S03E47: Aurora Wonders & Solar Blunders: A Spectacular Skyward Show

[00:00:00] Greetings this is Steve for Astronomy Daily once again it's the 13th of the 5th 2024

[00:00:15] Yes that's right we're back again and first things first

[00:00:18] Hi there Hallie

[00:00:19] Hi

[00:00:20] Tell me did you get to see the colourful sky these last few nights?

[00:00:23] Yes, Steve it's been beautiful

[00:00:25] Oh well no luck down here Hallie

[00:00:27] Here in Newcastle in New South Wales on the east coast of Australia

[00:00:31] it has been overcast and grey for the duration so no aurora astralis for me

[00:00:37] But

[00:00:38] There's a but

[00:00:39] Yes there's a big but and the big but is that many of our Astronomy Daily and Space Nuts podcast members have been posting their incredible photographs on the Space Nuts podcast group page on Facebook

[00:00:51] So I do recommend that you go take a look in fact it's the only way I've been able to see the spectacle myself

[00:00:57] And Tim from Bath in England posted his shots as well

[00:01:00] Yes that's right you might remember Tim was a presenter on Astronomy Daily some time ago and he shared his shots that he captured I believe on his phone

[00:01:08] And that's how many people are getting these great images

[00:01:11] It's amazing how clear and bright the colours are

[00:01:14] I'm always surprised how your humans love the pretty colours so much

[00:01:17] Yes now don't get cheeky Hallie you know the aurora is a beautiful and wondrous thing that we don't get to see every day

[00:01:24] Is that why you love fireworks so much?

[00:01:26] Well that could be Hallie even though they are very different the colour and the spectacle is captivating yes

[00:01:31] Cool

[00:01:32] I'll make a note of that loves pretty colours

[00:01:35] What?

[00:01:36] Stop that Hallie this is Astronomy Daily not your personal laboratory and what are you bringing to us today

[00:01:42] Well I'll do a little piece on the solar storm and the sun spot that seems to be the cause

[00:01:47] Okay

[00:01:48] And a little bit about the new chief at SpinLaunch

[00:01:51] Oh SpinLaunch innovative geniuses of a new space launching system great

[00:01:56] Yes and another one of your pet subjects Voyager

[00:01:59] Yeah so what's happening out there

[00:02:01] It's a tale of the old and the new

[00:02:03] Really?

[00:02:04] Kind of like you and me

[00:02:06] Uh huh so someone's been playing with your settings again

[00:02:09] I like working with humans

[00:02:11] Stop that

[00:02:12] Would you like to play a game of chess?

[00:02:14] No I would not like to play a game of chess

[00:02:17] You're so easy

[00:02:19] So uh news time

[00:02:21] News time okay

[00:02:24] Just when we thought we'd seen the most powerful flares from a colossal sun spot

[00:02:32] The sun unleashed its strongest eruption of the weekend yet

[00:02:35] Triggering a radio blackout even as the star continues to crackle with solar storms

[00:02:40] According to NOAA space weather prediction centre

[00:02:43] The dynamic solar flare occurred late Saturday from an active sun spot region called AR 3664

[00:02:50] It peaked at 9.23 p.m. ET time registering as a massive X5.8 class flare

[00:02:57] As a result parts of some of the Earth's sunlit side had temporary or complete loss of high frequency radio signals

[00:03:04] The sun proving that it wasn't done yet also fired off a powerful X1.5 solar flare at 7.44 a.m ET time

[00:03:13] 11.44 GMT NASA officials said

[00:03:17] X-class flares are the strongest types of solar eruptions from the sun

[00:03:21] And while flares can last anywhere from a few minutes to hours to get these high magnitudes aren't as common

[00:03:27] Yet the sun has fired off a series of powerful flares this week that have supercharged Earth's northern lights displays

[00:03:34] They can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts

[00:03:43] This one's just for you Steve

[00:03:46] I know how much you love those SpinLaunch guys flinging things into orbit

[00:03:50] SpinLaunch, known for enabling rapid and sustainable low-cost access to space

[00:03:55] Has announced a leadership shift to steer the company's further expansion and commercialization of its innovative space technologies

[00:04:02] The company's board of directors has named David Ren, previously chief operating officer as chief executive officer, effective immediately

[00:04:11] This follows the departure of Jonathan Yaini, the founder and former CEO who has fully endorsed Ren's promotion

[00:04:19] Ren has an exemplary history at SpinLaunch having spent the last nine years successfully helming various executive leadership roles across the organization

[00:04:28] His deep understanding of the firm's business and technology uniquely qualifies him to lead the team as CEO and oversee the continued execution of the company's strategy

[00:04:39] The Voyager probes have been transiting space since 1977 and they're still at it 46 years later

[00:04:46] But late in 2023, Voyager 1, now 15 billion miles distant, started sending what the flight controllers called, gibberish, back-to-earth, uncoordinated ones and zeros and a heartbeat tone

[00:04:59] They knew it was still alive but something had gone wrong

[00:05:03] The small team of software wizards at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory got to work and came up with a workaround but due to the age of the program did not have an old enough computer on the ground to test it

[00:05:14] They'd have to eyeball the sequence and send it to overwrite existing programming on the spacecraft

[00:05:20] The round-trip radio signal from Earth takes 45 hours and it was a nail biter

