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STRAWBERRY MOON: There's a full Moon tonight, and according to folklore it has a special name--the "Strawberry Moon." It gets its name from June-bearing strawberry plants, which have a short (three week) harvest season that begins about now. Sink your teeth into a Fragaria ananassa, and enjoy the strawberry moonlight.
NOCTILUCENT CLOUD SIGHTINGS: The northern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is underway, and the clouds are growing brighter. "Last night, we saw the first NLCs over Denmark," reports Ruslan Merzlyakov of Nykøbing Mors. He took this picture just one hour past midnight on June 2nd:
At about the same time, electric-blue clouds appeared over Sweden and Russian. The Swedish display was especially vivid.
NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet's surface. The clouds are very cold and filled with tiny ice crystals. When sunbeams hit those crystals, they glow electric-blue.
Noctilucent clouds first appeared in the 19th century after the eruption of super-volcano Krakatoa. At the time, people thought NLCs were caused by the eruption, but long after Krakatoa's ash settled, the clouds remained. In recent years, NLCs have intensified and spread with sightings as far south as Utah and Colorado. This could be a sign of increasing greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere.
Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the Sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.
Realtime NLC Photo Gallery
SPACE STATION MARATHON: What's better than seeing the International Space Station glide brightly among the stars on a warm summer night? How about seeing it four times? For the next few weeks, sky watchers in the northern hemisphere can catch the ISS making multiple passes over their home towns. Photographer Alan Dyer sends this report from Gleichen, Alberta: "On the night of May 31/June 1, I was able to shoot the passage of the International Space Station on each of four successive orbits, at 90-minute intervals, from dusk to dawn."
"Seeing the space station on not one but two, three, or even four orbits in one night is possible at this time of year near northern summer solstice because the Station is now continuously lit by sunlight -- the Sun never sets from the altitude of the ISS," explains Dyer. "When the ISS should be entering night, sunlight streaming over the north pole still lights the station at its altitude of 400 km."
Satellite enthusiasts call this an "ISS marathon." Find out when to look using Spaceweather.com's Simple Satellite Tracker.
ANTARCTIC MICROBES VISIT THE EDGE OF SPACE: On Saturday, May 30th, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched approximately 100 billion Antarctic microbes to the stratosphere. During the 3 hour flight, which skirted the edge of space, the extremophiles were exposed to extreme cold (-63 oC) and doses of cosmic radiation more than 100x Earth-normal. This snapshot shows the payload 111,200 feet above Earth's surface:
The microbes are inside the little white vials on top of the payload. Take a closer look. They are Halorubrum lacusprofundi, a species that normally lives in Antarctica's Deep Lake. These microbes have developed survival tricks, such as cold-tolerant proteins, that could help them adapt to space-like environments.
Astrobiologists have long wondered if terrestrial extremophiles like this one could survive on the planet Mars. The Earth to Sky Calculus experiment aims to answer that question by flying microbes to the stratosphere, where the temperature, air pressure, and cosmic radiation environment is akin to that of the Red Planet.
The microbes parachuted back to Earth, landing in a dessicated stretch of California's Owen's Valley. Students recovered the samples less than 2 hours after they touched down. Now, the microbes are en route to the University of Maryland, where microbiologists Priya and Shil DasSarma will analyze them in their NASA-supported lab. We already know that some of the microbes survived--but how many? Stay tuned for updates.
HEY THANKS! All of the high-altitude research you see on Spaceweather.com is crowd funded. Saturday's flight of the Antarctic microbes was sponsored by Coady Torio of Monroe, Michigan, who paid $500 to fly a photo of six local science students to the edge of space:
"Matthew and John Torio, Ella and Joss Harvey, Max Hassett and Evan Zdybek took their love of science to new heights thanks to Earth to Sky Calculus," says Torio. "Their school, Meadow Montessori, is the nation's only accredited Montessori school for grades K-12. The school rigorously promotes the advancement of science not only in the classroom, but at 111,200 feet into the atmosphere as well. Thank you Earth to Sky Calculus for this wonderful experience." (Earth to Sky Calculus thanks them right back!)
Readers, if you would like to send your own students to the edge of space, please contact Dr. Tony Phillips to sponsor a flight
SUNSET SKY SHOW: If you love stargazing, there's a date you should mark on your calendar. It's June. That's right, the whole month. Throughout the month of June 2015, the two brightest planets in the night sky are converging for an amazing sunset sky show. At closest approach on June 30th, Venus and Jupiter will be less than 1/3rd of a degree apart. Even now, a month ahead of time, the gathering is beautiful. Leo Caldas sends this picture from Brasilia, Brazil:
"The Hubble Space Telescope flew by the planets just as I was photographing the conjunction," says Caldas. "Perfect timing."
In the weeks ahead, Venus and Jupiter will draw steadily closer together. You can see the distance shrink every night. Dates of special interest include June 12th, when Venus passes by the Beehive star cluster. Using binoculars, scan the sky around Venus to observe the cluster. On June 19th, the crescent Moon joins Venus and Jupiter to form a bright isosceles triangle in the sunset sky. One night later, on June 20th, the triangle reappears with shape-shifted vertices. From then until the end of the month, the converging planets will rush together, seemingly on a collision course, but actually en route to a near-miss on June 30th-July 1st.
Keep an eye on the sunset sky for the rest of the month. Backyard astronomy alerts: text, voice
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