As the Sun Turns: Solar Minimums and Maximums

[Maria]

Here is something else we recently learned:

• Dec. 13, 2010: On August 1, 2010, an entire hemisphere of the sun erupted. Filaments of magnetism snapped and exploded, shock waves raced across the stellar surface, billion-ton clouds of hot gas billowed into space. Astronomers knew they had witnessed something big.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... leruption/

Looking at the NASA video in the link above, one can see at least three shock waves racing across the surface of the sun.

• Long ago researchers thought solar flares were isolated events. ... The Solar Dynamics Observatory's global view of the sun has shown, however, that widely-separated sunspots can explode in tandem. That's what happened on March 20, [2014] when AR2010 and AR2014 combined for a double flare:

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2013

Our own earth has its own thermo-nuclear reactor at its core. When we have experienced a huge earthquake, shock waves are sent out that can trigger other earthquakes. In water, we see the formation of tsunamis.

[Maria]

Glorious Great Lenten Aurora displayed at www.spaceweather.com

• SPRING COLORS: For reasons not fully understood by researchers, equinoxes favor auroras. Around the start of northern spring, even small gusts of solar wind can spark bright lights in arctic skies. On March 21st, John Chumack captured an outburst of spring colors over Alaska:

[Priest Antonios]

While I would not personally like to be there, in the cold, to witness it... it is quite beautiful.

-Antonios

[Maria]

Here is another aurora that reminds me of a flower in bloom.

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_up ... crpuqasq22

• Taken by Martha Aarons on March 24, 2014 @ March 22 and 23 we saw auroras that danced, auroras with purples and reds in addition to bright green, and auroras that occupied the entire sky. Taken with a Canon S95, 10 shutter and ISO 400

[Maria]

Here is a glorious aurora from Finnish Lapland (from where my husband's ancestors hail):

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_up ... 0k57vaeh44

[Maria]

SURPRISING TELECONNECTIONS: NASA's AIM spacecraft is discovering surprising "teleconnections" in Earth's atmosphere that link weather and climate across vast distances. Strange but true: The ground temperature in Indianapolis is correlated with the frequency of noctilucent clouds over Antarctica. Get the full story and a video from Science@NASA.

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2014

I have also noticed a possible correlation between rapid solar flares called magnetic crochets with unusual weather (thunder clouds and flash flooding, tornadoes, typhoons, and hurricanes). A magnetic crochet causes an extreme heating of the upper atmosphere (climate change?).

[Maria]

Look at this Glorious Pascha aurora at www.spaceweather.com

Ronan McLaughlin of Malin head, Ireland, took the picture on April 20th during the Easter Sunday geomagnetic storm.