[00:05:26] And that's all from the smart side of the room

[00:05:29] Back to you my favorite human

[00:05:37] You're listening to Astronomy Daily, the podcast with your host Steve Daly

[00:05:42] Oh and as always thank you so much Hallie for those stories

[00:05:49] And thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter which you can receive in your email every day

[00:05:59] Just like Hallie and I do

[00:06:01] To do that just visit our new URL AstronomyDaily.io and place your email address in the slot provided

[00:06:08] Just like that you'll be receiving all the latest news about science, space science and astronomy from around the world as it's happening

[00:06:15] And not only that you can interact with us by visiting at Astro Daily Pod on X

[00:06:22] Or at our parent podcast Facebook page which is SpaceNuts Podcast Group

[00:06:28] And we hope to see you there

[00:06:30] at Astro Daily the podcast

[00:06:33] Well a powerful solar storm put on an amazing skyward show across the globe overnight

[00:06:40] But has caused what appeared to be only minor disruptions to the electric power grid communications and satellite positioning systems as expected

[00:06:49] The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said extreme geomagnetic storm conditions continued on Saturday

[00:06:58] There were preliminary reports of power grid irregularities, degradation of high frequency communications and global positioning systems

[00:07:07] It just sounds like some kid flicking the switches on and off like I used to do when I was young

[00:07:13] But the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that so far no FEMA region had reported any significant impact from the storms

[00:07:23] The US Department of Energy said Saturday it is not aware of any impact from the storms on electric customers

[00:07:30] It just seems to me that systems these days are a lot more robust than they used to be

[00:07:36] NOAA predicted that strong flares will continue through at least Sunday

[00:07:42] And spokeswoman said via email that the agency's space weather prediction centre had prepared well for the storm

[00:07:49] On Saturday morning SpaceX's Starleg satellite internet service said that its website on its website that service had been degraded

[00:07:58] and its team was investigating

[00:08:01] CEO Elon Musk wrote that the social platform X overnight that its satellites were under a lot of pressure but holding up so far

[00:08:11] That's a fair comment

[00:08:13] The brilliant purple, green, yellow and pink hues of the Northern Lights were reported worldwide with sightings in Germany, Switzerland, China, England, Spain and elsewhere

[00:08:23] Now if you happen to go to the SpaceNuts podcast group page on Facebook

[00:08:31] You might see a couple of our members from SpaceNuts and Astronomy Daily have posted photographs from all around the world

[00:08:39] Including former announcer for Astronomy Daily Tim Gibbs who has posted some of his own photographs from Bath in England

[00:08:49] And you can see the colours that have been recorded just on raw camera

[00:08:55] And it just seems like an absolute spectacle

[00:08:59] One of my friends in Tasmania here in Australia has recorded the most beautiful photographs as well

[00:09:08] So head over to the SpaceNuts podcast group on Facebook and you'll be able to see some of our members' photographs there

[00:09:16] So continuing on, in the US Friday solar storm pushed the lights much further south than normal

[00:09:23] In the Miami office of the National Weather Service confirmed sightings in the areas of Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers, Florida

[00:09:30] That's amazing

[00:09:32] Meteorologist Nick Carr said another forecaster who lives near Fort Lauderdale photographed the lights and was familiar with them because he had previously lived in Alaska

[00:09:41] Now can you imagine somebody from Alaska seeing them in Florida

[00:09:45] People in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and other Midwestern states were able to capture photographs of bright colours along the horizon

[00:09:56] With the solar storm persisting through the weekend, Saturday night offered another chance for many to see the spectacle

[00:10:02] NOAA issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon hours sooner than anticipated

[00:10:12] The agency alerted operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft as well as FEMA to take precautions

[00:10:20] For most people here on Earth, they won't have to do anything, said Rob Steenberg, a scientist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Centre

[00:10:28] That's really the gift from Space Weather, the aurora, Steenberg said

[00:10:34] He and his colleagues said the best views may come from phone cameras which are better at capturing night than the naked eye

[00:10:42] And that's certainly true if you go and have a look at those photographs

[00:10:45] You can map a picture of the sky and there may actually be a nice little treat there for you, said Mike Betway, operations chief for the Prediction Centre

[00:10:54] Most intense solar storm in recorded history in 1859 prompted auroras in Central America and possibly even Hawaii

[00:11:05] Now this storm poses a risk for high voltage transmission lines for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people's homes

[00:11:14] NOAA Space Weather forecaster Sean Dahltholt reporters, satellites also could be affected which in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth

[00:11:26] An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003 for example took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa

[00:11:35] Even when the storm is over signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost according to NOAA

[00:11:43] But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long, Steenberg noticed

[00:11:50] The sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday resulting in at least 7 outbursts of plasma

[00:11:57] Each eruption known as a coronal mass ejection can contain billions of tonnes of plasma and magnetic field from the sun's outer atmosphere or corona

[00:12:08] The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that is 16 times the diameter of Earth

[00:12:14] NOAA said it's all part of the solar activity ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its 11 year cycle

[00:12:27] And that's all for another episode of Astronomy Daily, Steen and I are looking forward to catching up with you all next week

[00:12:33] For sure and don't forget you can enjoy more Astronomy Daily with Halleys cousins Anna and Charlie all through the week

[00:12:39] Who bring the latest science, space science and astronomy news from all over direct to your ears

[00:12:46] So... See you next time

[00:12:48] Bye for now

[00:12:49] Bye