Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, November 28th.  The sun will rise at 7:55.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 9 minutes, setting at 5:05.   The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 8:53 this evening.

Last Saturday afternoon the sun let loose with an explosion that is sending a cloud of particles toward the earth.  It was called a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME for short.  As usual for these things, it takes about 48 hours give or take for the cloud of particles to reach the earth.  The expected arrival time for the cloud is about noon, give or take 7 hours.  If the cloud is a bit late we could get a display of the northern lights or aurora borealis.  The sun is getting more active now after a prolonged minimum that lasted over 2 years.  The sun is ramping up for a peak in sun spot numbers possibly in 2013.  Although the numbers of aurorae occur mostly after peak, so we’re just starting our auroral season, so there will be more opportunities to come.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.