NEW AND IMPROVED: Turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a field-tested global satellite tracker. The Satellite Flybys app now works in all countries. | | | EQUINOX SKY SHOW: Northern Spring begins on Saturday, March 20th. To celebrate the occasion, Nature is putting on an equinox sky show. Look west after sunset for a close encounter between the crescent Moon and the Pleiades star cluster. It's a beautiful view, especially through binoculars, and a nice way to experience the equal night. FARSIDE EXPLOSION: This morning, March 20th, a coronal mass ejection (CME) billiowed over the sun's western limb. Click on the image to launch a movie of the expanding cloud recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO): Imagery from NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft suggests this was a backside event. Despite multiple views from SOHO and STEREO, however, the precise location of the blast site remains uncertain. It might be an active region which is passing through STEREO's narrow blind spot on the "anti-Earth" side of the sun. Stay tuned for updates. DRIED CODFISH: Pictures of aurora borealis usually look best with a little something extra in the field of view. Some photographers chose mountains; others prefer the Moon and stars. Peter Van den Eijnde might be the first to select dead fish: "On March 18th, during a trip to Laukvik in the Lofoten Islands of Norway, I took this picture of codfish drying in the open air," he explains. "The aurora seems to lend a hand in the process." This has been an active week for Northern Lights around the Arctic Circle, but the show is subsiding. NOAA forecasters estimate only a 10% chance of geomagnetic activity during the next 24 hours. Until the next storm, browse the gallery: March Northern Lights Gallery [previous Marches: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003] |