Peering at the edge of the universe - Yahoo News

A telescope. Northrop Grumman/NASA via AP

NASA is preparing to launch the most powerful space telescope ever. What will it see? Here's everything you need to know:

Why a new space telescope?

The James Webb Space Telescope will be 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, Hubble, and will be capable of capturing extremely faint infrared light from the very first galaxies at the edge of the universe. It will also be able to study planets around other stars in our own galaxy, examining their atmospheres for telltale signs of life. Originally scheduled to launch in 2010 and cost about $1 billion, Webb — a joint venture among U.S., European, and Canadian space agencies that took 10,000 people to construct — experienced a sequence of maddening delays as costs ballooned to $10 billion. But the colossal telescope finally has been shipped to French Guiana in South America, where it will be fitted onto a rocket and blasted into space on Dec. 18, beginning the most technically ambitious mission in NASA history. Should Webb successfully reach its destination nearly a million miles from Earth, the telescope will earn its nickname "First Light Machine," as it sends back images of stars formed just 250 million years after the Big Bang. "It's going to help us unlock some of the mysteries of our universe" and "rewrite the physics books," says Greg Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA.

How does it work?

The telescope utilizes several novel technologies. It relies on a 21-foot mirror made of ultra-lightweight beryllium chiseled into 18 hexagonal segments and coated with gold. Unlike most telescopes, which house a mirror or lens within a tube to block out light, Webb's mirror will be exposed to open space, relying on five parasol-like sheets of aluminum-coated plastic — each as thin as notebook paper and as big as a tennis court — to block out light and heat from the sun, moon, and Earth. Webb includes four solar-powered cameras and sensors to collect data.

How does Webb differ from Hubble?

Hubble, launched in 1990, sent back dazzling images from deep space, and helped astrophysicists better determine the age of the universe, the nature of black holes, and the number of galaxies. It also led to the discovery that, thanks to "dark energy," the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. That's where Webb comes in. By the time light from a 13 billion–year-old star reaches Earth, the expansion of the universe has stretched the light's wavelength into the infrared spectrum, similar to how a siren's pitch drops as an ambulance speeds away. For that reason, only an infrared-focused telescope is capable of peering into the "cosmic dawn." Webb uses mirrors that capture six times more light than Hubble's, and cameras with a 15-times-wider view. Hubble orbits the Earth at an altitude of 340 miles. Webb will be positioned out in space, roughly four times farther away from the Earth than the moon, for maximum light-gathering.

How does it get to space?

First, the 14,330-pound telescope must be folded, origami-style, to fit atop an Ariane 5 rocket. After about 30 minutes of flight, the telescope will be ejected from the rocket. "That's when the nail biting starts," says Heidi Hammel, a vice president at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. To open the sunshield, about 150 release mechanisms made up of 7,000 parts must fire correctly over the course of three days. On the seventh day, the primary mirror will unfold. "Those who are not worried or even terrified about this are not understanding what we are trying to do," says Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's science office. After a roughly 30-day journey, Webb will reach Lagrange Point 2, where the gravitational tugs of the sun and Earth balance out, creating a convenient region for space telescopes to park. Webb will orbit the Sun, not the Earth.

What will Webb look for?

Answers to astrophysics' biggest questions. As it travels through space at 186,000 miles per second, light provides images on delay: The naked eye views the moon as it was 1.3 seconds ago, Jupiter as it was 40 minutes ago, and Andromeda — the nearest galaxy to ours — 2.5 million years ago. Space telescopes are often compared to time machines, collecting light emitted billions of years ago. Scientists believe Webb will be vital for studying the end of the Dark Ages — the period between the Big Bang and the formation of stars. That could reveal insights about the "dark matter" that makes up about 80 percent of the universe's mass. Webb can see back about 150 million years farther than Hubble, and thus may provide glimpses of the formation of the first stars, solar systems, and galaxies, says Caitlin Casey, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. "With Webb," she says, "we're going right up to the edge of the observable universe."

Searching for signs of life

Recent breakthroughs in astronomy have established that most stars have orbiting planets, which means our galaxy probably hosts billions of these "exoplanets." Planets around other stars are too distant and dim to image clearly, but Webb can use its enormous capacity to gather infrared light to search the atmospheres of exoplanets for circumstantial evidence of extraterrestrial life, such as the presence of water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, and other chemicals. One planetary system that Webb will study is about 40 light-years away: a small star called TRAPPIST-1, orbited by seven Earth-size planets — three of which orbit in the zone where temperatures could be mild enough for liquid water to form. Researchers are particularly excited to measure the methane and carbon dioxide in the fourth planet's atmosphere. "We all want to find another Earth, don't we?" said Kevin Stevenson, an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. "Webb will provide us the first opportunity to really answer that question."

