SUN-EARTH DAY: March 20th is the vernal equinox--the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. To celebrate the change of seasons, NASA is hosting a special Sun-Earth Day webcast. Tune in on Friday at 1 pm EDT to hear a panel of solar physicists discuss recent discoveries and teach students how to make their own space weather forecasts. SPACESHIP SIGHTINGS: For the next 7 days, space shuttle Discovery will be docked to the International Space Station (ISS). Together, the two spacecraft are so bright "they shine through clouds and pine trees," says Jamie Jones who witnessed a flyby over Cheney, Washington, last night: "It was a great opportunity to test out my new Kodak ZD8612 IS," he says. "The streak shows how far the ISS moved during the 16-second exposure." When Jones took the picture, Discovery astronauts Steve Swanson and Ricky Arnold were asleep inside the space station's Quest airlock. Spending the night in reduced air pressure prepares their bodies for spacewalking. On Thursday, March 19th, they will step outside for 6.5 hours to install the space station's new 32,000-lb S6 truss segment, the final piece of the station's massive exoskeleton. Space station construction is such a big deal, you can actually see it happen through backyard telescopes. Click here for viewing times. more images: from Abe Megahed of Madison, Wisconsin; from Ken Scott of Suttons Bay, Michigan; from Clair Perry of Charlottetown - Prince Edward Island, Canada; from Jacob Kuiper of Steenwijk, the Netherlands; RAINBOW PLANET: Something special is happening to Venus. The brightest of all planets is hanging low in the western sky at sunset, and if you look at it with a backyard telescope, you'll see that it is a slender 3% crescent. But that's not the special part. What's special is, Venus looks like a rainbow: Make that a "living rainbow," says photographer Peter von Bagh, who noted a vigorous shimmering of Venus' rainbow colors when viewed through the turbulent atmosphere of Porvoo, Finland. He took the picture above using an 8-inch telescope and a Canon EOS 400D. Venus resembles a rainbow because Earth's atmosphere acts like a prism. When Venus is near the horizon, refraction separates the red crescent from the blue. The crescent is so thin, the splitting of colors is obvious. Later this month, Venus will disappear into the glare of the spring sun--so catch the rainbow planet while you can! more images: from Mark D. Marquette of Boones Creek, Tennessee; from Lecleire Jean-Marc of Torcy, France; from P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from Eugene Miller of Brooklyn, New York; from Sam Cole of Austin, Texas; from Matteo Marzo of Rome, Italy; from Maurice Gavin of Worcester Park SW London UK; from Zlatko Pasko of Stara Pazova, Serbia; from Radek Karwacki of Ostrzeszów, Poland; from Sadegh Ghomizadeh of Tehran, Iran; from Joe Ricci of Rochester, New York; from Elias Chasiotis of Markopoulo, Greece; from Lorenzo Comolli of Tradate (VA), Italy; from Paul Kinzer of Galesville, Wisconsin; from Alan Simpson of Renfrew, Scotland; from Frederic Caron of Victoriaville, Qc, Canada; from Paul Schneider of Wilton, Connecticut; March 2009 Aurora Gallery [previous Marches: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002] Comet Lulin Photo Gallery [Comet Hunter Telescope: review] [Comet Lulin finder chart] Explore the Sunspot Cycle |