MOTHER'S DAY: Give your mom a truly heavenly gift on May 11th--a subscription to Space Weather PHONE! | | | SOLAR PROMINENCE: "Today, there is a huge prominence at the sun's northeastern limb," reports Cai-Uso Wohler, who sends this picture from Bispingen, Germany. Meanwhile in England, Les Cowley heard about the prominence, set up his SolarMax60 and was able to sketch the rapidly-changing structure right through a hazy layer of morning clouds. Readers, this is a good one. DAYBREAK: Yesterday, May 9th, as the sun was rising over Gdansk, Poland, an exploding fireball split the sky. Eye-witness Krzysztof Polakowski of the Polish Fireball Network describes it as a "magnitude -8 meteor" or 40 times brighter than Venus. He caught it in flight using his Nikon D70s: Photo details: Nikon D70s, 30s, 1600 ISO, Zenitar 2.8/16 f/3.5 Believe it or not, this shadow-casting fireball was ... nothing special. According to calculations done by Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, magnitude -8 fireballs appear somewhere on Earth around three times a day. That's almost one hundred a month! Lesser fireballs occur even more often: graph. They are caused mainly by random bits and pieces of asteroid and comet debris crashing into our atmosphere as Earth orbits the Sun. The vast majority of these "random fireballs" are never noticed. About 70% streak over uninhabited ocean; half of the remainder appear during the day, invisible in sunny skies. A great number are missed, however, simply because no one bothers to look up. So keep looking up! You never know what may be flying over your head... SUN HALO: ...or circling over your head. On May 1st, a luminous ring formed around the sun over Ontario, Canada. "It lasted more than 2 hours," reports photographer Gilbert Tennant. "Most people went on their merry way not even noticing what was taking place over their heads--that is, until I put my lens cap in front of the sun and let them see the superb circle!" Photo details: Canon XTI, Sigma 15mm zoom lens, ISO 100 This 22o radius sun halo was caused by ice in the clouds. Tiny crystals of H2O floating in high cirrus catch the rays of the sun and bend them as shown. Sun halos are even more frequent than fireballs--another good reason to watch the sky. more images: from Radek Grochowski of Swidnica, Poland; from George Boller of West Seneca, New York; from William McMullen of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada April 2008 Aurora Gallery [Aurora Alerts] [Night-sky Cameras] |