February 2023
Weather satellite spots auroras dancing above the pole
Tuesday, February 28, 2023: Auroras that set the sky ablaze across northern and central Europe and North America in the last two days were so intense that they could be seen from space by weather-forecasting satellites.
In this image, taken by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) namesake satellite NOAA-20, the recent aurora borealis displays can be seen as a band of orange-tinted glow that crosses the Atlantic Ocean above the British Isles and spills over into Scandinavia.
NOAA-20, which orbits 512 miles (824 kilometers) above Earth's surface, took the image on Sunday (Feb. 26) at 11:01 p.m. ET (0401 GMT on Monday, Feb. 27). The image was processed by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) in Colorado and was shared on Twitter by a user called @ar_etsch.
Simon Proud, an Earth-observation scientist at the National Centre for Earth Observation in the U.K. explained in a comment that NOAA-20 was able to detect the aurora as it "has a special low light band, which picks up anthropogenic lights and also things like aurora." – Tereza Pultarova
Auroras set sky ablaze all over the British Isles
Monday, February 27, 2023: Powerful solar wind is blowing from the sun these days, setting the sky ablaze with auroras all over the British Isles. This particular picture was taken by an astrophotographer in Northern Ireland.
Stunning aurora borealis displays have been reported on the night from Sunday, Feb. 26, to Monday, Feb. 27, from all over the U.K., even from as far south as the iconic Stonehenge monument in Wiltshire
Stunned skywatchers took to Twitter in droves to share their catches, with reports of aurora sightings pouring in from Scotland, northern Wales, Ireland and southern England.
Northern Irish photographer Evan Boyce experienced a memorable night of aurora chasing, which, despite being his first polar lights adventure, produced some stunning results.
"I first picked up a camera during the COVID lockdown and have wanted to capture the aurora ever since," Boyce told Space.com in an email. "It's quite difficult living in Northern Ireland, given how far south we are in comparison to where the aurora can normally be viewed."
He added that all his earlier attempts at aurora chasing were ruined by cloudy weather. On Sunday night, Boyce drove to a beach between the towns of Bangor and Donaghadee, a short drive from Northern Ireland's capital Belfast. There he captured an eerie green and red glow above a historical building with a backdrop of a star-studded sky.
"I can't believe how lucky I've been," Boyce said. "Judging by the reaction from other local photographers, the strength & colors last night were a rare event."
According to the U.K. space weather forecaster Met Office, the spectacle was a result of two solar physics phenomena occurring at the same time. There is currently a so-called coronal hole opened in the sun's magnetic field, from which streams of solar wind emanate at higher than usual speeds. In addition to that, a coronal mass ejection (CME), a powerful burst of solar wind from an active region, or sunspot, erupted from the sun on Friday, Feb. 24, and arrived last night. – Tereza Pultarova
Artemis 2 moon rocket coming together
Friday, February 24, 2023: NASA is assembling the Space Launch System rocket that will launch the Artemis 2 mission to the moon as early as next year, taking the first humans since the final Apollo flight in the 1970s to the moon's orbit.
"Engine section, meet the rest of the core stage," NASA said in a Tweet shared via the Marshall Space Flight Center account on Friday (Feb. 24). "Teams at #NASAMichoud have lined up the engine section with the rest of the @NASA_SLS core stage for Artemis II. Next up, joining the two sections."
NASA completed the Space Launch System's debut launch with the uncrewed Artemis 1 test-flight in November last year with flying colors. The stakes are, however, getting higher with Artemis 2, which will pave the way for NASA's ambitious plans to establish permanent human presence on the moon and in its orbit. – Tereza Pultarova
Crescent moon meets Jupiter and Venus in the sky above New Jersey
Thursday, February 23, 2023: The crescent moon rises in the early evening sky accompanied by Jupiter and Venus in this image taken by an astrophotographer in New Jersey.
The celestial encounter is a so-called conjunction, a situation when celestial bodies temporarily meet in the same area of the sky. The conjunction between the two-day-old waxing crescent moon and the two other brightest objects in the sky, planets Venus and Jupiter, took place on Wednesday (Feb. 22).
