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© Frankie LucenaSprite-Halo with Feet and a Red Sprite on September 28, 2020 @ Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
"This feature in a sprite event hasn't been documented yet," says Lucena, who has spent years documenting sprites and gigantic jets above electrical storms near Puerto Rico. "After checking my database I was only able to find three others that have this feature, so I compiled all four into a single image. My best guess is that the electrons were only able to propagate downward to a certain point and they accumulated there, causing the tips of the tendrils to brighten."
© TwitterDramatic video as plane is caught in 'St Elmo's fire'
The UK Royal Air Force's Number 99 Squadron released on Monday footage of a rare weather phenomenon, known as "St. Elmo's Fire", captured by the aircrew of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III near the equator.
The Number 99 Squadron tweeted that the incident took place while the C-17 was passing through the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
Comment: This rare weather phenomenon was also captured above the North Atlantic in February this year.
© Christophe SUAREZRed jellyfish sprites and green ghosts taken on September 10, 2020 over Corsica.
"I was shooting a thunderstorm across the Ligurian Sea almost 400 km away over the island of Corsica," says Suarez. "Suddenly this jellyfish sprite appeared!" Its red form stretched 100 km high, nearly touching the edge of space.
Note the slightly-green caps on top of the sprite. These are a newly discovered phenomenon called "Green Ghosts." When sprites intersect Earth's airglow layer 96-97 km high, they can excite oxygen atoms, producing an aurora-like glow.
Green Ghosts were discovered just one year ago by Hank Schyma, a Houston Texas-based storm chaser better known to his fans as Pecos Hank. Only a handful of Green Ghosts have ever been photographed, so this is an area of cutting edge research.
Comment: Recently discovered atmospheric electrical phenomenon 'Green Ghost' captured over West Texas
With the surge in sightings of red sprites in recent years (which are still considered 'rare' by some) it seems the electrical nature of our weather and changing atmosphere is becoming more apparent:
- Extremely bright 'jellyfish' sprites easily visible with naked-eye over Colorado
- Giant red sprites filmed above electric storm over Texas
- Changing atmosphere: Red sprites and a blue jet seen above Europe's stormy skies
- Strange skies: Red Sprites in Oklahoma, aurora Steve in Canada, iridescent clouds in Illinois and noctilucent clouds in Denmark
- Our changing atmosphere: Stunning iridescent cloud over Mexico, complex solar halo over Russia and a triple rainbow over Norway
© ESOThe stellar explosion, SN 1987A, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, was one of the brightest supernovae in more than 400 years.
The life of stars with a mass more than ten times that of our sun ends in a supernova, a colossal stellar explosion. This explosion leads to the formation of iron, manganese and other heavy elements.
In layers of a manganese crust that are around two and a half million years old a research team led by physicists from the Technical University of Munich has now confirmed the existence of both iron-60 and manganese-53.
"The increased concentrations of manganese-53 can be taken as the "smoking gun" - the ultimate proof that this supernova really did take place," says first author Dr. Gunther Korschinek.
While a very close supernova could inflict massive harm to life on Earth, this one was far enough away. It only caused a boost in cosmic rays over several thousand years. "However, this can lead to increased cloud formation," says co-author Dr. Thomas Faestermann. "Perhaps there is a link to the Pleistocene epoch, the period of the Ice Ages, which began 2.6 million years ago."
© Dr Alexander KirdyanovWidescale pollution has caused devastating forest decline east of Norilsk, Russia.
The largest-ever study of tree rings from Norilsk in the Russian Arctic has shown that the direct and indirect effects of industrial pollution in the region and beyond are far worse than previously thought.
An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, has combined ring width and wood chemistry measurements from living and dead trees with soil characteristics and computer modeling to show that the damage done by decades of nickel and copper mining has not only devastated local environments, but also affected the global carbon cycle.
The extent of damage done to the boreal forest, the largest land biome on Earth, can be seen in the annual growth rings of trees near Norilsk where die off has spread up to 100 kilometers. The results are reported in the journal Ecology Letters.
Comment: It would appear that part of the problem is that these studies are performed with foregone conclusions, and assumptions science knows more than it does; that human activity is the primary cause of changes on our planet, and that we understand the complexities of plant and soil life better than we really do .
Pierre Lescaudron explicates the more likely drivers of global dimming - some that are not factored into the models mentioned above - and their effect globally - not just in the Arctic - in his book with Laura Knight-Jadczyk Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection:
Global dimmingHe later goes onto to explicate how a rise in cosmic rays accelerates cloud formation, global dimming and global cooling, and that, while this appears to be a more recent phenomenon, with an increase of 13% in just 3 years, their impact on further cooling the planet will also likely have an affect on tree growth in the Arctic, a factor also not accounted for in the study above.
Global dimming is the reduction in the amount of solar radiation received on Earth's surface during fair weather. One of the main causes of global dimming is atmospheric dust. Numerous scientists have demonstrated that a global dimming trend has been in
process for decades.
There's been some debate as to whether atmospheric dust induces a net warming effect on the planet (because it absorbs more than it reflects radiation), or whether it induces a net cooling effect (because it reflects more than it absorbs radiation). In 2008, atmospheric scientist Richard Hansell tested and measured the net effect of atmospheric dust particles on temperatures and concluded that although atmospheric dust both absorbed and reflected solar radiations, it induced an overall cooling effect:The analysis showed that over half of dust's cooling effect is compensated for by its warming effect. The finding, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres, could clarify scientists' understanding of how dust influences moisture fluctuations in the atmosphere and surface temperatures around the planet.As shown in the diagram below, researchers from the Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences found a significant reduction, globally averaged 2.7% per decade, in solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface over the last 50 years.In the 90's an inversion occurred and our planet experienced a global brightening in some regions. Then, after the year 2000, global dimming restarted in certain areas and became overall more chaotic with different continents experiencing opposite trends.© Stanhill & CohenReduction in solar irradiance over the period 1950-2000.