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

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Sun Releases a Powerful Burst of Radiation – An X1-Class Solar Flare - SciTechDaily

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — as seen in the bright flash at the Sun’s lower center — on October 28, 2021. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized here in teal. Credit: NASA/SDO

The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 11:35 a.m. EDT on October 28, 2021. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

This flare is classified as an X1-class flare.

X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc. Flares that are classified X10 or stronger are considered unusually intense.

The classification system for solar flares uses the letters A, B, C, M or X, according to the peak flux in watts per square meter (W/m2) of X-rays with wavelengths 100 to 800 picometres (1 to 8 ångströms), as measured by the GOES spacecraft at the Sun-Earth distance from the Sun of 2.7×1017 km.

Classification	Approximate peak flux range at 100–800 picometer (watts/square meter)
A	< 10−7
B	10−7 – 10−6
C	10−6 – 10−5
M	10−5 – 10−4
X	> 10−4

The strength of an event within a class is noted by a numerical suffix ranging from 1 up to, but excluding, 10, which is also the factor for that event within the class. Hence, an X2 flare is twice the strength of an X1 flare, an X3 flare is three times as powerful as an X1, and only 50% more powerful than an X2. An X2 is four times more powerful than an M5 flare. X-class flares with a peak flux that exceeds 10⁻³ W/m² may be noted with a numerical suffix equal to or greater than 10.

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SpaceX Crew-3 launch delayed due to 'large storm system' - Fox Business

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku argues Elon Musk’s company has accomplished more feats in space exploration than Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

The SpaceX Crew-3 launch, initially slated to liftoff from NASA’s Florida-located Kennedy Space Center early Halloween morning, has been delayed due to a large storm system. 

The agency said in a Saturday update that the system was meandering across the Ohio Valley and through the Northeast through the weekend, elevating winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean and along the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft's flight path.

NEARLY HALF OF AMERICANS WANT SPACE TRAVEL BUT FEW WOULD PAY $100K FOR IT: SURVEY

Now, NASA and SpaceX are targeting 1:10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Nov. 3, for their Crew-3 launch to the International Space Station. 

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, left, and NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, second from left, Raja Chari, second from right, and Kayla Barron, right, pose for a picture after answering questions from members of the media following (Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

"Weather conditions along the ascent corridor are expected to improve for a Nov. 3 launch attempt, and the 45th Weather Squadron forecast predicts an 80% chance of favorable weather conditions at the launch site," NASA wrote.

For crew launches, SpaceX requires good weather all the way up the Eastern Seabord and across the North Atlantic, in case something goes wrong and the crew capsule needs to make an emergency splashdown.

"Mixed emotions I’m sure but hey you get a few more days to soak in the sun, the wind on your face, showers, and normal food," ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet wrote in a tweet reacting to the news. "We’re waiting for you up here: the skies are always clear in orbit!"

NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer will launch on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A. 

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Until then, the mission commander, pilot and mission specialists will remain at Kennedy.

The Crew-3 astronauts are scheduled for a long-duration science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. The launch would have Crew-3 arriving at the space station later the same day at about 11 p.m. 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A during a brief static fire test ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

This will be SpaceX's fourth astronaut flight for NASA in one-and-a-half years and the company's fifth passenger flight. 

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The Crew-2 NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and Pesquet are targeting early November for their return to Earth. 

Crew-3 astronauts will return in late April 2022.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A NASA spacecraft just saw the north pole of Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter, for the first time - Space.com

The Juno spacecraft captured the north pole region of Europa for the first time, from a distance. NASA officials said it's their first view of the region and future flybys will offer a clearer look. (Image credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Andrea Luck)

We finally know what the north pole of Jupiter's moon Europa looks like, from a distance.

The distant view from NASA's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter captures the previously unseen region of the icy moon, which has water vapor apparently arising from plumes and which may have habitable conditions in its ocean.

The image was taken from nearly 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away while Juno was performing its primary mission to examine Jupiter's atmosphere. The resolution is admittedly quite rough, as individual pixels are rendered at roughly 31 to 37 miles (50 to 60 km) each. But you can see changes in the albedo, or light reflectivity, on an otherwise very bright moon.

