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Ready for the Aurora?

8/9/2017

The recent solar activity can give us the opportunity to see the Northern Lights in latitudes more to the south than usual.

Last Wednesday, September 6th, the Sun had two big flares ejecting a lot of material through space. The dynamics of the interior of the Sun is not yet fully understood. We know that the activity increases and decreases in periods of 11 years. We are now leaving a minimum of activity. Last week we could see a couple of big spots on the surface of the Sun, indicating activity. The spots that the Sun present are regions of lower temperature (~4000K versus ~6000K). They are due to the flux of material in the inside of the Sun due to the interaction of intense magnetic fields and important gradients of temperature. The core of the Sun is at about 10 million degrees while the surface is at about 6000 degrees.

This week two big flares have been ejected from the Sun. This flares are energetic particles that the Sun emits, basically protons and electrons, that travel at high speeds and can reach the Earth in about two days. This gives us some small time to forecast its effects on our atmosphere.

When these energetic particles reach the Earth they interact with the molecules of the atmosphere, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon. This interaction ends up emitting light of different color (reddish and greenish), depending on the molecule they interact with.

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Time dilation in the movie Interstellar

4/9/2017

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BCNspiracy: Science 4 All

4/9/2017

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We all need and use science everyday. Our society is strongly based in science and research. Today we enjoy the discoveries of decades ago. That is why it is of paramount importance that we as scientists outreach what we do in our labs.

BCNspiracy is an initiative of a bunch of young scientists in the area around Barcelona, in Spain, that is joining the outreach events at a great scale. They are experience people in outreach, and have now joined efforts to build this great event. Next Saturday, September 30th, they are having a series of TED talks for everyone, covering the most diverse and up to date topics around science: physics, biology, chemistry, math, neurology, ...

The format has the signature of success; lots of very brief talks with sprinkles of workshops and conversations over a drink. The event is inspired in other outreach events such as Naukas, in Bilbao.

The host couldn't be a better place, CosmoCaixa is a worldwide recognized science museum, that has been showing science in a very hands-on approach for over 35 years.

I highly encourage you to attend, have fun and learn about the cleaning relationship between soap and steal, about the love relationship between brain and bowels, collective thinking in biological systems, understanding the formation of the solar system through meteorites, or the relationship between Salvador Dalí and Science.