Audrey Geddes of New Jersey took this image of the celestial encounter over a remote region of the Pine Barrens during the evening twilight.
"To get to this remote area, you have to drive down sand roads through a pitch pine forest," Geddes told Space.com. "Excellent location for astrophotography and observing the stars. The only thing that made it challenging to photograph were the clouds."
Geddes took the picture on a NIKON D7500 camera with a 3.8 aperture lens using an 8-second exposure and ISO 400 sensitivity. – Tereza Pultarova
James Webb Space Telescope peers inside Milky Way's oldest star cluster
Wednesday, February 22, 2023: The James Webb Space Telescope has looked inside one of the oldest components of our Milky Way galaxy, the Messier 92 globular cluster located some 27,000 light-years away from Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope, or Webb, observed the globular cluster, also known under the shortcut M92, early after coming online. It took only one hour to capture the sparkling image above, according to a statement by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the observatory.
Primarily built to study the most distant objects in the far-away reaches of the universe, Webb easily detected the multitude of stars inhabiting the cluster, including the dim and cool ones that were invisible to its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. Some of the stars in this image are tiny, only 0.1 the mass of our sun, Roger Cohen, an astronomer at Rutgers University and one of the scientists behind the observations, said in the statement.
"This is very close to the boundary where stars stop being stars," Cohen said. "Below this boundary are brown dwarfs, which are so low-mass that they're not able to ignite hydrogen in their cores."
The image, captured by Webb's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), reveals only a small portion of the M92 cluster. The whole cluster, about 100 light-years wide, has 300,000 stars squeezed inside of it. If an inhabited planet like Earth were to orbit one of those stars, the creatures on its surface would have a magnificent view of the night sky, which would shine with thousands of stars that would be thousands of times brighter than those humans can see from Earth.
M92 is one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way, consisting of stars that formed 12 to 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only a few hundreds of thousands of years old. – Tereza Pultarova
Cubesat that launched to the moon on Artemis 1 sees green comet
Tuesday, February 21, 2023: Japan's cubesat EQUULEUS, which hitched a ride to the moon aboard NASA's Artemis 1 mission in November last year, took a video of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) earlier this month, about two weeks after the ice ball's closest approach to Earth.
The comet — also called the green comet for its hue or the Neanderthal comet, as it hasn't visited Earth since the era of the Neanderthals — can be seen in the video sequence shared on Twitter as a fuzzy white dot traversing a star-studded black-and-white background.
"EQUULEUS successfully photographed Comet ZTF (Comet C/2022 E3) from space!" the EQUULEUS team said in a tweet accompanying the image sequence shared on Tuesday (Feb. 21).
The 6U cubesat , built by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the University of Tokyo, imaged the comet for six hours on Feb. 12. At that time, the cubesat was about 43 million miles (69.5 million kilometers) from the comet and 211,000 miles (340,000 km) from Earth. – Tereza Pultarova
Satellites reveal devastation in Turkey's city of Antakya
Monday, February 20, 2023: The destruction of the Turkish city of Antakya caused by the devastating earthquake on Feb. 6 is revealed in a series of images taken by the European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-2.
The first image in this sequence shows Antakya on Jan. 25, nearly two weeks before the disaster, which has killed at least 46,000 people. The second image captures the situation on Feb. 14 with thousands of buildings destroyed. – Tereza Pultarova
Rare red auroras explode over northern Europe and Canada
Friday, February 17, 2023: A stream of solar plasma arrived at Earth last night, supercharging the atmosphere with particles from the solar wind that triggered rare red aurora displays across vast portions of Canada, northern U.S. and Europe. And space weather forecasters promise that more is on its way.
Twitter has been virtually awash over the past days with skywatchers' images and accounts of spectacular aurora sightings. The latest wave of dancing polar lights has been especially striking, as it arrived in rare shades of red that require higher concentrations of solar wind particles to penetrate deeper into Earth's atmosphere.
Quebec, Canada-based aurora hunter Mike MacLellan shared with Space.com his catches: out of this world photographs of the horizon ablaze with bright neon-like green that turns into orange, red and purple higher up in the sky. Similar red aurora sightings have been reported by photographers in Scotland and Norway.
