SUNSET SOLAR ECLIPSE: Residents of Chile and Argentina are about to witness a rare total eclipse of the sun. On Tuesday, July 2nd, the new Moon will pass across the solar disk, creating a black hole in the sky just before sunset in the two South American countries. Eclipse maps: animated, Google. Live webcasts: #1, #2, #3, #4 in Spanish! Browse: Photo Gallery.

A BRUSH WITH THE BETA TAURIDS: The beta Taurid meteoroid stream has arrived. Implicated in the 1908 Tunguska explosion over Siberia, the debris stream may be filled with rocky debris that poses a threat to Earth. An all-sky camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center recorded this beta Taurid lazily streaking across over Huntsville, Alabama, just before sunrise on June 28th:

Earth is grazing the outskirts of the debris stream now. It won't produce much of a shower, however, because the meteors are streaking out of a radiant point near the sun. Most of them are lost in glaring daylight. The meteor over Huntsville was a pre-dawn outlier.