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OLD SUNSPOT SET TO RETURN: The southeastern limb of the sun is crackling with C- and M-class
solar flares. These explosions herald the return of old sunspot AR1944, which produced
many strong flares earlier this month. For the past two weeks AR1944 has been transiting
the farside of the sun. An uptick in solar activity is possible as it returns to the
Earthside this week.
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON, LAUNCHED AND RECOVERED: Yesterday, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus
launched a suborbital helium balloon from Bishop, California, and recovered the payload
hours later from a nearby canyon. The goal of the mission was to measure high-energy
radiation levels in the stratosphere. Those data are being reduced now. The students also
captured panoramic images of California's epic drought:
So much for the Golden State. The landscape of California is remarkably brown as the driest
winter in more than a century unfolds. The drought is so bad that the city of Bishop,
where the students go to school, looks like a settlement on the planet Mars: image.
"Up and down California, from Oregon to Mexico, it's dry as a bone," comments JPL climatologst
Bill Patzert. "To make matters worse, the snowpack in the water-storing Sierras is less
than 20% of normal for this time of the year."
Indeed, the towering Sierras, only sparsely covered by crusty month-old snow, lack their
usual white reflectance in many of the group's edge of space photos. Not much water will
be flowing from those peaks to urban areas when the snow melts in spring. Water rationing
and wildfires are likely this summer.
On the bright side, launching the balloon was lots of fun! Stay tuned for updates as
the radiation data are analyzed.