They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. |
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ENCOUNTER WITH VESTA: Today, NASA's
Dawn spacecraft is entering
orbit around Vesta for a year-long study of
the giant asteroid. Dawn's cameras are expected
to reveal a primitive world of desolate beauty,
helping researchers unravel mysteries of how our
solar system formed. As close as Dawn will be, however,
you can be even closer. It's possible to hold a
piece of Vesta in your hand. Authentic
Vesta meteorites are now available in the Space
Weather Store.
SOUTHERN
LIGHTS: Earth orbit is a great place
to watch geomagnetic storms. Just a few days ago,
astronauts onboard the International Space Station
witnessed these green auroras over the southern
hemisphere:
According to NASA, the picture was taken by one
of the crew of space shuttle Atlantis, now docked
to the ISS as the Atlantic wraps up the last mission
of NASA's 30-year shuttle program. In addition to
Southern Lights, the picture also frames Atlantis's
port side wing and a segment of the boom sensor
system attached to the shuttle's robotic arm.
The display was caused by a solar wind stream which
hit Earth's magnetic field on July 12th. Note to
astronauts: Another solar wind stream is heading
for Earth, due to arrive on July 19th. The crew
of Atlantis should remain alert
for auroras.
SPOOKY
COMMUNICATION: "The skies over
the Spanish island of La Palma offer many beauties,
but on July 4th I witnessed something unusual: a
ghostly green laser beam crossing the Milky Way,"
reports Jan Hattenbach from the Canary Islands.
"I have learned that it was part of an experiment
in quantum communication." Scroll past the
laser for more information:
"Rupert Ursin of the Institute for Quantum
Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy
of Sciences explained to me that the laser was part
of an inter-island quantum-cryptography
experiment," says Hattenbach. "Physicists
send entangled UV-photons from the Roque de los
Muchachos observatory (ORM) on La Palma to the European
Space Agency's Optical Ground Station 144 km away
on the island of Tenerife. The goal is to demonstrate
the feasibility of quantum communication over very
long distances in
space--e.g., to the International Space Station
or other satellites.
"While the UV photons are invisible to the
human eye, the green laser is not: it is used as
a tracking laser or a giant laser pointer. It remained
visible even in broad twilight - and made a good
show together with the milky way, the morning zodiacal
light and Jupiter."
Sending coded information via entangled photons?
If the idea disturbs you, you're in good company.
Einstein himself ridiculed the notion as "spooky
action at a distance." Experiments like
this one, however, show that it is possible.
2011
Noctilucent Cloud Gallery
[previous years: 2003,
2004, 2005,
2006, 2007,
2008, 2009]
June
2011 Aurora Gallery
[Aurora alerts: text,
voice]
[previous Junes: 2010,
2008, 2001]
