The Solar Winds came and did stimulate the Auroras which were multicolored. SpaceWeather.com had this to say:
Last night in Tromsø, Norway, the solar wind combined with moonlight and snow to produce a scene that had onlookers asking themselves, can it get any better than this? One of those onlookers was Thilo Bubek, and he took this picture:
"The whole evening was a perfect show with strong auroras in many colours," says Bubek. "We were able to capture some fantastic images."
But can it get any better? Maybe later today: A solar wind stream is due to hit Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 14-15, possibly sparking even stronger displays. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of high-latitude geomagnetic activity when the solar wind stream arrives.
Footnote1: The geomagnetic picture is for the same day. Notice how strong the red zone is.
ReplyDeleteFootnote2: 25 comets dove into the sun in just 10 days.
ReplyDeletehttp://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/12jan_cometstorm/
12/13/2010 to 12/22/2010
Footnote3: Text of Nasa article:
ReplyDeleteJan. 12, 2011: The sun has just experienced a storm—not of explosive flares and hot plasma, but of icy comets.
"The storm began on Dec 13th and ended on the 22nd," s...ays Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"
Sundiving comets—a.k.a. "sungrazers"—are nothing new. SOHO typically sees one every few days, plunging inward and disintegrating as solar heat sublimes its volatile ices. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," says Battams.
"The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," notes Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "As comets go, these are considered small."