133 - Aurora on the Phone
By now you’ve probably seen pictures of the recent Aurora caused by the outrageous solar CME (coronal mass ejection) event.
Seeing an aurora is one of the items I have on my bucket list before I exit stage left. I guess I can kind of say I’ve seen one, at least my phone saw it. By the naked eye it was almost impossible to detect, however, the miracle of smart phones made it more than visible, even in the city with streetlights in the way:
I took identical photos the following evening and came up with a couple of white-ish streaks but no vivid pinks or greens like these pictures.
So did I see the aurora? I suppose I sort of saw it. Was it so dramatic I can cross it off my list? Sadly, no. I want to see those dramatic undulating green ribbons!
Oddly enough, I suspect our asparagus “saw” it.
We have asparagus growing next to a chain link fence in our backyard. The day after these pictures were taken I went to harvest some. All of the asparagus was bent away from the fence.
The asparagus always grows straight. This has never happened before. What will cause asparagus to bend like this according to what I’ve found online is prolonged exposure to high winds, which has not happened here (and if it did the fence and all the trees growing alongside in the neighbors yard would certainly buffered it anyway). Seeing as how it’s growing next to a chain link fence which will conduct electromagnetic currents I wonder if somehow the recent solar CME ejection charged the fence and bent the vegetables? I have no evidence but I can’t think of any other cause.
Today these same asparagus spears are further curved, they’re almost in a loop now!
