Transitioning from Spring to Summer – Solar Flares Expected

By Matthew Johnson

We transition from spring to summer on the Summer Solstice, June 21, at 4:24 a.m. On this longest day of the year, the sun rises at 5:07 a.m. and sets at 8:25 p.m., affording us 15 hours and 18 minutes of daylight and eight hours and 42 minutes of darkness.

Counterintuitively, during the days of the solstice the earth finds itself, in its elliptical orbit around the sun, at the farthest distance from the sun. The earth is more than 3 million miles closer to the sun during December and January than in the summer months. What creates this discrepancy is that the earth is tilted 23.5 degrees in its orbit around the sun. Even though we are more distant in June, the earth’s northern hemisphere is tipped towards the sun while the southern hemisphere is tipped away.

Sun

The sun is expected to continue to emit solar flares and possibly coronal mass ejections during June. In the last year, solar activity has caused some minor damage to communication systems and satellites. Even though we have witnessed auroras in the sky above Norfolk, which take a lot of energy from the sun to achieve, so far we have not experienced a major event such as the September 1859 Carrington event. This was the strongest solar flare and geomagnetic storm produced by a coronal mass ejection ever recorded in modern history. It was so intense that it caused global telegraph systems to burst into flames. Even after the telegraph stations were shut down for safety, the coders could still send messages due to the transmission-wires being electrically energized by the solar storm. Auroras were visible deep into the tropics. It was caused by a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) that reached earth in only 17.6 hours.

Planets

As in May, we continue with Venus and Jupiter. The pair continues to move closer from May 1 onwards, culminating in their conjunction from June 7 to June 10. You can observe this pairing around 9 p.m. each evening in the lower west. We have two early morning apparitions with both Mars and Saturn visible on May 10 around 4:40 a.m. rising in the east. Mars will appear bright orange. Look for Mars beneath the crescent moon with Saturn at this time. Later in the month there are two more conjunctions with the moon – on the 17th, to the upper left of Venus then on the 23 to the lower left of the bright star Spica in the constellation Virgo.

Moon Phases

June 8:Last Quarter

June 14: New Moon

June 21: First Quarter

Locating a star or a constellation begins with knowing a few basic stars or asterisms to use as benchmarks. We locate these stars by “star hopping” from one star to another. An example: First locate the big dipper in the northern sky. The two end stars of the bucket point north to Polaris in the constellation Ursa Minor (the little dipper). Now find the handle of the big dipper that forms an arc. Now arc from the handle to the topaz star Arcturus in co-stellation Bootes then spiral down to the blue star spica in Virgo. “Arc to Arcturus and spiral down to Spica.” All astronomers know this phrase. With this simple statement one knows how to locate four constellations. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Bootes, and Virgo