Did
you miss last night's auroras? Next time get a wake-up
call from Spaceweather
PHONE.
AURORA
WATCH:
Sky watchers from Scandinavia to Alaska should be
alert for auroras tonight. A solar wind stream is
buffeting Earth's magnetic field, causing mild
but pretty geomagnetic storms.
3D
FLYBY:
Get ready to cross your eyes. On March 28th, when asteroid
2006
VV2 flew past spiral galaxy M81,
two photographers on opposite sides of the USA photographed
the encounter. A cross-eyed view of their photos makes
the asteroid pop out in startling 3D:
(Hint:
Stare at the middle of this
image and cross your eyes until the two galaxies overlap.
Focus on the asteroid. The longer you stare, the more
pronounced the 3D sensation becomes.)
"I
produced this stereogram by combining the images of William
Keel in Tuscaloosa, AL, and Robert
Long in Vado, NM," explains Colorado astronomer
Chris Peterson.
"Because the asteroid was so close (4.6 million km),
and the baseline between the images so long (1780 km),
the parallax between the asteroid and the background stars
is significant, and the stereo effect is quite real."
[more]
MOONS
OF JUPITER:
Friday morning, March 23rd, was "amazing," says
astrophotographer Mike
Salway of Australia. "The sky was clear, seeing
was superb," and this is what he saw when he pointed
his 12-inch telescope at Jupiter:
The
orb at lower right is Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede, almost
as large as Mars. Just above it hovers Europa, home to
the solar system's largest underground oceans.
Now
click on the image to set the scene in
motion!
"I
love watching Ganymede and Europa move across Jupiter
-- they give a 3D perspective and really do appear to
float above the planet," says Salway. "There's
detail on Ganymede in practically every frame as well,
even when it is in front of Jupiter."
Ready
to see for yourself? Wake up at dawn and point
your
telescope south. Jupiter is the brightest "star"
in the morning
sky--you can't miss it.
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