Jackson

You plan for weeks. You drive an hour to a dark sky location, set up your lawn chair, look up, and see almost nothing streaking across the sky. The culprit? A fat, glowing moon hanging overhead like a spotlight. If you have ever wondered whether a bright moon ruins meteor showers, the short answer is: … Read more

Learning how to photograph a meteor shower with a DSLR opens up one of the most rewarding experiences in all of astrophotography. There is nothing quite like reviewing hundreds of frames after a cold night under the stars and finding that perfect meteor streak captured on your sensor. I have spent countless nights chasing Perseids, … Read more

In September 1859, telegraph operators across the world watched in amazement as their equipment sparked, caught fire, and kept working even after being disconnected from their batteries. The aurora was so bright that people in Boston could read newspapers at midnight. That event, known as the Carrington Event, was the most powerful geomagnetic storm in … Read more

On the morning of September 1, 1859, an English astronomer named Richard Carrington watched two brilliant patches of white light erupt on the surface of the Sun. Within hours, the most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history slammed into Earth, setting telegraph wires on fire and painting auroras across the skies of Cuba and Hawaii. … Read more

In early August 1972, the Sun unleashed one of the most violent outbursts ever recorded. Over just nine days, a single active region on the solar surface fired off a barrage of flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar proton events that ranks among the most extreme space weather episodes in human history. Yet despite the … Read more

A multi-week power outage from a solar storm would begin with auroras visible across the entire planet, followed within hours by cascading failures across power grids, communications networks, and supply chains. In the most extreme scenarios, some power grids could be knocked out for weeks or even months, leaving millions without electricity, running water, or … Read more

Long before the first telescope was pointed at the Sun in 1610, our planet was already keeping a meticulous diary of every solar storm that struck it. Trees recorded them in their rings. Ice sheets trapped their chemical signatures. Medieval monks documented their dazzling auroral displays in chronicles. Understanding how scientists reconstruct the history of … Read more

Extreme geomagnetic storms (G5 on the NOAA scale) hit Earth approximately 4 days per 11-year solar cycle, which translates to roughly one storm every 2 to 3 solar cycles for any given location. Moderate storms (G2) are far more common, striking about 360 days per cycle. Minor storms occur multiple times per month, especially during … Read more

Yes, you can absolutely watch a meteor shower without a telescope or binoculars. In fact, your naked eye is the single best tool for observing meteors, and using optical equipment will actually make your experience worse. Meteors streak across large portions of the sky in random directions, and only your unaided eyes can take in … Read more

In the summer of 775 CE, something extraordinary happened to every living tree on Earth. A massive pulse of radiation slammed into the atmosphere, creating a spike in radioactive carbon that was quietly absorbed by trees from Japan to Germany to New Zealand. No chronicler recorded it. No civilization noticed. But the trees remembered. More … Read more