The aurora overload is expected to continue and possibly get even more impressive as a coronal mass ejection (CME), a burst of plasma from the sun's upper atmosphere that erupted from the sun Feb. 15 is arriving at Earth today.
Aurora sightings as far south as the north of England and the U.S. can be expected. The geomagnetic storming is expected to carry on until at least Feb. 19, so if you have an opportunity, head north for the weekend to make the most of it. – Tereza Pultarova
Rose-like nebula shines bright on star-studded sky in an astrophotographer's image
Thursday, February 16, 2023: The Rosette Nebula in the constellation Unicorn shines bright in the star-studded sky in a photo captured ahead of this year's Valentine's Day by an Arizona-based astrophotographer.
The spectacular nebula is located 5,200 light-years away from Earth and you can find it to the left of Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in the constellation Orion.
Hot young stars in the nebula produce energetic atoms in their cores, which then feed the cloud of hydrogen gas that forms the nebula.
Astrophotographer and NASA astronomy ambassador Mark Johnston took the image from Rio Verde in Arizona on Feb. 11 using a Celestron C9.25 SCT telescope and a ZWO2600 astrophotography camera. He created the image by stacking 256 60-second exposures. For more of Johnston's astrophotography, visit his website at www.azastroguy.com. – Tereza Pultarova
Valentine's Day auroras shine bright over Alaska
Wednesday, February 15, 2023: The spectacular aurora display over Alaska delivered on Valentine's Day by a well-timed solar eruption got one experienced aurora hunter extremely excited.
Vincent Ledvina is no stranger to the sight of glimmering polar lights. Based in Fairbanks, Alaska, the space physics PhD student, took his first aurora picture aged 16. Since then, he says on his website, he's been hooked on the thrill of aurora chasing. This passion eventually led to him relocating from North Dakota to Alaska, the northernmost U.S. state that straddles the northern polar circle and offers the best conditions for aurora watching.
Vincent's Twitter account and his website's photo gallery are overflowing with stunning aurora pictures. Yet, in a series of excited tweets shared on Feb. 14, he admitted that this year's Valentine's Day auroras were out of the ordinary.
"Everything about tonight was insane," Ledvina said in a Tweet shared in real time as his aurora party drew to a close. "One of the best nights of aurora of my life, maybe the best. We had substorm after substorm, it never let up."
In another tweet, he called the experience "straight up magic." In yet another, accompanied by an image of a shimmering ribbon of green and purplish glow suspended above the wintery landscape, he confessed that he had never seen such intense shades of red in an aurora.
Just head to Ledvina's Twitter page to get the feel of that night.
"That was freaking incredible. INSANE substorm. The whole sky is glowing, so cool, no other words. Wow!!!!," Ledvina said in yet another post. – Tereza Pultarova
Turkey earthquake destruction laid bare in new satellite images
Tuesday, February 14, 2023: New images from the U.S. Earth observation company Maxar reveal the scope of destruction in cities and towns across Turkey in the wake of two devastating earthquakes that struck the region last week.
This image, taken on Monday (Feb. 13), shows collapsed buildings in the city of Kahramanmaras, about 100 miles northeast of the Mediterranean coast. Kahramanmaras is one of the hardest hit areas as it lies closest to the epicenter of the deadly 7.8 Richter scale magnitude temblor that shook the region last Monday (Feb. 6) in the early morning hours.
"Extensive building damage with debris removal operations in process can be seen, along with temporary shelters in the area," Maxar Technologies said in a tweet accompanying the image.
More than 36,000 victims have been pulled out from rubble in the region around the Turkish-Syrian border. In Kahramanmaras alone, 600 people perished in the ruins. On the Syrian territory, rescue operations are proceeding especially slowly as the country has been mostly isolated for years due to a years-long civil war. – Tereza Pultarova
Astronomer discovers tiny asteroid shortly before it hits Earth
Monday, February 13, 2023: This is the first photo of a 3-foot-wide (1 meter) asteroid that burned up in Earth's atmosphere only a few hours after it was discovered.
