The
space station is visible in the night sky this month.
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PHONE.
SUNSET
PLANET:
When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look
west. As the sky fades to black, you'll see Mercury pop
out of the twilight. The Incredible
Shrinking Planet is making a rare appearance in the
evening sky: finder
chart.
SPACE
STATION SIGHTINGS:
This week and next, the International Space Station (ISS)
will perform a series of beautiful passes over North America.
It's easy to see--you just have to know when
to look.
On
Feb. 13th, Ed Morana
of Livermore, California, caught the ISS transiting the
moon's Sea of Nectar:
Movie: gif
(200k), mpeg
(1.2 MB), Windows
Media (250k)
"This
is a composite of 8 images I extracted from video,"
says Morana, who used a 10-inch telescope and a CCD camera
to observe the transit: details.
Although space station transits of the moon have been
recorded before, this one is probably the finest to date.
The station's solar panels, radiators and living quarters
are marvelously distinct.
AURORA
SURPRISE:
A solar wind gust hit Earth's magnetic field on Feb 19th,
sparking a geomagnetic storm and auroras across parts
of North America. "What a nice surprise on President's
Day," says Andre
Clay who snapped this picture from Harding Lake, Alaska:
A
US Air Force DMSP
satellite photographed the same auroras from above. In
the satellite
image, the most intense ribbons of aurora-light rival
the manmade city lights of Fairbanks.
The
auroras have subsided, but Earth remains inside a high-speed
solar wind stream. Another good gust could trigger more
Northern Lights: gallery.
SPACE WEATHER
SPACE WEATHER
