Things that go Bump in the Night

March is, by all accounts, something of a dab month with the only spots of bright green - not so much on the lawns or in the trees -  but on St. Patrick's day.  We like the daylight but the real action of late has been after sundown what with Mars coming so close and Venus seemingly brighter than all get out.  We also note that aside from the wind in leafless trees (different sound of course than summer with the leaves out) night time could be just about anytime.  That brings us to our latest heavenly event - sunspot 1429 and the aurora.

Farther north, the aurora is a petty constant evening event.  Not going to do the Mr. Wizard Science Class but when this sunspot went all crazy earlier this week, the solar "flare" that took a about a day to get here set off all kinds of great light shows - unfortunately you have to be living where you can get frostbite to watch them and we, at 41 degrees 10 minutes north were kinda left out of the fun. All those ions from the flare get caught up in our magnetic fields and the science of it translates to great viewing.  Oh well.

That doesn't stop us from to peering out the north and hoping for a glimpse.  The Aurora Borealis is the one we see up here. Aurora Australis is the term for the lights south of the equator....something we didn't know. Actually most of us have only seen the lights in photographs so to get to see them is pretty rare and must have led to all kinds of superstitions and conjectures before the science was figured out.

So this event, this big flare from sunspot 1429 to the charged particles playing in the upper atmosphere guided by the magnetic field - all this taking place from start to end by events that we can't really see (don't look at the sun! and ooops - we aren't far enough north or south tonight)...well it doesn't keep us from looking anyway and trying to figure it all out.