This will not be a full recap of the year of 2024, which is why I am writing this in November. What I am writing about is the unique and exciting year we have seen when it comes to our night sky here in the Mid-South.
Every year contains exciting things to see: meteor showers, eclipses, planets, and much more, but 2024 contained some very rare sights that made it one of the more exciting years in quite some time!
The first few months of 2024 saw your typical things in the night sky, but April featured arguably the biggest event of the year: the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse! Spring is a tough time for predicting the weather because clouds are so often in the forecast. Large storm systems create rainy, stormy, and severe weather that can all get in the way. This ended up being the case in many states.
Back in 2017, I was luckily very close to the path of totality and viewed that eclipse in South Carolina. You can see my video of that event here. Being in Memphis, I lucked out once again! My station would be covering the eclipse moving through our viewing area and doing coverage. I was included in this plan, watching the eclipse live on air in Newport, Arkansas. We ended up with clear skies, and the event left me speechless just as it had in 2017. To see day turn into night and to feel the temperature drop truly is an "out of body" experience. This eclipse was closer to solar maximum too (which we talk about later) and featured a large red prominence sticking out of the corona.
Photo Credit: NASA/ Keegan Barber
Moving onto May, we had a surprise event in our night sky. The Sun operates on a cycle where it is more and less active depending on the time. 2024 was a time known as "Solar Maximum" This means, solar flares are much more common and can eject charged particles at the Earth. In May, this was the case that led to one of the most powerful solar storms in decades putting on a show in our night sky. The Northern Lights are well, northern in nature but this year we saw the Aurora reach all the way south to states along the Gulf Coast. This put on quite the show here in the Mid-South with vibrant colors in our night sky. I drove about an hour outside of Memphis into the darker skies of Arkansas and it did not disappoint!
We did see another 2 solar storms bring Aurora to the Mid-South later on in the year (including October) these were not nearly as impressive as the May event at least locally.
Before we go jumping into October, we did see a partial lunar eclipse here in the Mid-South. Probably the most "boring" event of the year but still was a cool sight to see in the evening sky.
October as mentioned before saw the Northern Lights visit once again albeit not as vivid as back in May. The more exciting event of the month was a comet that became visible in our evening sky. Comet c/2023 a3 became naked eye visible for a few days but was vivid when using photography equipment. It had an anti-tail and was quite vivid in the evening even with the light pollution of the city!
Going into December, outside of typical sights like the Geminids Meteor Shower, that should wrap up what was an absolutely amazing year for viewing the night sky. One that I will never forget!
Looking at 2025, we will see a Total Lunar Eclipse in March and that looks to be one of the bigger events of the year.
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