Remember the X8.7 solar flare on May 14, as sunspot region 3664 was rotating away from earth?
The #CME from that flare reached Mars on May 19. Mars rover Curiosity took some nighttime images of the Martian sky hoping to catch an #aurora.
#Mars lacks a global magnetic field, hence Martian aurorae are not concentrated at the poles, but instead appear as a “global diffuse aurora” associated with Mars’ ancient, magnetized crust.
Here are some images of Martian aurora taken by Mars orbiter #MAVEN.
"Under favorable solar wind conditions, discrete auroral events occur most evenings and may last for hours. MAVEN’s observations show that discrete auroras occur at an altitude of ~130 km in the atmosphere, where energetic charged particles cause CO, CO2+, N2, and atomic oxygen to glow."
The NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission has been studying Mars' atmosphere since Sept 21, 2014.
@ai6yr Hopefully the skies stay clear and I can see them in the Netherlands! Too cloudy where I was last night and couldnt see it unfortunately. Would have been an amazing view
It's not quite as active now, but the aurora was wild earlier. This was just a simple night lapse on my Hero11 - we could see colors and pillars with the naked eye, but the camera is next level
So far, no power outages (or at least, not any noticeable in US) due to the solar storm, per poweroutage.us (outages in Florida are due to wind/tornadic activity earlier). #SolarStorm#CME
Aurora from the Chicago suburbs. Need to color correct these, but was too excited. First time I've seen the aurora and it was over the entire sky! Incredible!!
Power systems: Widespread voltage control problems and protective system problems can occur, some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage.
Spacecraft operations: May experience extensive surface charging, problems with orientation, uplink/downlink and tracking satellites.
Other systems: Pipeline currents can reach hundreds of amps, HF (high frequency) radio propagation may be impossible in many areas for one to two days, satellite navigation may be degraded for days, low-frequency radio navigation can be out for hours, and aurora has been seen as low as Florida and southern Texas"
I think I’m going to plug my computer back in. I don’t see any signs of weird power dips or anything, and it’s annoying just using my phone. Hopefully we don’t get anything that the surge protectors won’t stop, and stay at “pretty lights in the sky tonight” rather than apocalyptic #CarringtonEvent
An hour ago, I wasn't hearing Romania on 720 kHz; instead I had Iran 😮
Now, I do have Romania back on 720, but it's missing from 711 kHz; instead I have... Iran :v
630 & 963 Tunisia remain outstanding, as are 558 & 1170 from Slovenia (but not 549!). But NO Egypt, even on 864!
Bulgaria wasn't really heard throughout the evening on 576, but now it's fairly good.
A mindblowing thing is SBA Holy Quran sticking out on 873 (10kW) but down in the noise on 882 (100kW!)