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. | | | DOUBLE FLYBY ALERT: Space shutte Atlantis has undocked from the International Space Station and is set to land at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, May 26th. Meanwhile, the spacecraft are circling Earth together, two bright star-like objects gliding through the night sky side by side. It's a must-see. Check the Simple Satellite Tracker or your iPhone to see if you are favored with a double flyby. SIZZLING SUNSPOT: Yesterday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) peered into the dark heart of sunspot 1072 and found it sizzling with activity. Click on the image to set the scene in motion: The curvaceous arcs in this extreme ultraviolet (171 Å) image are magnetic flux tubes filled with million-degree plasma. Occasionally, a magnetic instability causes an explosion, a minor solar flare, which appears in the movie as a brief flash of light. None of these B-class flares was strong enough to affect Earth; they were merely photogenic. According to NOAA forecasters, sunspot 1072 harbors energy for flares 100 times stronger than this, and there is a 10% chance of such an M-class eruption during the next 24 hours. Shortwave radio blackouts, sudden ionospheric disturbances, and some fantastic movies from SDO could be in the offing. Stay tuned. AMAZING TRANSIT: On May 22nd in Switzerland, Thierry Legault photographed the International Space Station (ISS) and space shuttle Atlantis passing directly in front of the sun. The docked spacecraft raced past sunspot 1072, framed by "solar fire": View the full-disk transit "I have never had such good seeing conditions and this image surpasses any transit image I've done before," says Legault. "The sunspot area is also very sharp." He recorded the split-second transit using a solar-filtered 6" refracting telescope. NASA's shuttle program is coming to an end later this year, and Atlantis is making her final scheduled visit to the ISS. For this reason, the STS-132 mission patch shows Atlantis heading into the sunset. There is, however, a possibility that Atlantis might fly again. If so, make that sunset a solar transit. more transit photos: from Yvan Trembley of Chamalieres, France; from Emmanuel Rietsch of Switzerland; from Dirk Lucius of Leer, Germany; from Jerome Delpau of Moncé en Belin, France May 2010 Aurora Gallery [previous Mays: 2008, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002] [aurora alerts] |