Aurorae and cats

My name is Richard Pearson; I'm a PhD candidate working under Dr. Robert Stencel. I am sure you will hear more about the work I am doing on this blog later, but here is the one liner (and associated links): epsilon Aurigae is an eclipsing binary system with a circumstellar disk of which I am performing radiative transfer modeling analysis to clarify the system's many unknowns. I will be posting under the Pearson Fam name. I don't know if that is proper blog etiquette or not, but that's how it's going to be. I'll make a comment on our family blog about And There Was Light to see if we can round up some outside readers.

I am currently assisting with some of the Chamberlin Observatory duties, one of which includes returning phone calls from people asking about random events occurring the sky. Recently, many have called wondering about the aurora borealis due to the recent solar flare activity. With the large outbursts, it was possible for the Northern lights to make its way down to Colorado. Sadly, it didn't happen, but it is always intriguing to hear how much public interest there is in “the sky.” It seems to be an innate desire for understanding—or at least participation/viewing—of what is going on above humanity’s head. It is no wonder so many cultures in the past studied the heavens so deeply. My interest, especially in the aurora borealis, stemmed from an experience in elementary school.

My grandfather performed many studies of the aurora borealis as an atmospheric scientist. When I was in Mrs. Crawford’s fourth-grade class, my grandfather came to my class and proposed an experiment: he would provide us with vegetable seeds flown through the aurora borealis in a rocket. We were to take those seeds and compare their growth to a set that had not been exposed. Our class was totally stoked about “helping”. We saw no noticeable differences over the months of observing. At summer break, I took the experiment home, still with great hopes of discovering something grand. Within a day, our two cats had eaten the plants and ruined my ground-breaking results for the world. Looking back, I am not sure how much my class could have “helped” further atmospheric science, but it was a fun thing to be a part of…but I think my grandfather still hates those cats.

SpaceWeather.com monitors the activity of the Sun and its interactions with Earth. On the left-most column they provide a list of Current Conditions which includes the following (this is not a complete list): solar wind speed and density, sunspot image, aurora activity, coronal hole activity, and space weather forecasts. I have included an image of the Current Auroral Oval (dated 2014 January 13 04:13UT = 09:13 MST) in Figure 1. This shows a graphical representation of the flux around the polar regions; notice the edge of the “measurable” and/or “plot-able” auroral oval just reaches the top of Colorado’s state line. The main activity is, of course, closer to the pole.

Figure 1.

The Planetary K-index is used to portray how “deep” the aurora reaches. Figure 2 is from SpaceWeather’s K-index definition, retrieved from Sky & Telescope (June 1968). By comparing the data in the current auroral oval with the K-index figure, the high-activity region is within the K=3 range. The monitoring service states that it has peaked up to K=4 within a 24-hour period, but that it was actually hovering around a K=1-2 range. It really is too bad the show didn't make it further south.

Figure 2.

The public wants to know and be a part of big events; many are astrophysical. Even a fourth-grade class can feel like a part of something big. Can you think of creative ways to incorporate the public in your work? Are there hidden ways to help others get excited about what you do? Just remember: do not let your cats near aurora borealis-ized vegetable plants.