EMERGING SUNSPOT: A new sunspot is emerging near the sun's equator. "Finally!" says Pavol Rapavy who sends this picture from Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia. Readers with solar telescopes, take a look. RED MOON OF VENUS: Tonight about 30 minutes after sunset, look west into the twilight for Venus. Found it? Scan the planet with binoculars or a small telescope. Venus has a red moon! Or so it seems. The "red moon" is Mars passing just 1/3rd of a degree from Venus. This is not an easy observation, but oddly pretty and worth a try: sky map. more images: from Tunç Tezel of Bursa, Turkey CORONAL HOLE: Japan's Hinode spacecraft is monitoring a dark hole in the sun's atmosphere--a coronal hole: Coronal holes are places where the sun's magnetic field opens up and allows the solar wind to spill out. A stream of solar wind from this hole will hit Earth on Sept. 13th, possibly sparking geomagnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend. Sept. 2008 Aurora Gallery [Aurora Alerts] [Night Sky Cameras] KASATOCHI UPDATE: When a massive cloud of volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide hits the stratosphere, where does it go next? Click here for the answer. The movie you just saw, prepared by atmospheric scientists at the University of Bremen in Germany, shows how a plume of SO2 from the eruption of Alaska's Kasatochi volcano swirled, twirled and spread throughout Earth's northern stratosphere during the month of August 2008. Click on the image to watch it again: People lucky enough to look up when the plumes passed by witnessed spectacular sunsets and sunrises. The display has subsided as the clouds have disipated--but the show is not over yet. Look carefully at the last frame of the movie. Subtle tendrils of ash and sulfate aerosols are still cross-crossing the stratosphere putting on a nice show for attentive sky watchers. Just last night Matt Champlin of Skaneateles, NY, saw the lingering ash: "The colors kept getting deeper and more beautiful for 15-20 minutes after the sunset, seemingly reflecting off of nothing in the sky." Doug Zubenel of Kansas sends a similar report: "It has been 18 days since I first spotted the ash clouds of Kasatochi over eastern Kansas, and although it was perfectly clear in the lower atmosphere tonight, the remnants persist." Kasatochi continues. Keep an eye on the sunset! September Perseid Photo Gallery [Science@NASA: Lunar Meteors] [Meteor Alerts] |