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AURORA WATCH: A solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun will hit Earth tonight or tomorrow. This could cause a geomagnetic storm and auroras over Alaska and Canada.
POLLEN CORONAS: It begins with a sneeze. Pollen floating through the air tickles your nose, and your body responds by expelling the allergen. Gesundheit!
That's German for "look at the Sun." Not really, but look anyway. The same pollen that makes you sneeze can also make beautiful coronas around the Sun, like this one photographed by Peggy Haggadone and Chris Byczek in Lewiston, Michigan:
Specks of pollen are very small, and when they float through the air they diffract sunlight, forming the softly-colored rings of light in Haggadone's photo. Tiny crystals of ice or droplets of water in the air can do the same thing--but unlike pollen they do not cause sternutation.
more images: from Peter-Paul Hattinga Verschure of Deventer, The Netherlands; from Helmut Groell of Moers, Germany; from Barb Robertson overlooking the Ottawa River, Ontario, Canada;
COMET SIDEKICK: Fragment B of crumbling comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has a tiny sidekick, shown here in images from astronomer Paolo Corelli of the Mandi Observatory in Pagnacco, Italy:
Note: Corelli's 18-inch telescope was tracking the comet. Background stars appear as diagonal streaks: more.
The "sidekick" is probably a chunk of dusty ice that broke away from Fragment B, which has been crumbling furiously for weeks. Comet 73P made its closest approach to Earth on May 14th. It is still nearby (6 million miles away) and an easy target for backyard telescopes. Look for it around 4 o'clock in the morning in the constellation Pegasus: sky map.
more images: from Rudolf Dobesberger of Austria; from Paolo Candy in the Cimini Mountains of Italy.