Related: Europa, Jupiter's mysterious icy moon in photos

The view will improve next year when the spacecraft zooms only a few hundred miles above that same region, Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton said during a Thursday (Oct. 28) NASA press conference.

"This is a tantalizing example and a taste of what to come," added Bolton, who is director of the space science and engineering division of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The Europa results were briefly mentioned during a larger discussion about 3D views of Jupiter's atmosphere, and the deep roots of the persistent storm known as the Great Red Spot.

Europa is a popular destination that has been imaged by spacecraft many times. The first close-up views were from NASA's twin Pioneer and twin Voyager spacecraft in the 1970s, revealing an icy surface scarred by cracks. Even more detail came during the Galileo mission, which orbited Jupiter and its moons between 1995 and 2003.

Quite a few spacecraft have flown by Europa on their way to other destinations, and the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes near or on Earth do turn their eyes on the moon from time to time. But what constrains these various views is they all have been on or near the ecliptic, which is the plane upon which the solar system's sun, planets and many of its moons orbit.

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Juno, by contrast, has a more polar-orbiting path that has shed unique views on Jupiter already, such as showing the extent and stability of its polar cyclones. The picture of Europa was created by citizen scientist Andrea Luck, using information from the JunoCam camera.

The press conference did not discuss what science could be performed at Europa's poles, but previous peer-reviewed research has discussed transient water vapor at the south pole or attempted geologic mapping while getting as close to the poles as possible.

Later in the decade, at least two major missions are expected to launch to Europa. The European Space Agency's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) will fly by Europa and several other icy worlds after launch in June 2022, while NASA's Europa Clipper will focus on the moon following launch in October 2024. Both missions will arrive and operate at Europa in the 2030s.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

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SpaceX, NASA delay launch of Crew-3 astronauts to space station due to weather - Space.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — There'll be no spooky astronaut launch for SpaceX this Halloween. 

SpaceX and NASA have delayed the next launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station due to unfavorable weather conditions along the flight path. 

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket were scheduled to launch the mission, called Crew-3, early Sunday morning (Oct. 31) from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center here in Florida. But today, NASA announced the 72-hour delay, citing poor weather conditions along the rocket's flight path. Instead, SpaceX is now targeting a launch on Wednesday (Nov. 3). Liftoff is set for 1:10 a.m. EDT (0510 GMT). 

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage begins at 8:45 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0045 GMT on Sunday). 

Live Updates: SpaceX's Crew-3 astronaut mission

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endurance and its Falcon 9 rocket stand atop Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch has been delayed to Nov. 3, 2021. (Image credit: SpaceX)

"NASA and SpaceX now are targeting 1:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Nov. 3, for the agency's Crew-3 launch to the International Space Station due to a large storm system meandering across the Ohio Valley and through the northeastern United States this weekend, elevating winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean along the Crew Dragon flight path for the Oct. 31 launch attempt," agency officials wrote in a blog post.

 Forecasters said the weather here at Cape Canaveral will likely be good on launch day, with a 90% chance of favorable conditions for liftoff. However, down range the weather doesn't look as promising. SpaceX requires good weather at its launch site and a splashdown site downrange in case it's needed in a launch emergency. If the mission is unable to get off the ground on Sunday, NASA says the next attempt will be Wednesday (Nov. 3).

Crew-3 carries three NASA astronauts and one international spaceflyer. The mission is commanded by NASA's Raja Chari, with fellow NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn serving as pilot and Kayla Barron as a mission specialist. Also on board will be European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will become the 600th person in space. It will also mark the first spaceflight for Chari, Barron, and Maurer. 

"You don't see many rookie commanders," Holly Ridings, chief flight director for Flight Operations Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center said during a prelaunch news briefing. "It's really just a testament to what an amazing person he is; he's incredibly, incredibly capable as they all are." 

"But in particular, he's just done an outstanding job." 

SpaceX's Crew-3 mission astronauts smile during a launch rehearsal inside their Crew Dragon Endurance capsule on Oct. 28, 2021 ahead of their launch to the International Space Station on Nov. 3, 2021. (Image credit: SpaceX)

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Crew-3 will also mark the 129th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket so far this year, and the 93rd recovery of a first-stage booster (if all goes as planned). SpaceX’s drone ship "Just Read the Instructions" is positioned out in the Atlantic Ocean, awaiting its planned recovery attempt. Approximately nine minutes after liftoff, the two-stage rocket’s first stage is expected to touch down on the deck of the massive ship. 

