They came from outer space--and you can have one! Genuine meteorites are now on sale in the Space Weather Store. | | |
LUNAR ECLIPSE: If you live in North America, you're out of luck. Sky watchers on every other continent, however, will experience a total lunar eclipse on June 15th. The Moon will spend 100 minutes fully engulfed in Earth's shadow, making this the longest lunar eclipse in nearly 11 years. Maximum eclipse occurs on Wednesday night at 20:12 UT. [details] [animation]
SPACE STATION MARATHON: The International Space Station is putting on a rare "marathon" show for sky watchers in the northern hemisphere. In some places, the bright spacecraft is appearing as many as four times a night. On June 12th, Mark Humpage of South Kilworth, Leics, UK, captured two flybys in a single exposure:
"What an amazing night of multiple flybys over the UK," says Humpage. "I set up a tent and camera beside the water and watched all night as the space station flew overhead 4 times. This shot shows a double flyby at 0057 UT and 0232 UT. The ISS was nearly as bright as the moon, and a low lying mist added to the eerie breathtaking scene. Stunning."
Multiple flyby predictions for cities around the world are available from Spaceweather's Simple Satelite Tracker or on your cell phone. Enjoy the show!
more images: from Orlando Z. Gonzalez of Bayamón, Puerto Rico
PIPPIN'S RAINBOW: On June 8th in North Yorkshire, England, photographer Philip Jennings witnessed "possibly the brightest rainbow I have ever seen," he says. "For a while it was even double." The 'bow was so intense, even Jennings' dog Pippin paid attention:
What was Pippin thinking? No one can say for sure, but it might have gone something like this: "Do I detect a wet dog smell? This phenomenon must be related to rain."
Issac Newton confirmed Pippin's hypothesis back in the 17th century when he passed light through a prism, demonstrating that white light could be split into multiple colors. This set the stage for our modern understanding of rainbows: They are formed by the prism-action of raindrops, which reflect and refract sunlight shining into storm clouds. Whenever you see one, it does indeed herald the scent of wet dogs. Good boy, Pippin!
June 2011 Aurora Gallery
[Aurora alerts: text, voice] [previous Junes: 2010, 2008, 2001]
Midnight Solar Eclipse Gallery
[NASA: A Rare Eclipse of the Midnight Sun]
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (
PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding
new ones all the time.
On June 13, 2011 there were 1224 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach. | The official U.S. government space weather bureau |
| The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. |
| Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever. |
| 3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory |
| Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. |
| from the NOAA Space Environment Center |
| the underlying science of space weather |
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