{"id":14196,"date":"2010-04-06T20:09:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T20:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/solar-activity-and-the-shuttle\/"},"modified":"2010-04-06T20:09:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T20:09:58","slug":"solar-activity-and-the-shuttle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/solar-activity-and-the-shuttle.php","title":{"rendered":"Solar Activity and the Shuttle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Discovery takes flight. Image credit: NASA<\/p><\/div>

<\/p>

The crew of STS-131 have been pretty busy with the inspection of the heat shield and getting ready for docking with the ISS.  I was hoping to hear something this morning because I believe I saw a piece of ice hit the, lemme think…the lower starboard side, just after the external tank separated. The ice appeared to change directions abruptly upon impact and I don’t mean to infer damage just curious is all.<\/p>

Turns out there was a Ku-band radio anomaly so the inspection results were not sent to the ground.  Instead last I heard the images will be digitized and sent to the ground after docking tomorrow and everything is set for that to happen.<\/p>

NASA didn’t elaborate on the Ku-band anomaly, probably just something normal.   However there has been a uptick in solar activity since the launch took place and we’ve been in an geomagnetic storm.  While it is true a geomagnetic storm can interfere with radio signals, I tend to doubt the current storm has anything to do with the radio anomaly, the frequency is just too high.<\/p>

Oh the other hand — , the aurora is back!  The Boulder K hit 7, which it hasn’t done in a long time.  The activity has been tapering off some, but there have been a few further surges.  The Boulder K was at 5 this morning, I went running outside to find clouds over the northern sky.  It appears the new solar cycle is kicking in.  Normally at a Boulder K of 5 I can see a little of the aurora  and 6 or higher is usually a pretty nice show.<\/p>

The Space Weather Prediction Center has a great page on viewing the aurora <\/a>and you can check a chart (and map) to see what level of Planetary K index it take to produce a visible aurora at a given latitude.  You will note I am using two scales the Boulder K (KB<\/sub>) and Planetary K (KP<\/sub>) indices.  I use the Boulder K because I am more used to it.<\/p>

You can get a quick look at what is going on from the SWPC in a variety of scales here<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discovery takes flight. Image credit: NASAThe crew of STS-131 have been pretty busy with the inspection of the heat shield and getting ready for docking with the ISS.  I was hoping to hear something this morning because I believe I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}