The launch of Artemis I – the most powerful rocket ever built – was scrubbed on Monday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to engine issues. The next window of opportunity for the launch of Artemis I will come on Saturday afternoon, September 3rd, but the weather may be an issue. This mission will pave the way for a return to the moon with the next rocket, Artemis II, carrying astronauts to orbit the Moon in 2024 and then Artemis III to touch down on the lunar surface with astronauts in 2025 or perhaps 2026.
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The annual Perseid meteor shower began on July 14th and will continue through August 24th, but the peak viewing times will be from later tonight into early Saturday. Unfortunately, this year’s peak time period will come at a time when the moon will be full which can certainly negatively impact overall viewing conditions. Of course, any success at all for viewing will depend first on cloud cover and it appears the weather will cooperate with mainly clear skies and comfortable conditions in the Mid-Atlantic region. The Perseid meteor shower comes every July/August as the Earth passes through a cloud of dust that comes from Comet Swift-Tuttle as it approaches the sun.
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Solar cycle 25 began during late 2019 and is expected to continue until about 2030 with a peak around 2025. This current solar cycle is the 25th since 1755 when extensive recording of sunspot activity began. Sunspot activity has ramped up significantly since the beginning of cycle 25 featuring 57% spotless days in 2020, 18% in 2021, and only 1 day so far this year without visible sunspots. In fact, the start to solar cycle 25 has been somewhat surprising with more sunspot activity than most earlier predictions had suggested.
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It was almost five years ago when America went crazy for the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse on US soil since 1918 and it provided a great opportunity for scientists to study the sun’s outer atmosphere known as the corona. What was referred to as “The Great American Solar Eclipse” took place on August 21st, 2017 when the moon passed between the sun and earth. The result was a 67-mile wide shadow that crossed the country all the way from Oregon-to-South Carolina. In case you missed the August 2017 total solar eclipse or it turned out to be cloudy in your given area, there will be another chance in the not-too-distant future coming on Monday, April 8th, 2024.
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It was during the height of the Cold War and a powerful solar storm could have led to a disastrous military conflict between the US and Soviet Union if not for the early efforts of the US Air Force to monitor solar activity. On May 23rd, 1967, a solar storm took place that was so powerful, it jammed radar and radio communications in polar regions and the US Air Force actually began to prepare aircraft for war thinking the nation’s surveillance radars were being jammed by the Soviet Union. Fortunately, space weather forecasters in the military suspected there might be another cause and they relayed information about the possibility that a solar storm could have been the reason for the disrupted radar and radio communications. As it turned out, this information was enough to keep the planes on the ground and the US avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the Soviet Union.
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On the night of Sunday, May 15th, the moon will enter the Earth’s shadow creating a lunar eclipse, the first since May of 2021. If the weather is clear, the total lunar eclipse will be widely visible from the Americas on May 15th and in Africa/Europe on May 16th. There is a chance that lingering aerosols from the Tonga volcanic eruption could actually turn the moon a darker shade of red compared to what we have seen in recent years.
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The most intense geomagnetic storm of the 20th Century took place during solar cycle 15 in a 3-day period from May 13-15 in 1921. The storm occurred before the widespread electrical dependence of infrastructure that we have in today’s world, but the impact from an extraordinarily powerful coronal mass ejection was still quite extensive. The storm’s electrical current sparked a number of fires around the world including one near the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. In addition, auroras appeared throughout the eastern US creating brightly lit nighttime skies and telegraph service virtually stopped in its tracks due to blown fuses and damaged equipment. Research in recent years has suggested that this super solar storm of May 1921 was equally as intense as the granddaddy of all super storms in recorded history – the “Carrington Event of 1859”.
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The month of April is ending with a celestial event worth viewing involving the planets of Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. These planets are now lined up and can be viewed at sunrise in the eastern sky. In addition, Venus and Jupiter are “converging” and will meet in conjunction on Saturday morning, April 30th. Looking ahead, these four planets will remain in their cosmic line until early July and other planets will actually join in on the parade.
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It was almost five years ago when America went crazy for the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse on US soil since 1918 and it provided a great opportunity for scientists. What was referred to as “The Great American Solar Eclipse” took place on August 21st, 2017 when the moon passed between the sun and earth. The result was a 67-mile wide shadow that crossed the country all the way from Oregon-to-South Carolina. Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every year or so, but generally cast their shadows over oceans or remote land masses. If you missed the 2017 total solar eclipse or it turned out to be cloudy in your particular area then there will be another opportunity in just two years during April of 2024.
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Solar cycle 25 is well underway now and it has become increasingly active with more numerous sunspots in recent months as we grind our way towards the next solar maximum. In fact, there have been no days this year without sunspots which is down from 64 days in 2021, 208 in 2020, and 281 in 2019 which was the time of the last solar minimum. One sunspot known officially as AR2975 unleashed a frenzy of solar flares a couple of days and at least two full coronal mass ejections (CMEs) emerged from the action. A single “merged” CME is expected to hit the Earth’s magnetic field in the early hours of Thursday, March 31st, perhaps as a strong G-3 class geomagnetic storm.
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