Space Age

• Longer nights during the fall and winter also favour seeing more auroras, but the show is best outside of light-polluted cities.
• Impressive auroral events allowed bright auroras to be seen as far south as the United States recently.
• The number of auroras is increasing as the sun’s activity becomes stronger, approaching a solar maximum.

Night visions

• The Earth, in the sun’s outer atmosphere, is surrounded by hot magnetic plasma which rushes past us at speeds of several hundred kilometres per second in a flow called the solar wind.
• Earth has a magnetic field, which protects us from the solar onslaught, but is pushed back by it as well.

• This explains why auroras are seen at night: not only is it dark, but the sun’s energy takes an indirect route by first being stored in the magnetotail.
• If the magnetic fields change rapidly, they can affect large regions of the Earth, building up to cause problems for power networks.

Solar cycles

• About 300 years later, American astronomer George Hale showed that sunspots had intense magnetic fields, several thousand times stronger than Earth’s.
• In the 400 years since Galileo’s observations, we have found that the number of sunspots varies dramatically over an 11-year long cycle.

Energy storage

• Magnetic fields store energy, and sometimes, as in Earth’s magnetotail or near sunspots, this energy can be changed to other forms.
• In the strong fields of sunspots, it can be released as X-rays in rapid, unpredictable flares.
• Sunspots and flares are near the surface or light-emitting layer of the sun, but material can escape from the sun’s strong gravity field.

Space weather forecasts

• However, in this, the following solar cycle, we have already exceeded predicted numbers of sunspots and had large magnetic storms, so predictions may need to be revised upward.
• Although direct measurement of incoming disturbances by satellites in the solar wind gives us only about an hour’s warning of stormy space weather, we can also predict a bit further in advance by watching sunspots rotate into view as the sun turns.

Rare storms

• The strongest flare of Solar Cycle 25 so far occurred on Dec. 14, and was the most powerful eruption the sun has produced since the great storms of September 2017.
• Large solar storms are rare, but we must calmly prepare for possible space weather impacts that should maximize in a few years.

Martin Gerard Connors receives funding from Canada's NSERC.

• 1930s – Making his debut in The Wise Little Hen in 1934, Disney Donald Duck quickly became a fan favorite.
• The 42mm standout style boasts a tone-on-tone navy blue dial with a navy-blue leather strap and contrast yellow stitching on a silver-tone stainless steel case.
• Another design by Jeff Shelly, CITIZEN's Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey watch features a 40mm gold-tone finished bezel with a matching stainless-steel bracelet and gold-tone crown.
• STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks and/or copyrights, in the United States and other countries, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates.

• LAS VEGAS, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Circa Resort & Casino 's 35,000-square-foot meeting and convention space is now open and available for booking.
• The state-of-the art facility marks the second phase of development for the downtown Las Vegas' resort, providing meeting planners contemporary, tech-forward options to book events, galas, meetings and more, off the Strip.
• The facility also features a large freight elevator to transport large vehicles and displays directly to the third floor for ease of access.
• Circa's meetings and conventions facility was designed by JCJ Architecture with the original design concept from Steelman Partners.For an overview of Circa's meeting and event spaces, click here.

• WASHINGTON, April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has received a $25 million gift from Raytheon Technologies to support the creation of its new "Living in the Space Age" exhibition.
• The museum and Raytheon Technologies announced the gift today, April 6, at the Space Foundation's annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
• "Raytheon Technologies' transformative gift will help us reimagine one of the museum's most popular galleries for the next generation of innovators," said Chris Browne, acting director of the National Air and Space Museum.
• The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., is located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue S.W.