The space rock was discovered by Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky during a routine "near-Earth asteroid hunt" on Sunday (Feb. 12). Sárneczky, who is one of the world's most prolific asteroid hunters, first spotted the rock at about 10 pm local time and at first had no clue he was looking at an Earth-bound rock.
"At that time, the calculations did not show that it was an imminent impactor," Sárneczky told Space.com in an email. "It wasn't going fast across the sky at all, as it was heading right towards us, and it was faint. It was only when I observed it again half an hour later and measured its coordinates that the calculations showed that it was coming towards Earth."
A measurement made by astronomers in Croatia confirmed that the previously unknown asteroid was on a collision course with Earth. The rock, named Sar 2667 in Sárneczky's honor, indeed, dove into Earth's atmosphere about four hours after its discovery and burned up above the English Channel between France and the U.K., producing a spectacular fireball that was captured by many meteor and web cameras.
Sar 2667 is only the 7th space rock on record discovered before hitting our planet. The asteroid was already the ninth found in February by Sárneczky and his colleagues from the Piszkéstető observatory, which is located some 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Budapest in the Mátra Mountains. The asteroid arrived two days short of the tenth anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteorite impact, which in 2013 caused a shockwave that shattered windows on thousands of buildings in the city of Chelyabinsk in southern Russia. – Tereza Pultarova
Earthquake creates giant cracks in Earth's crust
Friday, February 10, 2023: The devastating Kahramanmaras earthquake that hit a region on the borders between Turkey and Syria on Monday (Feb. 6) has produced two more than 120-mile-long (200 kilometers) ruptures in Earth's crust that can be seen from space.
The earthquake, which came in two waves, the first peaking at 7.8 Richter scale magnitude, the second nine hours later slightly milder at 7.5, has killed over 20,000 people in the impoverished region heavily affected by the Syrian war.
This image, captured by the European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-1 and released by the U.K. Centre for the Observation & Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes & Tectonics (COMET) on Friday, Feb. 10, reveals two long ruptures created by the quakes spanning a distance of more than 120 miles (200 km) each. – Tereza Pultarova
Europe's Jupiter explorer Juice heads to spaceport ahead of launch
Thursday, February 9, 2023: Europe's Jupiter exploring spacecraft Juice has left Airbus' factory in Toulouse, France, today, and is heading to French Guiana ahead of its launch in April.
Juice (for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) was packed into a safety container and loaded onto an Antonov aircraft, which transported it across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe's spaceport in Kourou.
Juice, which will explore the potentially life-bearing moons of Jupiter, is scheduled for launch in mid-April aboard Europe's heavy-lifter Ariane 5. – Tereza Pultarova
Astrophotographer captures stunning February full moon aligned with ancient monument
Wednesday, February 8, 2023: Astrophotographer Josh Dury captured this spectacular image of the February full moon rising behind the Glastonbury Tor, one of the U.K.'s best known spiritual sites.
Glastonbury Tor is a hill in Somerset, southwestern England near the town of Glastonbury, which is the site of the popular music festival. The enigmatic building, behind which the giant lunar disk appears in Dury's image, is the 15th century St, Michael's Tower, the only surviving element of a medieval church.
Glastonbury Tor is frequently featured in the tales of King Arthur, and it has even been suggested that the mythical warrior, who may have lived in the 6th century A.D., could be buried there.
The February full moon, also known as the Snow Moon, was at its fullest on the night of Feb. 5.-6. – Tereza Pultarova
Astrophotographer catches an enormous plasma loop erupting from sun's surface
Tuesday, February 7, 2023: A U.S. astrophotographer captured this awe-inspiring image of a giant loop of plasma arching above the sun's surface.
The loop, or prominence, as solar experts call it, is enormous. At 53,000 miles (86,000 kilometers) high and with a span of 162,000 miles (160,000 km), the mesmerizing feature is more than 20 times wider and more than four times higher than Earth. It appeared on the sun's surface on Saturday, Feb. 4, when it attracted the attention of Arizona-based astrophotographer and NASA astronomy ambassador Mark Johnston when he was scrolling through the feeds from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.
