Aurora Possible Friday night, Feb. 19-20, Plus More Amazing Mars Images

 

The Big Dipper and some green auroral "fire" from a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm in September 2018. Bob King

I was going to wait to write about the northern lights because they were originally forecast for Saturday night, Feb. 20. That just changed with the most recent NOAA space weather forecast. A minor geomagnetic storm may occur tonight (Friday, Feb. 19-20) instead between about 9 p.m. and midnight CST. As with so many auroras, times change so I would be on the lookout anytime between now and dawn. 

The cause is a familiar one — a high-speed wind of electrons and protons streaming from a gap in the sun's magnetic canopy called a coronal hole. Earlier this evening, conditions were excellent for auroras across northern Europe. Let's cross our fingers they repeat over North America tonight. The moon is half and shouldn't put out too much light. 

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this photo of the capsule containing the descent vehicle and Perseverance rover as it floated down over Jezero Crater Thursday. NASA

More photos are arriving from Mars including the first high resolution image and a remote photo of the capsule coming down by parachute taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Enjoy!

This is the first high resolution, color photo from Perseverance. It was taken with the same hazard camera as the first photo returned by the rover but with the protective filter removed. Nice! Love the pink. NASA / JPL-Caltech

In case you missed this one in my previous article, it's a high-resolution still image from a video taken by several cameras as the rover touched down.  A camera aboard the descent stage captured the shot. NASA / JPL-Caltech

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