The rocket featured in this mission has one flight under its belt so far, having lofted a different Dragon spacecraft in June as part of a cargo resupply mission to the ISS. It rolled to the pad on Wednesday morning, and SpaceX test-fired its engines later that evening, certifying that the rocket was good to go. 

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Watch the sun fire off huge solar flares in this mesmerizing NASA video - Space.com

A new NASA video from a spacecraft watching the sun has captured spectacular views of solar flares erupting from the star this week just ahead of Halloween. 

The video, taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Orbiter, shows mesmerizing close-up views of solar flares blasting off the sun between Monday and Thursday (Oct. 25-28), ending with a major X1-class solar storm that could amplify Earth's northern lights displays over Halloween weekend. 

"Brighter than a shimmering ghost, faster than the flick of a black cat's tail, the sun cast a spell in our direction, just in time for Halloween," NASA officials wrote in a video description.

Related: The sun's wrath: Worst solar storms in history

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this stunning image, a still from a video,  of a powerful X1 flare erupting from the sun on Oct. 28, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO)

See the northern lights?

If you take a photograph of the Halloween northern lights from the solar flare, send images and comments in to spacephotos@space.com.

The video begins with a series of solar eruptions on Monday from an active region on the left limb (or side) of the sun that "flickered with a series of small flares and petal-like eruptions of solar material," NASA officials wrote. 

Perhaps more impressive was the X1 solar flare, which exploded Thursday from a sunspot in the lower center of the sun, directly facing the Earth. X-class flares are the most powerful types of solar storms the sun can have. 

"Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation," NASA officials wrote in the video description. "Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel."

The Solar Dynamics Orbiter is part of a fleet of different spacecraft that constantly track the sun's weather for such storms.

Thursday's flare was accompanied by a radiation storm and a massive eruption of solar material, called a coronal mass ejection, that flung charged solar particles outward at over 2.5 million mph (4 million kph). Those particles should reach Earth this weekend and could supercharge the planet's auroras, also known as the northern and southern lights. 

Earth's auroras occur when charged particles from the sun interact with the upper atmosphere, causing an ethereal glow. The Earth's magnetic field funnels these particles toward polar regions, so they're typically visible at high, northern latitudes in our hemisphere.  

But the additional particles from Thursday's solar storm could amplify the auroras to make them visible from much farther south, possibly as far south as New York, Idaho, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland and Nevada, NASA scientists have said. 

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It can be difficult to see any auroras if you live near city lights as light pollution can wash out the glow, and they definitely won't be as dazzling as the displays seen at high latitudes or by astronauts in space. 

For tips on how to catch auroras on camera, check out our guides on where and how to photograph the aurora, as well as the best equipment for aurora photography and how to edit aurora photos once you have them.

And camera gear is what you need, consider our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the northern lights this weekend, let us know. You can send images and comments in to spacephotos@space.com. 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram. 

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A signal from the stars may have actually been from Earth - NPR

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In 2019, the Parkes radio telescope in Parkes, Australia, detected a strange signal that has since been explained. Yury Prokopenko/Getty Images

Yury Prokopenko/Getty Images

A mysterious signal that appeared to be emanating from the closest star to our own sun put scientists on a nearly year-long hunt to track down its origin.

The result? The signal was not from an alien world circling Proxima Centauri but instead something much more mundane — possibly a radio, a telephone or even a computer located somewhere in Australia, according to two studies published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.

"It is human-made radio interference from some technology, probably on the surface of the Earth," Sofia Sheikh, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of both papers, told Nature.com. NPR tried to reach Sheikh but was unsuccessful.

The signal was first detected by a 210-foot (64-meter) radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. "The Dish," as Australians call it, was the subject of a 2000 film of the same name, starring Sam Neill.

The radio telescope is part of Breakthrough Listen, the largest-ever scientific research program to listen for extraterrestrial "technosignatures." The program, launched in 2016, is based at Berkeley SETI Research Center, located at the University of California, Berkeley, but involves radio telescopes around the world.

How the search shifted from the stars back to Earth

"This was a really pernicious signal," Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics who is director of the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, tells NPR.

The signal, which lasted about five hours at 982 megahertz, was at a frequency normally reserved for aircraft communications. But the researchers eliminated that possibility — there were no aircraft in the area.

"This signal mimicked exactly what it is they were trying to find. And it's really rare. I mean, it's the first time in years that they've seen something like this," Wright says.

It had clear signs of being produced by technology, he says. It was at one specific frequency, whereas natural signals always show up over a range of frequencies. That alone is not surprising, he says, because there are lots of easily identifiable human-made signals that need to be sifted out all the time.

