Aurora From ISS Orbit

NASA has posted this awesome video shot from the International Space Station as it crossed the Indian Ocean September 17th.

They explain: 

The sped-up movie spans the time period from 12:22 to 12:45 PM ET.

While aurora are often seen near the poles, this aurora appeared at lower latitudes due to a geomagnetic storm – the insertion of energy into Earth's magnetic environment called the magnetosphere – caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun that erupted on September 14, 2011. The storm was a moderate one, rated with what's called a KP index of 6 on a scale that goes from 0 to 9, caused by just a glancing blow from the CME.

How are aurora generated?

As solar particles from an incoming CME move into Earth's magnetosphere they travel around to its back side -- or night side, since it is on the opposite side from the sun -- along the magnetic field lines. When these magnetic field lines reconnect in an area known as the magnetotail, energy is released and it sends the particles down onto Earth's poles, and sometimes even lower latitudes. As the particles bombard oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, the atoms release a photon of light that we see as the beautiful colors of the aurora.

Take that, Einstein.

 First use of a hydrogen bubble chamber to
detect neutrinos, November 13, 1970

Today, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the largest physics lab in the world,  claimed to have clocked a subatomic particle that travels faster than the speed of light.

If we all remember high school physics, Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity -- E = mc² -- Where E is energy, m is mass and c represents the speed of light) -- stated that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. It boils down to if an object is traveling really fast (say, near the speed of light), it cannot go faster, regardless of how much energy it absorbes or how much its momentum increases. And for the past 106 years it's remained unquestioned. If verified, this could be huge. Like, fundamental-laws-of-nature-changing huge.

CERN measured a neutrino beam (an electrically neutral weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle) that traveled from a particle accelerator in Geneva to another lab 454 miles aways in Italy 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light.

The European lab is asking others to replicate their test just so they can be sure, Chicago-based Fermilab is the first to take up the challenge, and I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Source: Lab Claims Faster-Than-Light-Particle -- AP Press

All photos via Wikimedia Commons