Amazing picture of a rainbow outburst of aurora over Ostersund in Sweden – at https://spaceweather.com … on the 12th and 13th of September of 2024.
At https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/09/240911142137.htm … the Inouye Solar Telescope [US National Science Foundation] has mapped the strength of the magnetic field in the solar corona, the outermost part of the solar atmosphere. The corona is the launch pad of space weather.
The Sun’s magnetic field is said to generate regions of the Sun’s atmosphere, often rooted by sunspots, that store vast amounts of energy that fuel explosive solar storms and drive space weather.The corona is a super heated area where magnetic mysteries unfold.
Earth’s magnetic field shields us from solar winds, protecting our atmosphere. Hence, measuring the magnetic properties of the Sun’s corona is important to understanding the process as occasionally Earth’s magnetic field can be breached – to a lesser or greater extent. The Inouye uses a technique called coronagraphy to create artificial eclipses. This allows it to detect extremely faint polarised signals – a billion times fainter than the solar disk itself. It also employs a Cryogenic Near-Infrared Spectropolarimeter instrument used to do the mapping.
Over at https://www.sciencealert.com/a-perfect-storm-of-solar-activity-is-about-to-unleash-an-amazing-show … NOAAs Space Weather Prediction Center is saying that on the 16th September a number of things come together to create ‘a perfect storm’. A solar flare, a CME, and a coronal hole -issuing forth from an X class solar flare that erupted on the Sun a couple of days ago. At the same time the active sunspot region responsible for the flare belched out a coronal mass ejection, but on top of that a coronal hole that was already on the face of the Sun, allowed the solar wind to escape at a greater strength.
The day after I posted the above we have a headline – auroras galore. Severe geomagnetic storm sparks stunning northern lights … see https://www.space.com/severe-geomagnetic-storm-auroras-northern-lights-harvest-moon …..