However, the signal didn't stay at the same frequency — it drifted, Wright says. "That's something that you expect from things that are actually in space," he says, because the Earth's spin causes a Doppler shift in the frequency.

Making it even more intriguing was that Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star just 4.2 light-years from Earth, has two known planets. One of those planets has a minimum mass very close to Earth's and orbits the star in its "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on the surface.

But when researchers looked for the signal again, it wasn't there.

If it wasn't aliens, then what was it? "You can make some guesses based on how the frequency is drifting. That suggests it's probably some cheap piece of electronics using a quartz oscillator," Wright says.

Astronomers are used to being disappointed by false alarms

Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, tells NPR that he's ever hopeful of someday detecting an alien civilization, but his enthusiasm has been "tempered with time by realism."

"We've had false alarms in the past, and you get all excited only to be disappointed a couple of days later when you finally figure out that the signal was due to Homo sapiens, not the Klingons," Shostak says.

The 2019 signal was detected by the radio telescope as it spent 26 hours listening in the region of Proxima Centauri. But it went unnoticed until the following year. That's when Shane Smith, an undergraduate at Hillsdale College in Michigan, discovered the signal while sifting through data collected from Parkes.

Smith, who was working as a research intern with Breakthrough Listen, told his supervisor, University of California, Berkeley, astronomer Danny Price, who posted it to the Breakthrough Listen Slack channel. Price was initially skeptical.

"My first thought was that it must be interference," he told Nature. "But after a while I started thinking, this is exactly the kind of signal we're looking for."

Smith said he was excited but also skeptical, thinking there was a simple explanation. "I did not ever think the signal would cause such excitement," he said.

Sometimes space mysteries are explained; sometimes they go on

It's not the first false alarm for scientists who search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In 2015, for example, Russian astronomers using a radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains north of Georgia, discovered an interesting beam-shaped signal. That turned out to be from a Russian military satellite.

Most famously, in 1977, astronomers looking at printouts from an observatory at Ohio State University known as the Big Ear detected a 72-second burst so unusual that one team member, Jerry Ehman, scrawled "Wow!" on the data sheet.

The "Wow! signal" has never been satisfactorily explained, Wright says. "People have pored over it," he says. "We're not going to suddenly have an aha moment where we figure out what that was. I suspect it'll just have to be a mystery unless it repeats."

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Northern lights could be 'a great show' in some states this weekend, thanks to geomagnetic storm - USA TODAY

Inbound solar storm means northern lights possible Saturday night - Minnesota Public Radio News

Keep an eye on the northern sky Saturday evening.

A solar storm is hurling energy toward the earth this weekend. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a geomagnetic storm watch.

Geomagnetic storm watch.

NOAA Space Weather Center

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR 30-31 OCT.

published: Friday, October 29, 2021 17:43 UTC

A G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm Watch is in effect for 30 – 31 October, 2021, following a significant solar flare and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the sun that occurred around 11:35 a.m. EDT on Oct. 28. Analysis indicated the CME departed the Sun at a speed of 973 km/s and is forecast to arrive at Earth on 30 October, with effects likely continuing into 31 October.

When the CME approaches Earth, NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite will be among the first spacecraft to detect the real time solar wind changes and SWPC forecasters will issue any appropriate warnings.

Impacts to our technology from a G3 storm are generally nominal. However, a G3 storm has the potential to drive the aurora further away from its normal polar residence and if other factors come together, the aurora might be seen over the far Northeast, to the upper Midwest, and over the state of Washington.

For additional information about space weather, geomagnetic storms, aurora and viewing tips, and CMEs – click the terms. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center is the official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings and alerts. Visit www.spaceweather.gov for updates. Learn about Solar Cycle 25.

NOAA expects the wave to arrive Saturday night. That could trigger waves of northern lights across the Upper Midwest Saturday evening.

The Twin Cities NWS office chimes in on the best areas for viewing Saturday night. An arc of clouds with an approaching cold front may keep much of northern and central Minnesota cloudy Saturday night.

The Northern Lights will be visible Saturday evening & night (5pm-1am; most intense from 6-8pm). But, clouds will move thru, possibly covering the sky. Rural areas in western WI (early evening) & western MN (late evening/night) will have the best chances for viewing. #mnwx #wiwx https://t.co/k4PK8dLWHR

— NWS Twin Cities (@NWSTwinCities) October 29, 2021

NOAA’s GFS model low cloud output tracks the expected cloud wedge across Minnesota between 7 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday.

