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SOLAR WIND: A full day earlier than expected, Earth has entered a high-speed solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. Sky watchers in Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia should be alert for auroras.
PHASES OF VENUS: Like the Moon, Venus has phases, and this week Venus is a crescent. To be precise, it is an expanding crescent. Every night it grows longer and thinner. This 6-month sequence of pictures taken by "Wah!" of Hong Kong illustrates what's happening:
The crescent is expanding because Venus is approaching Earth. At the same time, it is narrowing because Venus is turning its dayside away from Earth, showing us more and more of its dark nightside.
These two effects compete. Growing makes Venus brighter, narrowing makes Venus dimmer. For the next two weeks, growing wins: Venus will be at its peak brightness. Would you believe, bright enough to cast shadows? See for yourself: sky map.
more images: from Ron Wayman of Tampa, Florida;
STEREO SUN: Grab your red-blue glasses. Greg Piepol of Rockville, Maryland, has created an eye-popping stereo view of the sun. Click on the image, below, for full effect:
"This image," explains Piepol, "is a combination of several real solar images taken between March 2004 and April 2005." When viewed through red-blue glasses, the sun's disk and surface features, including sunspots, filaments and prominences, jump out at you.
"The original images were rendered with PhotoShop's 3D Transfer feature and then converted with Callipygian 3D," he adds. "Making these is a fun activity on rainy days!" [more]
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