Contact Us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right. 

         

123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999

(123) 555-6789

email@address.com

 

You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.

Blog

Weather forecasting and analysis, space and historic events, climate information

1:00 PM | The second CME has just arrived!

Paul Dorian

AZ[Northern lights visible last night in Arizona from the initial CME; photo courtesy spaceweather.com]

Discussion

The second of the expected coronal mass ejections (CMEs) has just had an impact on NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft (arrow on plot below points out impact time) and this usually happens a short time before an impact on the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft carrying six high-resolution sensors and three monitoring instruments samples low-energy particles of solar origin. ACE also provides near-real-time 24/7 continuous coverage of solar wind parameters and solar energetic particle intensities (space weather). When reporting space weather, ACE provides an advance warning (about one hour) of geomagnetic storms that can overload power grids, disrupt communications on Earth, and present a hazard to astronauts. As expected, an initial looks shows this second CME to be stronger than the first which arrived yesterday. The second CME is the result of an X-class solar eruption that took place on September 10th from sunspot region AR2158.

Meanwhile, an eruption on the sun on September 9th from the same sunspot region resulted in an initial and slightly weaker CME that managed to generate northern lights last night visible as far south as Arizona (photo above; courtesy spaceweather.com). Apparently, there has not been an aurora visible in Arizona skies since the previous solar maximum. Typically, northern lights take on more of a reddish color at low latitudes as seen in the photograph.

Sky watchers should remain on alert tonight for possible northern lights in the northern latitudes and as far as south as the middle latitudes. It is quite likely that the best chance tonight for viewing any potential northern lights in the I-95 corridor between DC and New York City will come early as clouds are likely to roll in late.

ACE [Impact on NASA's ACE spacecraft just a short time ago (arrow) from the arrival of the second CME; courtesy NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center]

categories Space Weather