The NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel is puzzled. They don’t know if we are reaching solar maximum or whether another little peak could be on its way which would shift solar maximum for SC24 to 2014 from 2013.
And should we compare SC24 with SC14 or should it be SC5?
This Sciencecast video is a good summary of what we don’t know:
Landscheidt’s prediction is that this Minimum will last till 2060 so we can expect low sunspot activity for the next 4 sunspot cycles (till SC28).
Landscheidt’s predicted solar minima
The Sc24 – SC5 comparison looks like a repeating pattern but it would be wrong to assume that the Sun cares about this and it will surely continue to keep us perplexed as it does its own thing.
SC24 compared to SC5
The Big Picture is persuasive – even if we don’t really know what the sun is upto and even less about how the Earth dances to the Sun’s music.
Recent solar activity (Wikipedia) showing the Maunder and Dalton minima
The shortest day of the year has come and gone and the countdown to summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) has begun. From a day length of 6 hours 15 minutes yesterday the next 183 days will see the length of the day – at this latitude – increasing by an average of over 3 minutes every day reaching a day length of almost 17 hours at the summer solstice.
At 11:12 UT (6:12 a.m. EST), the world didn’t end (as far as I can tell), but it was a significant time none-the-less. That was the exact minute of the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (or the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere) — when the daylight hours are shortest and the sun reaches its most southern position in the sky at noon.
The sun at solstice 12:12 CET on 21.12.2012: image NASA
NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured the time of solstice from orbit. Although the SDO is always imaging the sun through a multitude of filters, this is a great excuse to showcase the fantastic beauty of our nearest star, while putting all the doomsday nonsense behind us.
The sun didn’t unleash a killer solar flare or devastating coronal mass ejection, but it is undergoing a fascinating period in its solar cycle.
As can be seen from the SDO image above, the solar magnetic field is twisted and warped, channeling million-degree plasma high into the sun’s atmosphere in the form of beautiful coronal loops. This is all because the sun is fast approaching “solar maximum” — an exciting time when the sun’s magnetic field is most stressed.
Now a real image actually taken of South Asia on Diwali night (November 12th/13th) this year has been released by NASA and they write: “In reality, any extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that it is likely imperceptible when observed from space”.
Every fall, Hindus around the world light lamps, candles, and firecrackers as part of a five-day festival known asDiwali. The celebration, which has roots as a harvest festival, usually falls between mid-October and mid-November. In 2012, it began on November 11.
On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite(VIIRS) on theSuomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime view of southern Asia. The image is based on data collected by the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared. The image has been brightened to make the city lights easier to distinguish.
Most of the bright areas are cities and towns in India, the country with the world’s largest Hindu population. India is home to more than 1.2 billion people and has 30 cities with populations over 1 million. (For comparison, China has 62 cities with more than 1 million residents and the United States has 9). Cities in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan are also visible near the edges of the image.
An image that claims to show the region lit for Diwali has been circulating on social media websites and the Internet in recent years. In fact, it does not show what it claims. That image, based on data from the Operational Linescan System flown on U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, is a color-composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to highlight population growth over time. In that image, white areas show city lights that were visible prior to 1992, while blue, green, and red shades indicate city lights that became visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003 respectively.
In reality, any extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that it is likely imperceptible when observed from space.
Maximum is expected to be reached in Spring 2013 with a sunspot number of 60 and this prediction is for the lowest sunspot number in 100 years. This only confirms that we are currently in a solar minimum – the Landscheidt Minimum – though it remains to be seen whether this will be a Grand Minimum in the style of the Maunder Minimum or the Dalton Minimum. In any event a period of several decades of global cooling is to be expected and is already probably upon us (starting some 10 years ago).
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) made history when its Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial vehicle in history to successfully attach to the International Space Station. Previously only four governments – the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency – had achieved this challenging technical feat.
May 22/Launch Day: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft into orbit from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
May 23: Dragon orbited Earth as it traveled toward the International Space Station.
May 24: Dragon’s sensors and flight systems were subjected to a series of complicated tests to determine if the vehicle was ready to berth with the space station; these tests included maneuvers and systems checks in which the vehicle came within 1.5 miles of the station.
