'Comet 12P has a super cryogeyser, eruption of which is triggered after local sunrise at its location.'Īmateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor 12P in the nights ahead. 'It's like 'Old Faithful',' explains Richard Miles of the BAA.

Somewhere on the comet's surface there is a cryovolcanic vent that gets hit with sunlight with this same cadence. Why is the comet erupting every 15 days? Basically, it's because the comet spins with a 2 week period. The last outburst took place sometime around Dec. 'The last few outbursts have been on a 15 day cadence,' reports Nick James of the British Astronomical Association (BAA), 'and we might be coming up to another one.' James prepared this plot showing the clockwork quality of recent eruptions: Astronomers are starting to see a pattern. THIS COMET IS ABOUT TO BLOW: Ice volcanoes on Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks have erupted half a dozen times in 2023. Based on its current location, the active region will rotate onto the Earthside of the sun early next week. As the season progresses, these dots will multiply in number and shift in hue from blue to red as the brightness of the clouds intensifies.īIG FARSIDE SUNSPOT: Helioseismic maps of the farside of the sun continue to show a large hidden sunspot. For the rest of the season, daily maps from NOAA 21 will be presented here:Įach dot is a detected cloud. An instrument onboard NOAA 21 ( OMPS LP) is able to detect NLCs (also known as 'polar mesospheric clouds' or PMCs). The first clouds were detected inside the Antarctic Circle on Dec. The southern season for NLCs is underway. 28, 2023, the Arctic stratosphere is too warm for Type II polar stratospheric clouds. NASA's MEERA-2 climate model predicts when the air up there is cold enough: Credit: SDO/AIAĬolorful Type II polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) form when the temperature in the stratosphere drops to a staggeringly low -85C. Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on Jan 1-2, 2024. Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth are slowly declining-a result of the yin-yang relationship between the solar cycle and cosmic rays. Credit: SDO/HMIĬosmic Rays Solar Cycle 25 is intensifying, and this is reflected in the number of cosmic rays entering Earth's atmosphere. All of these sunspots have stable magnetic fields that pose no threat for strong solar flares.

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