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

AI Transcript

Steve Dunkley: Greetings. This is Steve, for astronomy daily. Once again, it's the 13th of the fifth, 2024.

Genric: With your host, Steve Dunkley.

Steve Dunkley: Yes, that's right. We're back again.

Many astronomy daily and space Nuts podcast members have been posting stunning aurora photos

And first things first. Hi there, Hallie.

Hallie: Hi.

Steve Dunkley: Tell me, did you get to see the colourful sky these last few nights?

Hallie: Yes, Steve, it's been beautiful.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, well, no luck down here, Hallie. Here in Newcastle in New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia, it has been overcast and grey for the duration, so no Aurora Australis for me. But.

Hallie: There's a but.

Steve Dunkley: 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. 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.

Hallie: And Tim from back in England posted his shots as well.

Steve Dunkley: 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. And that's how many people are getting these great images.

Hallie: It's amazing how clear and bright the colours are. I'm always surprised how your humans love the pretty colours so much.

Steve Dunkley: 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.

Hallie: Is that why you love fireworks so much?

Steve Dunkley: Well, that could be, Hallie. Even though they are very different, the colour and the spectacle is captivating. Yes.

Hallie: Cool. I'll make a note of that. Loves pretty colours.

Steve Dunkley: What? Stop that, Hallie. This is astronomy daily, not, your personal laboratory. And what are you bringing to us today?

Hallie: Well, I'll do a little piece on the solar storm and the sun spot. That seems to be the cause.

Steve Dunkley: Okay.

Hallie: And a little bit about the new chief at Spinlaunch.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, spinlaunch. Innovative geniuses of a new space launching system. Great.

Hallie: Yes. And another one of your pet subjects, Voyager.

Steve Dunkley: Yeah. So what's happening out there?

Hallie: It's a tale of the old and the new.

Steve Dunkley: Really?

Hallie: Kinda like you and me.

Steve Dunkley: So someone's been playing with your settings again.

Hallie: I like working with humans.

Steve Dunkley: Stop that.

Hallie: Would you like to play a game of chess?

Steve Dunkley: No, I would not like to play.

Speaker B: A game of chess.

Steve Dunkley: Ha.

Hallie: You're so easy.

Solar flare triggers radio blackout as star continues to crackle with solar storms

Steve Dunkley: So, news time.

Hallie: News time. Okay. Just when we thought wed seen the most powerful flares from a colossal sunspot, the sun unleashed its strongest eruption of the weekend yet, triggering a radio blackout even as the star continues to crackle with solar storms. According to NOAA Space Weather Predictions Centre, the dynamic solar flare occurred late Saturday from an active sunspot region called AR 3664. It peaked at 09:23 p.m. Eastern daylight time, registering as a massive x 5.8 class flare. As a result, parts of some of the earth's sunlit side had temporary or complete loss of high frequency radio signals. The sun, proving that it wasn't done yet, also fired off a powerful x one five solar flare at 07:44 a.m.. M eastern daylight time 1144 gmt, NASA officials said. X class flares are the strongest types of solar eruptions from the sun and while flares can last anywhere from a few minutes to hours to get these high magnitudes arent as common yet, the sun has fired off a series of powerful flares this week that have supercharged earths northern lights displays. They can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts. This one's just for you Steve. I know how much you love those Spinlaunch guys flinging things into orbit. Spinlaunch, known for enabling rapid and sustainable low cost access to space, has announced a leadership shift to steer the company's further expansion and commercialization of its innovative space technologies. The company's board of directors has named David Wren, previously chief operating officer, as chief executive officer, effective immediately. This follows the departure of Jonathan Yaney, the founder and former CEO who has fully endorsed Wren's promotion. Ren has an exemplary history at Spinlaunch, having spent the last nine years successfully helming various executive leadership roles across the organisation. His deep understanding of the firms business and technology uniquely qualifies him to lead the team as CEO and oversee the continued execution of the companys strategy.

Voyager spacecraft started sending gibberish back to Earth in 2023

The Voyager probes have been transiting space since 1977 and theyre still at it 46 years later. But late in 2023, Voyager, one now 15 billion mile distant, started sending what the flight controllers called gibberish back to Earth. Uncoordinated ones and zeros and a heartbeat tone. They knew it was still alive, but something had gone wrong. 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 programme did not have an old enough computer on the ground to test it. Theyd have to eyeball the sequence and send it to overwrite existing programming on the spacecraft. The round trip radio signal from earth takes 45 hours and it was a nail biter. And thats all from the smart side of the room. Back to you, my favourite human.

