FLYBY ALERT! Space shuttle Discovery launched on May 31st. Get your flyby alerts from Space Weather PHONE | | | SPACE SHUTTLE: Discovery has left the planet. The space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral yesterday and now it is chasing the International Space Station around Earth. Discovery is on a mission to deliver a new Japanese science lab and robotic arm to the ISS along with spare parts to repair the station's malfunctioning toilet. If all goes as planned, the two spacecraft will dock on Monday, June 2nd, at 1:54 pm EDT. Sightings: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5. 3D MARS: Grab your 3D glasses. Graphic artist Patrick Vantuyne of Belgium has combined images from the left and right eyes of Phoenix's stereo camera to produce two spectacular anaglyphs of Phoenix's landing site. Click here and here to experience martian 3D. ICE UNDERFOOT? NASA's Phoenix lander is on a mission to find ice in the martian arctic. Mission accomplished? Without even digging into the ground, Phoenix may have already spotted a slab of ice directly underfoot: This contrast-enhanced image was taken on May 29th by Phoenix's Robotic Arm Camera (RAC). Mission scientists believe the exhaust from Phoenix's descent engine has blown off a layer of topsoil to reveal a portion of frozen water beneath. On the other hand, it could be a rock. "We'll test the two possibilities by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera," says Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, a co-investigator for Phoenix's arm. "If the hard features are ice, they should become brighter [in the days ahead] because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice." (Update: Evidence is mounting that the features beneath Phoenix are truly ice: more.) IN THE SHADOW OF A SPIDERWORT: Yesterday, photographer Shane Finnigan of Ottawa, Ontario, knelt down in the grass, and with the shadow of a purple spiderwort falling across his camera, he snapped this picture: Photo details: Canon 10D, ISO 100, 16mm lens, 1/200 sec at f22 The petals of the flower blotted out the sun, revealing a delicate 22o halo. In the photo's lower right corner we see the source of the display: icy cirrus clouds. Ice crystals in high, cold clouds catch the rays of the sun and bend them as shown. Very pretty! Says Finnigan, "the halo lasted for nearly 5 hours," which is a long time to crouch in the flowers. Fortunately, it is possible to see these common rings of light while standing up. more images: from Doug Zubenel of Johnson Co., Kansas; from John Gauvreau of Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania; from Darrell Oake of Dartmouth Nova Scotia, Canada; from Michael Boschat of Halifax, Nova Scotia; from Peter Delincak of Slovakia; from Brian Larmay of Oak Creek, Wisconsin; from Francesc Pruneda of Palamos, Girona, Spain; from Tina Olholm of Bergen, Norway; from Daniel Fernández of Oulu, Finland; May 2008 Aurora Gallery [Aurora Alerts] [Night-sky Cameras] |