When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
The CME from yesterday’s solar flare struck at about 01:00HST, not as strongly as predicted. Right now there is a geomagnetic storm going on, but only at a moderate intensity, Kp=5. It takes something with a Kp>10 before aurora become a likelihood at low latitudes. Expect some nice photos from the folks up north as they get to enjoy the show.
The sunspot responsible for the flare, AR1429, is still there, pointed directly at our Earth. It harbors the energy for more X class flares, stay tuned!
At 00:28UT March 7th (14:28HST March 6th) our Sun let loose with a X5-class solar flare. This is the largest event in many years, and the impact will be felt here on Earth later today. We can expect a major geomagnetic storm when the mass of charged particles strikes the Earth’s magnetic field sometime around 0625UT (±7hr) on March 8th (2025HST March 7th).
Skywatchers at all latitudes have a chance of seeing aurora.
Yes, this means a chance of seeing aurora here in Hawai’i. I have seen aurora in southerly locations, including Tucson at 32° latitude. It is possible given a strong enough event. Fortunately the tropical storm we have experienced for the last few days appears to be clearing out. I will have to check the northern skies this evening.
The culprit is sunspot group AR1429, an enormous magnetic disturbance on the face of the Sun. An enormous amount of energy stored in the twisted magnetic fields of AR1429 was released when the fields ruptured. The result was a powerful solar flare. This event was recorded by several spacecraft at a number of wavelengths. The resulting imagery and movies are worth checking out.
For updated info on the event you can check in with dedicated solar monitoring websites like SpaceWeather or the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
This evening will see the Moon pass by Mars. The two will be about 12° apart tonight and about the same tomorrow night. As the red planet passed through opposition on the 3rd it is still quite bright at -1.2 magnitude, a nice match for a nearly full Moon.
The two brightest planets in the sky will join up for a dance spanning several days starting this evening. Looking up tonight you will see the pair about 5° apart, with the dimmer Jupiter above Venus. Over the next few days they will slide closer, arriving at their closest approach on March 13th, with about 3° separation. The pair will remain close for several evenings, on the 14th the distance will have widened to just over 3° and on the 15th the separation will be 3.5°. This is the last dance of the February-March planetary alignment, after this the dancers will go their separate ways.
This week will find Neptune emerging from the Sun’s glare to reappear in the dawn. The planet will arrive at opposition on August 24th.
Mars was at opposition two days ago, but not at its closest. Close approach of the two planets is not necessarily on the same day as opposition, but can vary up to two weeks. This year sees the two planets approaching to 99,331,411 km (61,721,554 miles) at 07:01HST. At this distance the red planet will show a disk 13.89″ arc-seconds across in the eyepiece.
All month Mars will be visible throughout the night, high in the sky at midnight. This is the time to enjoy observing our closest neighboring planet while it is nearby and high in the night sky.
Today Mercury reaches maximum elongation, the furthest point it will reach from the Sun in the sky and the highest it will be above the sunset this apparition. The planet is easily visible as a bright, starlike object about 15° above the setting Sun as the sky grows dark. Over the next couple weeks Mercury will slide back into the sunset, heading for inferior conjunction on Mar 21.