A HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: It is shaped like a giant L. A hole in the sun's atmosphere is turning toward Earth and sending a stream of solar wind in our direction. First contact on Nov. 7th could spark G1/G2-class geomagnetic storms and high-latitude auroras. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

JUPITER EXPERIENCES THE ' BLACK DROP' EFFECT: On Nov. 3rd, the Moon passed in front of Jupiter over Malaysia, and Shahrin Ahmad was ready. A "terrible haze" had been covering southeast Asia, and it lifted just in time for him to film Jupiter sinking behind the lunar limb from Kuala Lumpur:

Click here to watch the movie

In the full video, Jupiter seems to melt. The Moon’s edge should have sliced it like a crisp disk. Instead, the planet slumped into a glowing dome that flared out and dripped into the lunar surface.

It looked like a famous atmospheric optics display--the "omega sunset." Yet the Moon has no atmosphere. What’s going on?

Ahmad captured a version of the "black drop effect." Astronomers have seen it for centuries during transits of Venus across the sun. As Venus touches the sun’s edge, it stretches into a dark teardrop. 18th-century observers blamed Venus’s atmosphere, but they were wrong. In 1999, NASA’s TRACE spacecraft saw the same drop when airless Mercury transited the sun.

You can re-create the phenomenon with your own hand.

Hold your thumb and forefinger a few inches above a table under a single lamp. Slowly close the gap. The shadows bulge toward each other and snap together before your fingers touch. This is sometimes called the "shadow blister effect."

A bit like real-life fingertips, edges seen through a telescope have soft, fuzzy halos, smeared by the optics and by Earth's shimmering air. When two edges get close, their halos overlap. On Nov. 3rd, the glowing halos of Jupiter and the Moon blended, and--voilà-- the planet appeared to melt into the lunar limb.

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SANTA GOT RUN OVER BY A T-REX: You can't by this on Amazon. The Santa Got Run Over by a T-Rex Christmas Ornament is only available from the Earth to Sky Store. On Oct 28, 2026, it flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:

You can have it for $98.95. Santa's Boots vanishing down the gullet of a T-Rex are a unique addition to any Christmas tree. With your purchase, you will also receive a Christmas card showing the ornament in flight, and certifying that it has traveled to the edge of space and back again.

The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling space ornaments to support their high-altitude balloon program. Every purchase helps pay the helium bill. Thank you!

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SWIFT RE-ENTRY UPDATE: According to the Aerospace Corporation, NASA’s Swift observatory will reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 4th at 10:12 UTC +/- 8 hours. Debris can only come down between latitudes 20.6N and 20.6S, so observers in the tropics (including Hawaii and Puerto Rico) have the best chance of seeing the fireball: Updated ground tracks.

THE MYSTERY OF SATURN'S SPOKES: Half a century after they were discovered, astronomers still don't know what causes unpredictable dark marks called "spokes" in Saturn’s rings. Amateur astronomer "Neo" photographed the phenomenon from his backyard observatory in the Netherlands:

"This is a 40 minute timelapse on Oct. 5th, only one day after Saturn’s closest approach to Earth," says Neo.

Spokes were discovered in 1976 when amateur astronomer Stephen O’Meara noticed faint streaks radiating across Saturn’s B ring through a 9-inch telescope at Harvard. He initially called them "spikes." Professionals dismissed the sighting as an optical illusion--until NASA’s Voyager 1 photographed the same features in 1980.

When spokes are fresh, they have a sharp radial shape. Within hours, they spread out into the kind of amorphous smudge Neo saw.

Spokes may be clouds of dust levitated by a meteor strike. That's one theory. Another is that giant thunderstorms on Saturn zap the rings with beams of electrons. Electrically charged dust grains float above the rings in dark clouds. A third theory involves solar wind, which can levitate dust particles near Saturn's equinox.

Now is a good time to look for spokes. Saturn is within a month of its closest approach to Earth, and it is shining brightly in the midnight sky--an easy target for backyard telescopes. Submit your images here.

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EARTHGRAZING METEORITE RING: The iron in this meteorite ring has an interesting history. Thousands of years ago, an asteroid skipped across the top of Earth's atmosphere, creating a field of debris in China almost 500 km long. This ring was fashioned from one of the earthgrazing fragments:

On Aug. 3, 2026, we sent it back. The ring flew to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon, above 99.4% of the atmosphere.

You can have it for $279.95. The iron fragment comes from the Altai Mountains in China, and is known as an "Aletai meteorite." Widmanstätten patterns on the ring confirm its celestial origin, and an accompanying full-color greeting card shows the ring in flight.

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