This is the moment aurora chasers have been waiting for.
North Carolina
‘What’s in the sky?’: Southeastern NC gets great view of SpaceX rocket
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – If your eyes were on the sky Saturday night, you probably saw quite the sight.
People in Southeastern North Carolina had a clear view of the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket was launched hundreds of miles away in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center at 8:34 p.m.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carries satellites for the European Commission’s Galileo Constellation. The Galileo Constellation serves the same purpose as the United States Global Position System (GPS).
There have been 28 Galileo satellites launched to date.
Copyright 2024 WECT. All rights reserved.
North Carolina
Steve Smith Sr. inducted into North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame
He’d go on to raise a family here, and there are little reminders of it every day. The other day, when it rained, his son grabbed a UNC jacket his dad had picked up for him while working Drake Maye’s pro day in Chapel Hill in his role with the NFL Network.
This place is part of him and his family now.
“I mean, people around here in Charlotte see me, and sometimes I’m in a grocery store,” he joked. “I’m not in a grocery store being Steve Smith; I’m in the grocery store looking for toilet paper, you know.”
Of course, it wasn’t much longer in the conversation about coming here and how it changed him that Smith was wiping away a single tear.
The offseason after the Panthers’ first Super Bowl run in 2003 when he was blossoming into a major star — complete with the heroics of a double-overtime game-winning walk-off touchdown in St. Louis — Smith was about to be rewarded. They were negotiating his first contract extension, the kind of money that would secure his family for generations.
He and his wife were looking at houses in Los Angeles, and they stopped to see his grandparents on East 126th Street. His late grandfather’s birthday was April 27th, and the proximity of that caught Smith Friday, as he recalled how proud he was as he showed his grandson his photo on the cover of the Sporting News.
He paused to collect himself before continuing to talk about being here now.
“Charlotte’s where I live, and that’s where my family calls home,” he said. But LA’s where I’m from, and that’ll never change.”
They thought about living on both coasts, but this was where he was putting down roots. So they decided to pass on the West Coast property.
North Carolina
Most extreme solar storm in 20 years brings beautiful northern lights
“I started shooting at the end of blue hour and could see some hints of aurora on the camera screen (some purple). Then it just went crazy!” photographer Gwenael Blanck, located in central France, wrote on spaceweather.com. “The entire sky was pink on the northern horizon. The colour and structure were visible to the naked eye. Utterly crazy!!! And it was only the beginning!”
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also warned of potential disruptions in satellite and radio communications as well as power grid operations.
Geomagnetic storms are created when a surge of particles and plasma from the sun temporarily jostle Earth’s magnetosphere, sometimes resulting in the northern lights or technology disruptions. NOAA categorizes geomagnetic storms on a scale of G1 to G5, where G5 is the most severe.
The agency anticipated a severe G4 storm, but it has exceeded forecasts. Around 7 p.m. Eastern time Friday, the storm elevated to the G5 level. The last time a storm of this extreme severity hit Earth was in October 2003, resulting in power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.
The storm continued for several hours at varying strengths, ranging from moderate to severe.
Forecasts anticipated the severe storm would bring aurora displays unusually far south in the Northern Hemisphere. In Europe, the northern lights filled skies as far south as France, Spain, Italy, Austria, southern Switzerland and London. In the United States, people have reported sightings in Central Virginia’s Blue Ridge Parkway, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Mexico, Mississippi, Florida and Texas.
In the Southern Hemisphere, aurora were photographed in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and India, where they are known as aurora australis or the southern lights.
The intense geomagnetic activity is the result of several eruptions from the sun’s surface, known as coronal mass ejections. At least six erupted from the sun earlier in the week, sending a punch of solar particles and the sun’s magnetic field toward Earth.
Some of the solar particles travel along our planet’s magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, exciting nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and releasing photons of light in different colors — or the aurora.
At lower latitudes, red auroras are more common because red occurs at higher altitudes and can be seen farther away from the poles.
Geomagnetic activity is expected to persist this weekend as more coronal mass ejections hit Earth, although it may be at a less intense level.
North Carolina
Despite revenue downgrade, North Carolina anticipates nearly $1B more in cash
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina officials downgraded a projected state revenue surplus through mid-2025 by $430 million on Friday, citing lower than anticipated April 15 individual income tax payments due to recent business tax changes. Still, the state expects nearly $1 billion more to enter its coffers.
Last month, economists working for Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration and at the Republican-controlled legislature predicted formally that collections would exceed revenue budgeted for the year ending June 30 by $413 million. And that jump, they determined, would lead to another $1 billion more received in the fiscal year starting July 1 than projected in the current two-year state budget.
Now the consensus forecast indicates that the overage for this fiscal year will now be $188 million, with another $799 million expected next year, the Office of State Budget and Management and the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division said.
The economists had warned that a forecast revision might be necessary if April collections, which are usually the most volatile, deviated significantly from estimates. That’s what happened, according to the agencies. Personal income tax refunds were higher than anticipated and final payments were lower than expected, as a 2022 tax change that let certain corporations and partnerships pay state taxes, rather than owners or shareholders, for favored tax treatment led to some duplicate payments.
“Fortunately, this adjustment is a one-time event,” a state budget office memo said, adding that “despite this downward revision, the economic outlook for North Carolina remains unchanged, with no effect on the state’s long-term growth.”
It’s unclear if the lower overcollections will make legislators more cautious about additional spending or a potential income tax rebate as the General Assembly now meets to adjust the budget’s second year. The additional monies are a small percentage compared with the nearly $31 billion that the state currently plans to spend next year.
The April forecast served as the basis for Cooper to present his budget adjustment proposal last month. It also gave Republicans confidence that there were funds to advance a measure that would set aside another $463 million to help children seeking scholarships to attend private schools and to eliminate the waitlist.
That bill needs only one House vote to send the measure to Cooper, who is strongly opposed to the larger Opportunity Scholarship program. The legislature agreed last year to remove family income limits on receiving the scholarships, resulting in a massive increase in applications. Cooper has called for a moratorium on Opportunity Scholarships while expanding public school funding.
Republican budget-writers also are considering requests from the business community and advocates for children to address the upcoming loss of federal money for grants designed to help child care centers remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters Thursday that GOP leaders were considering whether it makes sense to provide widespread tax rebates this year. Giving even $500 to every household, for example, could cost billions.
“We’re looking at it, but I don’t think there’d be an interest in doing it unless the amount we could send out would be an amount that would make a difference,” he said.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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