May 25: NASA gave Dragon the GO to attempt berthing with the station. Dragon approached. It was captured by station’s robotic arm and attached to the station
The next steps:
May 25 – 31: Astronauts open Dragon’s hatch, unload supplies and fill Dragon with return cargo.
May 31: Dragon is detached from the station and returns to Earth, landing in the Pacific, hundreds of miles west of Southern California.
Live coverage of the hatch opening, including some of the first video from inside Dragon, will begin Saturday at approximately 3:00 AM PT/ 6:00 AM ET on www.spacex.com .
I like this flash animation from NASA which is a modern version of the classic video Powers of Ten and travels from billionths of a yoctometre (10 -24 metres) up to tens of Gigaparsecs (about 3.1 x 10 25 metres). A journey of 60 powers of 10 from the Planck length of 1.616199(97)×10 -35 metres to the size of the observable universe at 10 27 metres.
“From where neutrinos are like suns to where galaxies are like dust”
A very close encounter coming up on Tuesday at 6:28 pm US Eastern time.
(Reuters)– A huge asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the moon Tuesday, giving scientists a rare chance for study without having to go through the time and expense of launching a probe, officials said.
Earth’s close encounter with Asteroid 2005 YU 55 will occur at 6:28 p.m. EST (2328 GMT) Tuesday, as the space rock sails about 201,000 miles from the planet.
The August solar cycle 24 forecast from NASA is unchanged from the previous month though the maximum has increased to 69 from the 64 forecast about 6 months ago.
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in June of 2013 (same as last month). We are currently over two and a half years into Cycle 24. Four out of the last five months with average daily sunspot numbers above 40 has raised the predicted maximum above the 64.2 for the Cycle 14 maximum in 1907. This predicted size still make this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years.
California-based rocket maker SpaceX said that it will make a test flight in late November to the International Space Station, now that NASA has retired its space shuttle program.The Dragon space capsule to be launched by a Falcon Heavy rocket has been given a November 30th launch date by NASA.
“SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight — a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS),” the company, also called Space Exploration Technologies, said in a statement.
The mission is the second to be carried out by SpaceX, one of a handful of firms competing to make a spaceship to replace the now-defunct US shuttle, which had been used to carry supplies and equipment to the orbiting outpost.
“NASA has given us a November 30, 2011 launch date, which should be followed nine days later by Dragon berthing at the ISS,” the company said.
It said the arrival of the vessel at the space station would herald “the beginning of a new era in space travel.”
“Together, government and the private sector can simultaneously increase the reliability, safety and frequency of space travel, while greatly reducing the costs,” SpaceX said.
The company won $75 million in new seed money earlier this year, after it became the first to successfully send its own space capsule, the gumdrop-shaped Dragon, into orbit and back in December 2010.
Top down view of Taurus XL carrying OCO: Image via Wikipedia
The US space agency’s (Nasa) attempt to launch its latest Earth observation mission has ended in failure. This is the second straight failure for the Taurus XL rocket, which appears to be connected to the rocket failing to release its payload. The Glory satellite lifted off from California at 0209 local time (1009 GMT), but officials became aware of a problem five minutes into the mission.
The Glory spacecraft was scheduled for launch today Friday, March 4 after technical issues with ground support equipment for the Taurus XL launch vehicle led to the scrub of the original Feb. 23 launch attempt. Those issues were thought to have been resolved. Data from the Glory mission is expected to allow scientists to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate. The Taurus XL also carries the first of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellite missions. This auxiliary payload contains three small satellites called CubeSats, which were designed and created by university and college students.
After Liftoff of Taurus XL Rocket, Fairing Fails to Separate
The Glory spacecraft and Taurus XL rocket lifted off this morning on time at 2:09:43 a.m. PST/5:09:43 a.m. EST.
About six minutes into the launch, a spacecraft contingency was declared by Launch Director Omar Baez. Data indicates the rocket fairing did not separate. More information will be provided at a news briefing later on NASA TV.
Project management for Glory is the responsibility of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the launch service provider to Kennedy of the four-stage Taurus XL rocket and is also builder of the Glory satellite for Goddard.
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