Strange Skies
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Cassiopaea

Rare blue jet atmospheric phenomenon photographed over Texas, several sighted in one night


Space Weather
Mon, 08 Aug 2022 20:10 UTC
blue jet
A blue jet emerges from a thunderhead in Big Bend National Park, photographed by Matthew Griffiths in Marfa, Texas
Seeing one blue jet is rare. Photographer Matthew Griffiths just caught several of them over the Big Bend National Park in Texas. "This is by far the best," he says:

Griffiths is an amateur photographer, primarily interested in wildlife and the Milky Way. "On July 28th, I was starting a five night West Texas road trip to capture the Milky Way," he says. "But with thunderstorms in the distance I decided to try for red sprites instead."

He ended up photographing the sprite's elusive cousin, the blue jet. First recorded by cameras on the space shuttle in 1989, blue jets are part of a growing menagerie of cloudtop "transient luminous events" such as sprites, ELVES and green ghosts. They are all elusive, but blue jets may be the hardest of all to catch.


Comment: Taking into account the recency of the discoveries, along with the various other phenomena that have been occurring with an increasing frequency, some which were only just documented in the last decade or so - such as STEVE, the dunes and white picket fence auroras - and it wo nature of our planet.


Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


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Nebula

Super sprite over the Kiso observatory, Japan


Asahi Shimbun Space Department
Mon, 01 Aug 2022 09:50 UTC
From the explanation of the Meteorological Society of Japan
[Sprite]

A lightning discharge phenomenon that occurs in the stratosphere or mesosphere above a thundercloud when there is a lightning discharge between the thundercloud and the ground. In 1989, a research group at the University of Minnesota succeeded in capturing the image by chance while testing observation equipment to be mounted on a rocket.

Professor D.D. Sentman of the University of Alaska named it after the mischievous elves Sprite Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Research on sprites has developed rapidly in recent years.


(Translated by Google)
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Info

Mysteries of some atmospheric halos remain unexplained after 5,000 years

Robert Lea
Space.com
Fri, 29 Jul 2022 21:16 UTC
The origins of some atmospheric optical illusions remain unknown, even after millennia of observation.
Diamond Dust

For the first time in almost 5,000 years of observations, researchers have fully cataloged optical illusions created in the sky as light shines through ice crystals known as atmospheric halos.

The atmospheric halo 'inventory' details frequently seen atmospheric optical illusions from known sources as well as shedding light on rarer halos, including ones with origins that are currently a mystery.

Halos are caused by the accumulation of water ice crystals smaller than 10 micrometers in the atmosphere. Qualities of these atmospheric illusions such as their colors or whether they possess arcs, spots or white rings, are determined by the shape and orientation of the ice scatter from and the path light takes towards these crystals. Often, the type of crystal behind the scattering can be identified by the shape of the halo they create.

These atmospheric illusions have been documented by humanity since at least the Babylonian era — which began around 1895 B.C. — when the phenomena were detailed on cuneiform tablets. However, thanks to the availability of cameras as a result of the proliferation of mobile phones, scientists have never had so much data on these phenomena at the tips of their fingers.
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Info

NASA mission to study electrical currents in Earth's upper atmosphere

Vanessa Thomas
SciTechDaily
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 17:33 UTC
Cubesats Above Atmosphere
© NASA/Johns Hopkins APLThis illustration shows the three CubeSats of NASA’s EZIE mission flying in formation above Earth. The spacecraft will study electrical currents in Earth’s atmosphere that link changes in the magnetosphere to effects at the Earth’s surface during geomagnetic storms – the same storms that trigger the colorful auroral displays.
NASA's Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) project - a mission to explore electrical currents in Earth's upper atmosphere - has passed a crucial developmental milestone, after rigorous review, moving the mission from the design phase to the construction phase.

EZIE will investigate auroral electrojets, which are powerful electrical currents flowing approximately 65 miles (100 kilometers) above the ground in the ionosphere, a region of Earth's atmosphere rich in ions ( charged atoms). These electrojets are connected to the beautiful auroras that dance across the polar night skies. They are part of a vast electrical circuit flowing between Earth and the surrounding space, out to some 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) away. The discoveries of EZIE will help to resolve decades-old arguments regarding the structure and evolution of the electrojets, paving the way for a more thorough understanding of Earth's space weather — magnetic events in space that can affect our ever increasingly technological society.
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Attention

Solar storms are causing satellites to drop from their orbits, 'virtually diving' since December


The Independent
Sat, 09 Jul 2022 22:03 UTC
Solar Storm
© ShutterstockSome satellites are dropping over two kilometres per year, and smaller crafts are at a greater risk
Scientists believe that solar weather could be causing satellites to drop out of their orbits.

Over the past year, the European Space Agency's Swarm constellation - which measures magnetic fields around Earth - started dropping in the atmosphere ten times faster than before.

"In the last five, six years, the satellites were sinking about two and a half kilometers [1.5 miles] a year," Anja Stromme, ESA's Swarm mission manager, told Space.com.

