Mars Weather Tracking - Phoenix Mars Weather Gadget

We're always fascinated with weather on other planets, and now we're really fascinated with tracking the weather on Mars daily. You can get the latest weather (Maximum and Minimum temperatures per Sol or Martian Solar Day) on Mars from the Phoenix Mars Lander delivered to your desktop from the Phoenix lander currently on Mars. The Phoenix Mars Weather Gadget is updated regularly - meaning as soon as the weather data is downloaded from the Phoenix Mars Lander.

At Track the Weather on Mars with the Phoenix Mars Weather Gadget

Spaceweather PHONE - Have It Call You to See Weather Events

How cools is this? Spaceweather.com has a service that will call you with astronomy alerts via your phone.

Spaceweather PHONE is an astronomy alert service from the creators of Spaceweather.com. Sign up for our service --for yourself or as a gift for someone else-- and we'll phone you when things are happening in the sky.

When auroras appear over your hometown, your phone will ring. When the space station is about to fly over your back yard, your phone will ring. When planets align ... you get the idea. The voice you hear will be Dr. Tony Phillips telling you what to look for and when.

At Spaceweather PHONE

Geomagnetic Storms in Space Make Northern Lights

Space weather is always the most interesting weather. Sure it affects us, but it always looks so cool.

From i09:

Here's a picture of a geomagnetic storm causing auroras to light up the sky over Newfoundland, as seen from the International Space Station. The International Space Station is actually at the same altitude in space as these auroras, and sometimes flies straight through the Northern Lights.

Images from NASA/ISS. [SpaceWeather]

At Auroras

Colored Images of Sun Reveal Sunspots

We love all types of weather - especially space weather. NASA has just released these ultraviolet images of the sun. The non-artistic reason for the differing color spectrums is to show off a reversed-polarity sunspot, on the left. This sunspot marks the end of another cycle of waxing and waning solar flares, meaning the sun will begin climbing towards Solar Max, which it will reach in 2011 or 2012.

Via io9.com at Space Weather

Space fireworks - Giant Pink Clouds in the Sky

People in Japan this past Saturday and Sunday evenings were treated to a “space fireworks” show consisting of three balls of red light in the sky, each glowing as bright as the moon. These luminous orbs are the result of three clouds of lithium vapor released into the ionosphere by a rocket launched in an experiment to study the atmosphere. The red glow will be caused by sunlight striking the lithium vapor clouds as they disperse. “In the first few seconds after each lithium release, the light should become as large and bright as the moon,” says team member Masayuki Yamamoto, a professor at Kochi University of Technology.

Via Pink Tentacle

Mars Has the Worst Weather in the Solar System

Oh Mars - your weather just sucks. With tornados as tall as Mount Everest and hurricanes twice the size of Hurricane Andrew why do we even want to go there. Must be for the bad weather, because I can't see any other reason. Soon we'll be launching a robot to land where humans might colonize - I guess they'll just have to ride out terrible storms each day.

When the next mission to Mars lifts off in April, another robotic probe will be sent to learn more about conditions on aplanet where humans may one day live. One great reason that we send robots:They don't mind crummy weather. When we humans follow, to Mars or anywhere elsein the solar system, weather extremes like none we know await.

At Mars, Hurricane Andrew would stick in the memory as a gentle breeze. The discovery of the South Poleback on Earth would be retold as Roald Amundsen's pleasant summer stroll.And the oppressive heat and biting sandstorms of the Mojave? Hang on to yourcosmic hats.

Because the wildest,wackiest and worst weather known does not occur on Earth. For truly tempestuoustemperatures, take a trip to roasting Venus or frigid Pluto. Want some wind?The giant planets will blow you away.

And before you say,"But Mars is the planet we're most likely to colonize," consider tornadoes as tall as Mount Everest.

At SPACE.com

Riding the Solar Wind on a 30-Mile Sail

It's nice to see someone trying to take advantage of solar winds for spaceship propulsion instead of methane gas, nuclear cells, or other more mundane options. :-) This article over at Wired outlines a team from the Kumpula Space Center in Finland proposing a huge electronic sail for spacecraft that may dramatically reduce journey times across the solar system. Thank the gods! Anything to reduce time to get off this planet would be great. I'm in my mid-thirties now and the Moon is the best we can do? Come on solar winds...blow some seeds of change.

Read

Space Weather - Monitoring the Ionosphere with GPS

Space weather? We simply never thought about storms on the sun or the upper ionosphere being weather you could get data on reliably, but you can. Conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, and the ionosphere can also affect our lives through the effects they have on satellites, communications, navigation, and power systems. Scientists are now studying space weather with a wide range of tools to try to learn more about the physical and chemical processes taking place in the upper atmosphere and beyond. One of these tools is GPS.

Click on through for a full article on this amazing area of weather we had no idea about.

At Space Weather - Monitoring the Ionosphere with GPS