Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. AURORA WATCH: Sky watchers in Russia, Scandinavia, Canadas and Alaska should be alert for auroras tonight. A fast solar wind stream is blowing against Earth and causing high-latitude geomagnetic storms: gallery. CORONAL RAIN: "Each time I look at the Sun there is beauty," says Gary Palmer of Los Angeles, California. "Yesterday, I couldn't take my eyes off a prominence dancing along the southwestern limb." He calls this movie, made using his SolarMax90 sun-filtered telescope, Coronal Rain: Click to view the IMAX version! (11.3 MB) "What a day!" says Palmer. A full-screen "IMAX version" of the movie is guaranteed to impress: click to play. more images: from Greg Piepol of Rockville, Maryland; from J. Fairfull and J. Stetson of South Portland, Maine. MERCURY REVEALED: Before this week, maps of the planet Mercury were mostly blank. Mariner 10 flybys of the 1970s had photographed only 45% of the planet's surface. But now the unseen side has been revealed: NASA's Messenger spacecraft took this picture from a range of 17,000 miles on Jan. 14, 2008. At first glance, it seems to show little more than a repetitive expanse of craters. But researchers are excited. One of the craters is the giant Caloris Basin never before seen in its entirety. Formed by the impact of a large asteroid or comet, Caloris is one of the largest and perhaps youngest basins in the Solar System. Close-up photos of the 800-mile-wide crater (still being downloaded from the spacecraft) may reveal new things about the history of Mercury and the physics of catastrophic impacts. SEE FOR YOURSELF: This month, you can see Mercury with your own eyes; just look west any evening after sunset. "As the twilight deepened, Mercury stepped onto the stage and sparkled like a superstar!" reports Doug Zubenel of DeSoto, Kansas. He took these pictures on Jan. 15th. Comet 17P/Holmes Photo Gallery [World Map of Comet Sightings] [sky map] [ephemeris] [3D orbit] [comet binoculars] |