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METEOR SHOWER: Mars is joining forces with the Perseid meteor shower for a lovely sky show on Friday, August 12th. Get the full story from Science@NASA.
SOLAR FORECAST: The sun has been remarkably blank and quiet lately. Don't be surprised, though, if solar activity surges later this week. For days, something on the farside of the sun has been exploding and throwing coronal mass ejections (CMEs) over the sun's limb. One of these CMEs is pictured below:
A SOHO coronagraph image; July 24, 2004.
Whatever's "over there"--probably a big sunspot--might soon turn toward Earth as the sun rotates. Keep an eye on the sun's eastern limb in the days ahead.
MARTIAN ICE: If you look at Mars through a backyard telescope, one thing stands out: the vast white ice cap at the planet's south pole. It's huge. Don't wait too long to look, though, because the ice is receding. Springtime sunshine at that end of Mars is heating the ice and sublimating it. At this rate, the polar cap won't last long.
In Houston, Texas, using a 14-inch telescope, Ed Grafton took this picture of Mars's south polar cap on July 22nd:
Martian ice, by the way, is not the same as Earth-ice (frozen water). Most ice on Mars is "dry ice," i.e., frozen carbon dioxide. We don't find much dry ice lying around on Earth because the freezing point of carbon dioxide is -79 degrees C. Earth doesn't get that cold, but on Mars such temperatures are common.
more images: from Joel Warren of Amarillo, Texas; from Larry Owens near Atlanta, Georgia;
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