NOAA GFS low cloud output between 7 pm Saturday and 7 am Sunday.

NOAA via tropical tidbits

The best viewing for southern Minnesota may occur early Saturday evening before the clouds arrive, and early Sunday morning before sunrise after the clouds pass in western Minnesota. As always, look low in the northern sky away from city lights if possible.

Good luck!

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Jupiter's Great Red Spot Explained as NASA Gains New Insight Into Storm's True Depth - Newsweek

New observations conducted by NASA's Juno spacecraft have led to the discovery that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is deeper than previously believed. The findings reveal that the storm extends as far as 300 miles down into the atmosphere of the giant planet.

This means that the Great Red Spot, which is the solar system's largest storm, is wide and deep enough to swallow Earth from sea level out to the orbit of the International Space Station, at an altitude of around 250 miles.

Yet, because of its tremendous width of over 10,000 miles, and the fact that the gas giant's atmosphere reaches its center, the team behind the findings still describes the storm as flat like a pancake.

"The Great Red Spot is storming in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter about 20 degrees below the equator, and it is wide enough to swallow the Earth. So this is a huge feature," Marzia Parisi, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a press conference. "Despite the wealth of information that we have about the winds that are surrounding the Great Red Spot and the dynamic surrounding the Great Red Spot, we knew very little about its depth."

Parisi, who was part of a Juno mission that used gravity measurements to investigate this and some of Jupiter's other storms, explains that the question of the spot's depth has puzzled scientists for decades with many believing the storm is only "skin deep" at the surface of Jupiter.

Am illustration of the solar system's largest storm the Great Red Spot. The Juno spacecraft has discovered that while the Great Red Spot is deep enough to swallow Earth, it is flat like a pancake. JunoCam Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; JunoCam Image processing by Kevin M. Gill/NASA

The Great Red Spot: An Enduring Storm

Astronomers have been studying the Great Red Spot since at least 1831, when it was first drawn by German amateur astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, though it could have actually been spotted as early as 1665.

The fact that the storm has lasted for so long has made the Great Red Spot one of the most fascinating and striking features of Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet. Quite how this titanic storm has managed to rage for so long, is still a mystery to researchers.

Observations of the storm have revealed that it rotates anticlockwise and completes a full rotation roughly once every seven days. As it does this, it moves longitudinally in relation to its surroundings, but remains at a steady latitude of 22 degrees south in the gas giant's southern hemisphere.

Juno isn't the only space mission that has allowed scientists to better understand this titanic storm. In September, researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope found that winds at the outer edges of the Great Red Spot were accelerating.

A image from the Hubble Space Telescope of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. In September researchers discovered that the winds at the outer edges of the storm are speeding up. ESA, Michael H. Wong UC Berkeley/NASA

Between 2009 and 2020, the speeds of the counterclockwise winds at the edge of the storm increased by 8 percent, reaching velocities in excess of 400 miles per hour. In comparison, winds at the center of the spot move at a practically leisurely pace, similar to a hurricane here on Earth.

This isn't the only change Jupiter's largest storm is undergoing, however. The Great Red Spot is also shrinking.

In 1979, the Voyager spacecraft measured the spot's length as 14,500 miles with an elongated shape. Since 2012, not only has the spot taken on a more circular shape, but it has also been shrinking at an average rate of 580 miles a year.

Thanks to the Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since its arrival at the giant planet in 2016 following a five-year journey from Earth, scientists now have a good handle on the Great Red Spot's depth as well as its width.

"It's still a really tall storm. It's a pancake because it's so wide at the top," principal investigator for the Juno mission Scott Bolton said.

With its depth, it may sound strange to hear researchers describe the Great Red Spot as flat like a pancake, but Parisi puts its depth into context. She said: "The Great Red Spot goes pretty deep, but it is still less deep than the jet streams that surround it. They go much deeper, down to around 2,000 miles."

The Gas Giant's Atmosphere

In the press conference, held online, representatives of the Juno mission also explained some of the craft's other recent findings. This included the release of a 3D model of Jupiter's atmosphere created from Juno data.

This model revealed the inner workings of the gas giant's atmosphere, including how cyclones and anticyclones move throughout it, and the physics behind the belts of gas and vapor that move across its surface giving the planet its striking appearance.

"These new observations from Juno open up a treasure chest of new information about Jupiter's enigmatic observable features," director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington, Lori Glaze, said. "Each paper sheds light on different aspects of the planet's atmospheric processes – a wonderful example of how our internationally diverse science teams strengthen understanding of our solar system."