"Prominences are very dynamic and can last from an hour to a week or more, depending upon their nature," Johnston told Space.com in an email. "Prominences occur where strong magnetic field lines erupt out of the sun and then arc back to the surface. The plasma (ionized hydrogen) you see moving from left to right is following the magnetic field lines. Typically you'll find a sunspot at the points where the magnetic field lines erupt and return."
Johnston captured the sequence from his home in Scottsdale using his hydrogen alpha telescope, a type of solar telescope that enables astronomers to view light emissions from a type of energetic hydrogen ions, which appear in deep hues of red.
Hydrogen Alpha allows astronomers to see the chromosphere, the middle layer of the sun's atmosphere, where filaments and solar flares form.
"I attach my telescope to a solar video camera, which captures 85 frames per second," Johnston said. "It's important when imaging the sun to keep your exposures at 10 milliseconds or less to ensure there is no movement within each frame."
For more of Mark Johnston's astrophotography, visit his website or follow him on Instagram @azastroguy. -- Tereza Pultarova
Weather satellite sees a heart form in the clouds above the Atlantic Ocean
Monday, February 6, 2023: The GOES East weather forecasting satellite of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted this unusual heart-shaped cloud form above the southern Atlantic Ocean.
The giant heart in the clouds appeared off the coast of Uruguay and Brazil this morning, Monday, Feb. 6. GOES East took the video sequence from an altitude of 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface. – Tereza Pultarova
Rare green comet shines above Stonehenge during close Earth approach
Friday, February 3, 2023: Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) glows above Stonehenge in southern England during its closest approach to Earth in 50,000 years.
The comet, last seen from Earth long before the iconic 5,000-year-old stone circle was erected, has thrilled astrophotographers all over the world. This particular image was taken by Josh Dury, an astrophotographer from Bath, southwest England. Dury, who's been taking images of the night sky since the age of seven, told Space.com that taking the stunning portrait of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was "one of the most challenging" astrophotography projects he had ever undertaken.
"With thick freezing fog rolling in over Salisbury plain [where the stone circle is located], my camera equipment was freezing up and there were only short interludes of clear skies," Dury wrote in an email to Space.com. "Luckily the comet was visible for a period of time where I was able to capture this image, really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
The comet will now start slowly retreating in the direction of Mars and dim gradually. It will remain visible to amateur astronomers with backyard telescopes throughout the first half of February. It will then head deeper into the outer solar system and toward the Oort Cloud, where it came from. Astronomers are not certain whether C/2022 E3 (ZTF) ever visits Earth again. But even if it does, we won't be around to see it. – Tereza Pultarova
First-ever microgravity experiment using a drone
Thursday, February 2, 2023: British start-up Gravitilab has performed a first microgravity experiment with its customized quadcopter and specially designed microgravity capsule.
The remotely controlled drone carried the capsule into an altitude of 2,000 feet (600 meters). After its release, the capsule hurtled toward Earth in a freefall, creating a few seconds of simulated weightlessness inside.
The company says its drone system, called LOUIS, can provide up to 20-second-long microgravity flights, up to ten times longer than what drop towers can offer. Companies from many industries including pharmaceuticals, materials and aerospace are interested in conducting research and experiments in microgravity conditions. However, access to the International Space Station is expensive and limited, and so are Earth-based opportunities such as parabolic flights.
Gravitilab's system is the first microgravity research facility using unmanned aerial technology. – Tereza Pultarova
Elon Musk shares photo of Starship engine bay ahead of major test
Wednesday, February 1, 2023: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a photo of the Starship engine bay at the company's test site in southern Texas taken ahead of a planned static firing test of the engine's first stage.
"Just leaving the engine bay of Starship," Musk said in a Tweet.
The tech mogul previously hinted that Starship may attempt its debut orbital flight later this month. Prior to that, SpaceX has to complete a static firing test involving all 33 Raptor engines of the rocket's Booster 7 first stage.
Once operational, the 395-foot-tall (120 meters) Starship will be the largest rocket in the world, taller than even NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket, which sent the Artemis 1 mission around the moon last year. – Tereza Pultarova
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