Transcription
Good morning, folks. Welcome observers. It is Saturday, April 4th, 2026. Comet Maps hits the sun today. But amazingly, that might not be our top science news. We're going to be going over the solar storm yesterday and seeing a possible sign of collapse at Saturn.
We're starting with the last 24 hours on our star where solar flaring continued, but they were more impulsive and produced fewer CMEs than in previous days. Coronal hole impact is coming within about a day. Solar storm conditions could reverberate. And when we take a look at the GO X-ray flux, we can see that the spikes into M-class flare range have not ceased. Still plenty of them, mostly coming from the central active region sunspots. They are going to be turning towards the limb today, but are still facing Earth enough to fire one in this direction.
Looking at the solar wind, since last night, the unexpected shockwave impact has calmed a touch. We have come back down off the high marks of a level three solar storm. Truly a several day uptick in geomagnetic storm activity here. And that's after the initial CME we expected barely did anything at all.
We've got eyes on the sun, but also on the comet. Look at comet Maps here screaming up on the CRO's comet line. It has gotten nice and bright here on approach and in a few hours we're going to find out if it survived its close approach. It is not expected to survive, but neither was comet Lovejoy in 2011. Possible final moments of the comet are at hand with a pass slated to cut through 90% of the sun's atmosphere and just barely missed the surface. It's even visible on stereo core 2 cameras. And then Lasco C2 here. The close zoom in. Almost there. Almost there.
And the top science news today actually began 12 years ago with a study on the Satnian magnetic field that found nothing abnormal. That is not the case with the latest paper today. This new study describes an asymmetry that is persisting at the ringed planet and it's causing the magnetic field to be tilted as opposed to vertically oriented north and south in the solar system like Earth's is. It's cocked to the side. Now they have invented this explanation where the rapid rotation of the Saturn field and plasma from Enceladus make that tilt happen even though Enceladus doesn't stay in the tilted region or the balloon. The better explanation rather than the magic they're invoking is that the same way they model Earth's magnetic field to be vertical in normal times and then wonky and tilted during the pole shift. Well, given what we're seeing across the solar system, this sort of screams that the major shifting has set in on Saturn as well.
Folks, big discounts at the Observer Ranch store right now. All of our space weather news and Observer Ranch gear is on sale with the promo code solar and our new stickers for cars, laptops, backpacks, or grab a 10-pack. Just slap them all over. And yes, the discount also includes all of the Kira and Lulu children's science books and my latest textbook. Didn't want to discount that one. Cat makes the rules. 20% off the disaster book. 20% off everything at the Observer Ranch store. Links to key items and the store overall are found below. We greatly appreciate your support and we'll be back if the comet makes any big fuss on close approach. We'll do this all again tomorrow right here, but right now it's 5:30 a.m. in the new Valley of the Sun. Eyes open. No fear. Be safe, everyone.