Skies will supposedly light up for Halloween this weekend thanks to a sun-stroked solar flare:

(Video of yesterday’s solar activity found here).

A bit of whimsy this morning in the face of ugly planet-bound news — a colorful sparkle for Sunday.
Details via Space.com this morning:

A massive solar flare from the sun could lead to a dazzling (and maybe spooky) northern lights display for parts of the northern United States this Halloween, according to a NASA scientist.

The sun storm, a powerful X1-class solar flare, erupted from the sun on Thursday (Oct. 28) and sent a vast cloud of charged particles toward Earth that should arrive over Halloween weekend, and possibly even the haunted day itself. Those particles will slam into the Earth’s atmosphere to amplify the regular northern lights caused by the sun’s solar wind.

The solar flare, the second most powerful eruption from the sun this year, sparked a strong geomagnetic storm that should supercharge the northern lights, and could make them visible from as far south as New York, Idaho, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland and Nevada, said C. Alex Young, NASA’s associate director for science at the Heliophysics Division of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

“This could be a great show for people in the mid-to-upper U.S. latitudes for aurora,” Young said in an email late Thursday.
“Especially those in Canada, [Upper Peninsula of Michigan], Alaska, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, etc.”

Seeing auroras at such low latitudes is rare and can be difficult, especially if you live in a big city filled with streetlights and other light pollution.
To get your best chance at seeing any auroras this weekend, try to get away from city lights and find the darkest sky possible.

Also, don’t expect to see the dazzling, sweeping displays common at higher latitudes, Young warned. It won’t be as dynamic a show as the ribbons of light seen far northern regions known for such light shows, or those seen by astronauts from space.
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Young said the solar flare was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), a huge eruption of radiation, that spewed solar particles away from the sun at a mind-boggling 2.5 million mph (4 million kph).

“The current estimates for the CME are that it will reach Earth on Oct. 31,” Young said.

Thursday’s solar flare erupted from an active sunspot called AR2887 that is currently located in the center of the sun as it makes its way across the star’s face, as seen from Earth. Another active sunspot, called AR2891, rotated into view this week for its own two-week trip across the sun’s face.
It fired off a moderate, M-class solar flare on Sunday (Oct. 24).
X-class solar flares are the strongest type of sun eruptions. When they’re aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful ones (the X1 flare on Thursday is the lowest level) can endanger astronauts in space, interfere with satellite communications signals and affect power grids on Earth.
Thursday’s solar flare caused a temporary radio blackout for high frequencies, as well as a GPS blackout for systems that use low-frequency signals, Young said.
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As for the rest of us, there’s no need to worry, either, Young said.

“We don’t have much to worry about as far as impact to our daily lives but there could be more space weather impacts in the future as we continue to move towards solar max around 2024-2025,” he added.
The sun is currently in the beginning phase of its latest 11-year solar cycle, called solar cycle 25, in which its activity rises and falls over time.
Currently, its activity is relatively low.
“And the sun can always surprise with an unexpected large flare/CME/SEP combo,” Young said.
“Historically, those often come after we pass solar max but the Sun, she always aims to keep us on our toes.

And also for Sunday — a launch!

LIVE NOW: NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson is at @NASAKennedy to provide updates on #Crew3 before our scheduled launch on Sunday, Oct. 31. Tune in: https://t.co/0A4chgsPn8

— NASA (@NASA) October 29, 2021

Despite all the recent going-into-space shit, it’s still a risky endeavor — background for Sunday’s launch via The Washington Post, also this morning:

It seems like everyone is doing it. An 82-year-old aviator, an 18-year-old student, an artist, a billionaire, a celebrity actor, all resplendent in their shiny, new space suits, preening in spectacles aired on primetime.
In the wake of a series of space tourism missions that has sent more private citizens to space this year than professional astronauts, it’s as if going to space has become routine.
It’s not.
Gravity remains a tremendous force to overcome. Rockets are still powered by thousands of gallons of highly combustible propellants. And the vacuum of space is as harsh and dangerous as ever.

As NASA and SpaceX prepare to send their fourth crew of astronauts to the International Space Station, the teams are driving home that message, saying they are prepared but daunted by what they know is a tremendously risky endeavor.
And along the way they have faced a series of challenges, including a leaky toilet.

If all goes to plan, three NASA astronauts and a European astronaut will blast off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:21 a.m. Sunday. It would be the third time Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched a full contingent of astronauts to the station, in addition to some two dozen cargo missions and a test flight with a pair of NASA astronauts in May 2020.
It also flew a crew of private citizens for three days in orbit last month in what was known as the Inspiration4 mission.
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If the launch goes as scheduled, it would be in the wee hours on Halloween, and yes the crew has costumes. “We might pull them out in the next few days,” Marshburn said (one of the crew, Tom Marshburn, a physician who has flown to space twice before).
“And when we arrive at the space station, we’ll be knocking on the door. We’ll see if they let us in or not.”

Treats not tricks.
And despite the frivolity, once again, here we are…

(Illustration out front: Salvador Dalí’s 1958 painting, “Meditative Rose,” found here).