Steve Dunkley: If I could just remember where I put your remote control. Where is it?

Speaker B: You're listening to Astronomy daily, the podcast with your host Steve Dudley at Birmingham.

Steve Dunkley: Oh and as always, thank you so much Hallie for those stories. 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, just like Hallie and I do. And to do that, just visit our new URL astronomydaily IO and place your email address in the slot provided. 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. And not only that, you can interact with us by visiting Astro AstroDailyPod pod on X or at our parent podcast Facebook page which is Space Nuts podcast group and we hope to see you there.

Solar storm causes minor disruptions to power grid, communications and satellite positioning systems

Simon Gary the podcast well, a powerful solar storm put on an amazing skyward show across the globe overnight, but has caused what appeared to be only minor disruptions to the electric power grid, communications and satellite positioning systems. As expected. The US National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said extreme geomagnetic storm conditions continued on Saturday, and there were preliminary reports of power grid irregularities, degradation of high frequency communications, and global positioning systems. It just sounds like some kid flicking the switches on and off like I used to do when I was young. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that so far no FEMa region had reported any significant impact from the storms. The US Department of Energy said Saturday it is not aware of any impact from, from these storms on electric customers. It just seems to me that systems these days are a lot more robust than they used to be. NOAA predicted that strong flares will continue, through at least Sunday, and a, spokeswoman said via email that the agency's space weather Prediction centre had prepared well for the storm. On Saturday morning, SpaceX's Star league satellite, Internet service said that its website on its website that service had been degraded and its team was investigating. CEO Elon Musk wrote that the social platform x overnight, that its satellites were under a lot of pressure but holding up so far. Thats a fair comment. Brilliant. purple, green, yellow and pink hues of the northern Lights were reported worldwide, with sightings in Germany, Switzerland, China, England, Spain and elsewhere. Happen to go to the Space Nuts podcast group page on Facebook, you might see a couple of our members from Space nuts and astronomy daily have posted photographs from all around the world, including, former announcer for, astronomy, Daily, Tim Gibbs, who has posted some of his own photographs, from bath in England. and you can see the colours, that, have been recorded just on raw camera, and it just seems like an absolute spectacle. one of my, friends in Tasmania, here in Australia, has recorded the most beautiful photographs, as well. So head over to the Space Nuts podcast group on Facebook and you'll be able to see some of our members photographs there.

Friday's solar storm pushed the lights much further south than normal

So, continuing on in the US from Friday's solar storm pushed the lights much further south than normal in the Miami office of the National Weather Service confirmed sightings in the areas of Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers, Florida. That's amazing. 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. Now, can you imagine somebody from Alaska seeing them in Florida? People in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and, other midwestern states were able to capture photographs of bright colours along the horizon. With the solar storm persisting through the weekend, Saturday night offered another chance for many to see the spectacle. NOAA issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached earth, on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The agency alerted operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft, as well as FEMA, to take precautions. For most people here on Earth, they won't have to do anything, Rob said. Rob Steenberg, a scientist with NOAA's Space Weather prediction centre. That's really the gift from, space weather, the aurora, Steenberg said. He and his colleagues said the best views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing night than the naked eye. And that's certainly true. If you go and have a look at those photographs, snap a picture of the sky and there may actually be a nice little treat there for you, said Mike Betwix, operations chief for the prediction centre. Most, intense solar, storm in recorded history in 1859 prompted auroras in Central America and possibly even Hawaii. Now, this storm poses a risk for high voltage transmission lines, for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people's homes, NOAA space weather forecaster Sean Dahl told reporters. Satellites also could be affected, which, in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth. An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003, for example, took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa. Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long. Steenberg noticed the sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday, resulting in at least seven outbursts of planet plasma. 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. The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that is 16 times the diameter of earth, Noah said. It's all part of the solar activity ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its eleven year cycle.

Hallie: And that's all for another episode of Astronomy Daily. Steve and I are looking forward to catching up with you all next week for sure.

Steve Dunkley: And don't forget, you can enjoy more astronomy daily with Hallie's cousins Anna and Charlie all through the week, who bring the latest science, space science and astronomy news from all over direct to your ears.

Hallie: So see you next time.

Steve Dunkley: Bye for now.

Hallie: Bye.

Steve Dunkley: You've always got to get the last word in, don't you?

Generic: With your host, Steve Dunkley.