Comment: This is notable and confirms other data showing that there are significant shifts occurring in our atmosphere, however, whilst these satellites may pose a risk, the apparent uptick in Fire in The Sky activity should probably be higher up on our list of concerns: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Comet 2

Comet heading towards Earth may strike moon!


Hindustan Times
Wed, 06 Jul 2022 07:25 UTC
An animation video shows the giant Comet coming very close to Earth and then moving towards the moon.
Comet C/2017 K2 might strike the moon!
© NASAComet C/2017 K2 might strike the moon!
A giant comet C/2017 K2 is likely to make a close approach to Earth this month on July 14, 2022. The comet was first discovered in 2017 by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope hurtling somewhere between Saturn and Uranus. Now it is approaching Earth and the inner solar system at a distance of around 270 million km. Though it does not pose any threat to our planet, an animation video published by specialist Hazegrayart last week shows the comet coming close to our planet and then getting pulled toward the Moon, and impacting it with its full force. However, nothing can be confirmed as yet.

Meanwhile, skywatchers will be able to see the comet by using a small telescope. C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) has been traveling from the Oort cloud to the inner solar system and it will be so active and bright that it could be detectable from Earth. The comet relies on energy from the Sun to heat up gasses. Here's all you need to know about Oort cloud and how to spot Comet C/2017 K2 from earth.
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Cloud Lightning

South Dakota skies turn an eerie green amid severe storms

Thomas Leffler
AccuWeather
Tue, 05 Jul 2022 17:54 UTC
green sky south dakota severe thunderstorm
© Twitter/jkarmillThe sky turns green during a severe storm in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on July 5, 2022.
Before severe weather swept through the area, ominous green skies loomed over Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on July 5.

As millions of residents found themselves in the path of severe storms Tuesday, one state in particular received a colorful concoction in the skies as rain and hail fell.

Storms passed through South Dakota during the Tuesday afternoon hours, leaving behind considerable rainfall, hail and wind reports. The most unique portion of the severe weather came in its particular hue, eschewing the typical gloomy grey skies for a green shade more in common with night vision goggles than daytime thunderstorms. The hue covered the South Dakota hub of Sioux Falls throughout the late afternoon hours.
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Info

Censored papers that refute the big bang hypothesis


LPP Fusion
Wed, 06 Jul 2022 18:30 UTC
Big Bang
© Wikipedia
These are the papers that the cosmology censors don't want anyone to read:

The first one predicts what the new JWST telescope will find — further refuting the Big Bang, expanding universe, hypothesis.

The second paper shows, with the latest data, how large-scale structures could not have formed in the time since the hypothesized Big Bang — and how they really formed from plasma filamentation.

The third paper summarizes the evidence against the Big Bang hypothesis, which is contradicted by at least 16 independent sets of data and supported by only one. It also shows how a universe without a Big Bang evolved into the one that we currently observe.

These papers were refused publication even on the arXiv pre-print website that supposedly allows all researchers to publish without peer review. But you can read them here. To get a non-specialist summary of what the papers show, watch our new video below.
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Comet 2

Sudden increase in noctilucent clouds recorded, sharpest increase in 15 years


Space Weather
Sat, 02 Jul 2022 22:16 UTC
noctilucent clouds
© Oliver SchwennNLC
Taken by Oliver Schwenn on June 30, 2022 @ Aarhus, Midtjylland, Danmark
Something unexpected just happened in the mesosphere. As June came to an end, NASA's AIM spacecraft detected a sharp increase in the frequency of noctilucent clouds (NLCs), the most in 15 years:

Comment: A variety of other rare phenomena has been occurring with a greater frequency, little of which can be or is attributed to 'more rockets': Three rare & mysterious atmospheric phenomena observed in one night for first time, revealed after reviewing data 2015

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Sun

Surprise solar storm with 'disruptive potential' slams into Earth

Harry Baker
Live Science
Tue, 28 Jun 2022 20:40 UTC
Experts were initially unsure what caused the freak geomagnetic event.

Solar Storm
© ShutterstockSome satellites are dropping over two kilometres per year, and smaller crafts are at a greater risk
Scientists were recently left scratching their heads after a "potentially disruptive" solar storm smashed into Earth without warning.

The surprise solar storm hit Earth just before midnight UTC June 25 and continued throughout most of June 26, according to Spaceweather.com. Scientists classified it as a G1-class storm, which means it was strong enough to create weak power grid fluctuations, cause minor impacts to satellite operation, disrupt the navigational abilities of some migrating animals, and cause unusually strong auroras.

The unexpected solar storm coincided with the peak of an extremely rare five-planet alignment, where Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn lined up in the sky in order of their proximity to the sun (which hasn't happened since 1864). Amateur astronomers in the northern hemisphere were able to capture images of the surprise auroras as they photobombed the neatly aligned planets.

Photographer Harlan Thomas captured an image of bright auroras in Calgary, Canada, which flashed across the dawn sky in front of the planetary alignment on June 26.

"Wow, talk about surprises," Thomas told Spaceweather.com. "The aurora became [visible to the] naked eye with beautiful pillars," and lasted for around 5 minutes, Thomas said.
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