STARLINER REACHES THE ISS: Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has finally reached the International Space Station (ISS). Szabolcs Nagy of London, England, photographed the capsule just before docking on Friday, May 20th.https://spaceweathergallery.com/submissions/pics/s/Szabolcs-Nagy-For-Space-dot-com_1653121227_lg.gif
"Boeing's Starliner was only 200 meters from the ISS," says Nagy, who manually tracked the pair using a 10-inch dobsonian telescope. "Seeing them so close together was an incredible experience. Just wow!!"
"Boeing's Starliner was only 200 meters from the ISS," says Nagy, who manually tracked the pair using a 10-inch dobsonian telescope. "Seeing them so close together was an incredible experience. Just wow!!"
CALM BEFORE THE STORM? The sun has been quiet for two days. Could it be the calm before the storm? Big sunspot AR3014 has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares on May 23rd.
DID A COLD INTERSTELLAR CLOUD HIT THE SOLAR SYSTEM? A new research paper by Merav Opher (Boston University) and Abraham Loeb (Harvard University) suggests that a cold interstellar cloud of gas hit the Solar System two million years ago. The impact compressed the heliosphere, making it much smaller than Earth's orbit. Our planet was completely exposed to interstellar space and a blizzard of galactic cosmic rays. If this really happened, it would have altered space weather, terrestrial climate, and possibly even human evolution.
Read more: https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.01813v2
Read more: https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.01813v2
METEOR OUTBURST POSSIBLE NEXT WEEK: Debris from shattered Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is approaching Earth. ETA: May 31st. Forecasters aren't certain, but there could be a meteor outburst when the material arrives. North Americans are favored to see the show if it actually happens. Estimates of visual meteor rates range from near zero to thousands per hour, highlighting the uncertainty of the forecast.
Read more: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/05/26/the-tau-herculid-meteor-shower-possible-outburst/
Read more: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/05/26/the-tau-herculid-meteor-shower-possible-outburst/
Spaceweather.com
The Tau Herculid Meteor Shower — Possible Outburst
May 25, 2022: In late 1995, Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 exploded. Almost 30 years later, some of the debris might hit Earth. Above: NASA images of Comet 73P still crumbling years after its ini…
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A DEAD SUNSPOT EXPLODES (UPDATED): A magnetic filament snaking through the corpse of decayed sunspot AR3016 erupted on May 25th (1824 UT), producing a M1-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast. https://www.spaceweather.com/images2022/25may22/deadsunspot_anim_strip2.gif
Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) confirm that the explosion hurled a CME into space. A first look at the data suggests that the bulk of the CME will miss Earth, but there appears to be an Earth-directed component as well. A fraction of the CME could hit our planet on May 28th or 29th. Computer modeling by NOAA analysts will soon refine the arrival time.
Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) confirm that the explosion hurled a CME into space. A first look at the data suggests that the bulk of the CME will miss Earth, but there appears to be an Earth-directed component as well. A fraction of the CME could hit our planet on May 28th or 29th. Computer modeling by NOAA analysts will soon refine the arrival time.
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