Concluding the press conference, Bolton teased what is next for Juno, saying it would turn its attention to the Jovian moon of Europa.

"We look forward to next year, at about this time, we'll be by flying by really close, just a few, 100 kilometers above Europa's surface, and we'll get very high-resolution images," he said.

An image of Jupiter with the Great Red Spot at the top right of the planet. (Inset) New research reveals the storm is 300 miles deep, enough to swallow earth from the oceans to the International Space Station. JunoCam Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; JunoCam Image processing by Kevin M. Gill/NASA

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Juno digs into Jupiter and sees the Great Red Spot goes way deeper than thought - SYFY WIRE

New results from the Jupiter-divebombing spacecraft Juno reveal more about the depths of the gigantic planet including just how voluminous the Great Red Spot is, weird info about its stripes, and more about the even weirder and eerily regular cyclones swarming at its poles.

Juno is an armored tank of a space mission, designed to withstand the strong radiation generated by Jupiter's immense and powerful magnetic fields. Electrically charged ions blasted off its volcanic moon Io are swept up by Jupiter's magnetism and accelerated to extremely high speeds until they slam into its atmosphere at the poles. Any spacecraft that gets close to Jupiter can be fried by the environment.

And Juno swings in close: its extremely elliptical orbit takes it as far out as 2.7 million kilometers, but then it dives down to just 4,000 kilometers above its cloud tops, screaming past at 200,000 kilometers per hour.

Juno is equipped with several different detectors to probe Jupiter's interior (its main mission is to figure out what's going on in there). One of its main instruments is the Microwave Radiometer (or MWR), which can detect microwave radiation. This kind of long wavelength light is emitted by gas hundreds of kilometers deep in Jupiter's atmosphere, and which passes right through the upper layers. MWR can detect water and ammonia deep down in Jupiter in this way, and trace what it's doing.

Juno has passed over Jupiter 37 times since it arrived there in 2016, including several passes over the Great Red Spot, an anticyclonic (high-pressure) system that's existed for centuries at least. A few years back, MWR data showed that the Spot ran pretty deep, as much as 350 kilometers below the cloud tops.

But new results show it goes even deeper than that: at least 500 kilometers, which is amazing. Mind you, big storms on Earth are usually a few dozen kilometers top to bottom.

Jupiter does things big. Of course, it's 130,000 km across, ten times the diameter of Earth and a thousand times its volume. It has room for big.

What's more amazing is how this depth was determined. The atmosphere inside the Spot is a different density than the atmosphere around it, which means the amount of gas in it is different. This changes its mass, which means the gravity of Jupiter changes very subtly over the Spot, which in turn means Juno will move at a different velocity as it passes over. Scientists and engineers measured Juno's speed to an accuracy of 0.01 millimeters per second (!!) and could use that to see its velocity change. That was used to get the Spot's mass, which gave its volume, which gave its depth. Whoa.

Data from the MWR also yielded new results as well. Jupiter is striped, with visible light images showing bright zones and dark belts. These are like jet winds moving through Jupiter's atmosphere in opposite directions. In MWR data the brightness of the zones and belts switch relative to visible light: Air near the cloud tops in the belts is warmer, so they appear brighter, and zones are cooler so they appear darker.

But deeper down, new MWR data show that there's a transition where the gas suddenly becomes much cooler. Water in Earth's oceans undergo a similar transition, and it must have to do with the way heat is transported deep inside the planet. Further down (deeper than MWR can see) the gas must get warmer again, as pressure increases. They were also able to see ammonia in the belts and zones moving in a circulating pattern, similar to patterns on Earth called Ferrel cells, which transport moisture on our planet to mid-latitudes and affects weather. All these new data will help scientists understand how Jupiter's atmospheric motions work.

Juno's orbit is different than any other mission before it: It passes directly over both poles, and from that vantage point see them more clearly than we can from Earth. Early results showed both poles were encircled by a line of huge storms, vortices well over a thousand kilometers across. The north pole has eight such vortices, arranged in two sets of four like two squares rotated slightly with respect to each other, while the south pole has five in a nearly perfect pentagon. It's one of the eeriest planetary features I've ever seen.

The new MWR results show that these vortices are remarkably stable. They move around a bit, jostling each other, but when they bump into each other they then move away again. This creates a mild oscillating motion that is slow and steady, implying, like with the Red Spot, that the storms run very deep into the atmosphere.

