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ATLANTIS LANDS IN
CALIFORNIA: Space shuttle Atlantis landed
today at 8:39 a.m. PDT at Edwards Air Force Base in California,
completing the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Atlantis' astronauts conducted five successful spacewalks during
their STS-125 flight. The improvements and repairs they made to
the orbiting observatory will extend Hubble's life to 2014 and possibly
beyond. [more]
BUSY SUN:
The sun is still in the pits of a deep
solar minimum. Lately, however, attentive observers of solar
activity have noticed a certain "busy-ness" on the solar
disk. Eric Roel sends this May 23rd snapshot from his backyard observatory
in Valle de Bravo, Mexico:
Captured in the photo are five dark magnetic filaments,
an emerging sunspot, and a fiery prominence dancing along the solar
limb. By the stormy standards of Solar Max, this is a very quiet
sun, but it shows signs of life not seen in many months of ongoing
solar minimum. According to a panel of NOAA and NASA experts, Solar
Cycle 24 will awaken in late 2009 or early 2010 and surge to a peak
in May 2013. This could be the beginning.
more images: from
Alan Friedman of Buffalo, NY; from
Matthias Juergens of Gnevsdorf, Germany; from
Mike Strieber of Las Vegas, NV; from
Steve Wainwright of Swansea South Wales UK; from
Didier Favre of Brétigny-sur-Orge, France;
HELICOPTER GLORY:
When flying over a cloud-topped volcano
on a sunny day, don't forget to look down at your shadow. This photo
submitted by adventure photographer Mila
Zinkova shows why:
"Last week we took a helicopter over Mauna Loa
on the Big Island of Hawaii," says Zinkova. "On the clouds
below, our shadow was surrounded by a colorful solar glory."
Glories are rings of light around your shadow. They
are caused by sunlight reflected backwards from water droplets in
the clouds. Exactly how backscattering produces the colorful rings
is a mystery
involving surface waves and multiple reflections within individual
droplets. Each sighting is a puzzle--all the more reason to seek
them out.
Helicopters and volcanoes are not required for glories.
All you need is a high perch and moist clouds. Look for them on
mountains and hillsides, from aircraft
and in sea
fog and even indoors.
more images: from
Arnaudet Patrice high above the French Alps; from
Valentin Grigore flying over Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and
Romania;
April
2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Aprils: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2004,
2003, 2002]
Explore
the Sunspot Cycle
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