Now, according to mainstream science, global dimming is man-made, caused by the accumulation of aerosol particles in the atmosphere due to industrialization. The trend inversion noticed in the 90s is attributed to the ban of several types of aerosols and other anti-pollution measures. However, a paper published in 2005 showed that over the period 1986-2000, although a slight dimming was occurring over land, a brightening occurred over the oceans.If human activity was indeed the cause of global dimming, and the reduction in human aerosol use the cause for the brightening observed in the 1990s, a brightening over land should have been observed and, possibly, a delayed brightening over the oceans (due to air circulation), since most industrial sources are located on continents. But the paper referenced here shows exactly the opposite.© Pinker et alIrradiance over the period 1982-2002. Land measurements on the left (global dimming), ocean measurements on the right (global brightening).
Since 2000, dimming has been observed in numerous places, including China, India and the whole southern hemisphere, despite the relatively lower presence of anthropogenic pollution in this less industrialized hemisphere. We can deduce from this that while human pollution might indeed affect the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, it's obviously not the only cause and its effects are probably negligible in the larger context.
Unlike human pollution, cometary activity could, at least partly, explain both the global dimming observed above the oceans during the 1990s and the dimming since 2000.
Between 40 and 400 tons of extraterrestrial material is estimated to enter the Earth's atmosphere daily 214,215 most of it arriving in the form of cometary dust. These estimates calculated years ago do not, however, take into account the recent surge in cometary activity. If we factor in the 655% increase in confirmed fireballs (see AMS statistics above) over the past eight years, the quantity of cometary dust entering Earth's atmosphere should be at least six times higher than that generally estimated; that is, daily incoming dust measuring between 260 and 2,600 tons.
See also:
- Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle
- Professor Valentina Zharkova: "We entered the 'modern' Grand Solar Minimum on June 8, 2020"
- Cloud mystery: Climate change and cosmic rays
- Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?
- MindMatters: The Holy Grail, Comets, Earth Changes and Randall Carlson
- Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Pierre Lescaudron
© Markus Varik/SpaceWeather.comThe northern lights appear pink over Tromso, Norway, on Saturday night.
Mesmerizing curtains of colorful lights shimmered across the night skies above the Arctic Circle on Saturday and Sunday, with luminous pillars lighting up the landscape beneath shades of green, purple and pink. Skywatchers fixed their cameras pointing upward, the spectacle witnessed from Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada. It was a display of the northern lights, or aurora borealis.
The ordinarily ephemeral show lasted for hours as a powerful geomagnetic storm transformed bursts of energy from the sun into a palette of pastels. Energy hurtling toward Earth from the sun poured along the magnetosphere, the magnetic field that surrounds the planet. Like a natural sunscreen protecting us from damaging high-energy particles, it transforms protons and cosmic radiation into innocuous visible light.
© Desmond Wee
Yesterday's sun halo was visible from locations across eastern Singapore such as Tampines, Simei and Ubi around noon.
A less distinct halo was seen three weeks ago, near the Merlion.
© Image is courtesy of Eric HsiaoAn image of the "Blue Snowball" planetary nebula taken with the Florida State University Observatory. The supernova LSQ14fmg exploded in a system similar to this, with a central star losing a copious amount of mass through a stellar wind. When the mass loss abruptly stopped, it created a shell of material surrounding the star.
Called LSQ14fmg, the exploding star exhibits certain characteristics that are unlike any other supernova. For example, its brightness increases at an extremely slow rate compared to other Type Ia supernovae. Despite this, it is also one of the brightest explosions in its class.
"Type Ia supernovae are violent, fantastically bright explosions of a white dwarf — the remnant of a star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel — which is part of a binary system with another star," said Carnegie astronomer Mark Phillips, an expert in these phenomena.
While the precise details of the explosion are still unknown, it is believed to be triggered when the white dwarf approaches a critical mass. However, some Type Ia supernovae, such as LSQ14fmg, are mysteriously able to exceed this mass before exploding. Astronomers call them "super-Chandrasekhar" supernovae after the scientist who first discovered this association between a white dwarf's mass and its stability.
Led by Florida State University's Eric Hsiao (a former Carnegie Observatories postdoc), the research team made a surprising discovery about the other half of the two-star system of which LSQ14fmg's progenitor was a part. Their findings, which could explain the existence of "super-Chandrasekhar" supernovae, are published in The Astrophysical Journal.
"This was a truly unique and strange event, and our explanation for it is equally interesting," said Hsiao.
© Ras Sig / YoutubeUFO over Ukraine?
Ras Sig
I noticed a faintly glowing object that stood out against the background of the sky. It was flying 10 degrees above the horizon. A bright white glow with increasing intensity, the brightness increased to a magnitude of -3 or -4 - like the brightness of Jupiter or Venus.
It took me about 15 seconds to pick up a 5x magnification with night-vision device. The UFO originated in the south over the sea, 5 km near the coast - filmed from the village of Kotovsky. The object moved towards the city of Odessa and Zhivakhova Mountain - small mountain by the sea that in ancient times was a place of cult worship for Greek colonists.
I rotated focus on the night-vision device in an attempt to sharpen the perspective and capture the possible outlines of an object emitting light, but I saw nothing but a bright circular sphere. Even as the object faded, the sphere shrank to a small point and disappeared.
I filmed for a further minute, in case the object should suddenly reappear, but it disappeared from sight and even disappeared from the infrared radiation - invisible to humans, though visible to the device.
Comment: With the surge in sightings of red sprites in recent years (which are still considered 'rare' by some) it seems the electrical nature of our weather and changing atmosphere is becoming more apparent: