaltechThis artist's illustration shows comet fragments crossing the face of a star, one possible explanation for the strange dimming exhibited by "Boyajian's star."
In September 2015, Yale University's Tabetha Boyajian and her colleagues reported that the star KIC 8462852 has dimmed dramatically multiple times over the past seven years, once by an astounding 22 percent.
NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope spotted these dimming events. But the brightness dips of "Boyajian's star," as it has come to be known, were far too significant to be caused by an orbiting planet, so astronomers began thinking of alternative explanations.
Researchers have come up with many possible causes for the dimming, including a swarm of broken-apart comet fragments, variability in the activity of the star itself, a cloud of some sort in the interstellar medium between Kepler and Boyajian's star, and, most famously, an orbiting "megastructure" built by an alien civilization to collect stellar energy.
Researchers are testing these hypotheses to the extent possible. For example, the $100 million Breakthrough Listen initiative is using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to hunt for signals coming from Boyajian's star, which lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth.
© SkywatchTamNight-time iridescent clouds illuminated by a super moon
Comment: Rare phenomena of all kinds are increasing around the world, see Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection for more information.
For a monthly record of these strange occurrences see: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - November 2016: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs
Also see:
- Increased meteor smoke: Noctilucent clouds brightening and spreading south
- Rooftops of 3 major European cities yield samples of cosmic dust
- Mysterious iridescent cloud falls from the sky over Mexico on Good Friday
- Iridescent clouds, sun dogs appear over Denver, Colorado
- Strange skies: Beautiful iridescent clouds appear over Santiago, Chile
- Feather-like iridescent cloud appears in Warwick, Australia
- Colorful 'mother of pearl' cloud appears in Swedish skies
A strange cloud suddenly appeared in the sky over Poland on December 18, 2016.
© vK.com
© vk.com
© Sci-NewsAn artist’s rendering of the disc of material around Milky Way black hole Sagittarius A*.
A new object has been detected by astrophysicists from Tohoku University (Japan). This object is orbiting the Milky Way. The object has been detected using the advanced Subaru Telescope. At present, the best description of the object is a miniature (or dwarf) galaxy. A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of anything from 100 million up to several billion stars; while this seems big it is a far smaller number than the Milky Way's 200 - 400 billion stars.
The outside object is too small to be classed as a 'real galaxy' and scientists are debating whether 'dwarf galaxy' is a better descriptor. In terms of size, the Milky Way, according to latest estimates is some 100,000 light years in diameter. In contrast, the orbiting dwarf galaxy is probably only around 124 light years in diameter. It is located over 280,000 light years away from Earth. There is no other information about Virgo's origins.
The detection via the Subaru Telescope is very faint (absolute magnitude of -0.8 in the optical waveband), even accounting for the telescope's power. The Subaru Telescope is a 8.2-metre flagship telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. It is located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii. The telescope structure includes an instrument called the Hyper Suprime-Cam, and it was this device that detected the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy.
© YouTube/Jean Wybson (screen capture)
The venerable National Geographic proclaims iridescent clouds - as they are scientifically known - are hardly ever seen, and that it's rarer still to snap a photograph of the majestic phenomenon.
But Mar Gómez did the double on Friday, filming the multi-coloured blob of candy floss and sharing the goodness across social media.
It takes a very specific set of circumstances for an iridescent cloud - also called "fire rainbows" or "rainbow clouds" - to form, National Geographic reports.
If you do happen to see one, it will happen late in the afternoon, often paired up with a thunderstorm.
Comment: It is likely that atmospheric dust loading from increased comet and volcanic activity is contributing to the 'strange skies' we are witnessing, the cooling effect of which causes ice crystals to form. See also:
- Beautiful iridescent clouds appear over Santiago, Chile
- 'Rare' noctilucent clouds put on sunrise show over Whitley Bay, UK
- Rare atmospheric 'crown flash' phenomenon seen above Moscow, Russia
- What causes iridescent clouds?
- Rare undulatus asperatus clouds form over Dorset, UK
- Spectacular multi-colored 'light pillars' illuminate skies in northern China
- Ball-lightning? 'Strange light' seen over Canberra, Australia
- Weird glowing light spotted over Netherlands: plasma discharge event?
Comment: See also: Veteran northern lights guide surprised to see rare pink and white auroras