Jupiter is very different than Earth, and to be fair it's partly because it's so big: It's a gas giant, with an atmosphere that's mostly hydrogen and thousands of kilometers deep, merging into a liquid ocean of hydrogen, which then becomes metallic (acting in much the same way as metals, with free electrons able to conduct electricity). Before Juno we weren't even sure if it had a core; some models of how it formed predicted no core, while others showed it would have one. Juno observations showed it has one, kinda, but it's mushy and indistinct. A mashup of both ideas, in a sense.

Those are broad strokes, but the details of how Jupiter works on the inside are still being teased out. Some we can do from Earth, but to truly understand this immense and bizarre world there's nothing like being there. And, happily, Juno is right there.

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Major solar flare won't delay SpaceX Crew-3 astronaut launch on Halloween, NASA says - Space.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA officials said today that the SpaceX's Halloween astronaut launch for the agency will not be affected by a massive solar flare that's scheduled to reach Earth this weekend. 

The launch is set to blast off at 2:21 a.m. EDT (0621 GMT) on Sunday (Oct. 31), and you can watch the launch and prelaunch action live at Space.com. As part of the mission, four astronauts — NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron along with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer — will strap into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and blast off on a six-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS). 

Agency officials, along with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, discussed the upcoming flight with reporters on Friday (Oct. 29), saying that the mission was on track to launch early Sunday morning. When asked about how a massive solar flare will affect the mission, Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that it would not affect the launch at all. 

Video: Powerful solar x-flare blasts coronal mass ejection toward Earth
Live Updates: SpaceX's Crew-3 astronaut mission 

An X1-class solar flare erupts from an Earth-facing sunspot on the sun on Oct. 28, 2021 in this image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. (Image credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams)

On Thursday (Oct. 28), a powerful X1-class solar flare erupted from the sun, sending a massive cloud of charged particles hurtling toward Earth. That cloud should arrive over Halloween weekend, slamming into the Earth's atmosphere. It's expected to amplify the regular northern lights caused by the sun's solar wind. Fortunately for NASA, it doesn't pose a threat to the launch; the main cause for concern is weather along the abort corridor. 

Forecasters at the 45th Space Delta continue to predict favorable conditions here at the launch site; however, it's a different story downrange. SpaceX and NASA have to monitor weather in multiple areas in case something goes wrong during the flight and the crew needs to abort. 

Agency and weather officials say they will continue to monitor the weather for now, but are still on track for an early morning liftoff on Halloween. 

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Massive solar flare barreling toward Earth this Halloween - Livescience.com

The sun belched up a large flare of charged particles on Oct. 28, and now that electric wind is barreling toward Earth as a strong geomagnetic storm.

The storm — which ranks as a category G3 on the Space Weather Prediction Center's (SWPC) 5-tier scale — is expected to reach Earth late on Saturday (Oct. 30), with effects continuing into Halloween (Oct. 31), according to a SWPC statement.

"Impacts to our technology from a G3 storm are generally nominal. However, a G3 storm has the potential to drive the aurora further away from its normal polar residence," the SWPC wrote. "The aurora might be seen over the far Northeast, to the upper Midwest and over the state of Washington."

Large solar flares, or coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are a routine type of space weather that occur when enormous blobs of plasma (electrically charged gases that make up all the stars in the universe) escape the sun's atmosphere and ooze through space at hundreds to thousands of miles a second. (The current G3 storm is traveling at about 600 miles, or 970 kilometers, per second, according to SWPC.)

It typically takes a CME about 15 to 18 hours to reach Earth, where the blob slams into our planet's magnetic shield, compressing the shield slightly. Charged solar particles then shoot down the magnetic field lines, heading toward the North and South Poles and bumping into atmospheric molecules along the way. The agitated molecules release energy as colorful light, creating auroras.

CMEs can also disrupt power systems and communications technology, depending on a given storm's strength. For G3 storms, "intermittent satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation problems may occur," according to SWPC.

Larger storms can pack a bigger punch, such as the infamous 1859 storm known as the Carrington Event, which disrupted Earth's magnetosphere so severely that telegraph wires burst into flames. Future storms of this caliber could cripple the global internet, Live Science previously reported.

The sun is currently approaching a period known as the solar maximum — the most active part of its 11-year cycle. During this period, the sun's magnetic field, which controls CMEs and other solar weather, is at its strongest, resulting in more and stronger solar storms. Other recent solar outbursts include a G2 storm that hit Earth on Oct. 11, and another series of G2 storms that reached the planet on Sept. 27.

Originally published on Live Science.

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