SUNSET PLANETS: Tonight, when the sun goes down, step outside and look west. Venus, Mercury, and the crescent Moon are lining up in the sunset sky. Venus and the Moon will pop out of the twilight first, followed by Mercury as the sky darkens. Sky maps: May 23, 24.
Shahrin Ahmad sends this picture from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:
"It was a totally mesmerizing conjunction between the Moon, Venus and Mercury just now," says Ahmad. "Luckily, the sky cleared out nicely after sunset."
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NOCTILUCENT CLOUD SIGHTINGS (UPDATED): Around the north pole, noctilucent cloud (NLC) season is underway. NASA's AIM spacecraft spotted the first NLCs from polar orbit on May 17th. This weekend, people on the ground saw them, too. Kairo Kiitsak sends this picture from Simuna, Estonia:
"This is something new for me," says Kiitsak. "I've seen NLCs before, but never so early in the season." The clouds were also sighted in Helsinki, Finland and Jelgava, Latvia.
NLCs are Earth’s highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the ground. The clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise up to the mesosphere, allowing water to crystallize around specks of meteor smoke.
The 2020 NLC season is beginning ahead of schedule. AIM's detection of clouds over the north pole on May 17th marks the 2nd-earliest start to a season since the spacecraft was launched 14 years ago. Ground-based observers often don't see their first clouds until early June.
Northern sky watchers should be alert for more NLCs in the evenings ahead. The clouds can appear after sunset when the sun is more than 6o below the horizon: diagram. They glow electric-blue against the darkening twilight sky and are often filled with finely-structured ripples sculpted by rarefied winds at the edge of space.
UPDATE--A Russian rocket might be involved: On May 22nd, a Soyuz-2 rocket launched from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome, propelling a missile warning satellite into orbit. Water vapor in the rocket's exhaust likely reached the mesosphere, providing the moisture necessary to create these clouds. "The connection with the Soyuz is quite plausible," says Mike Stevens of the Naval Research Lab. Stevens is an expert in "rocket assisted NLCs." His research has linked space shuttle launches to similar displays in the late 1990s.
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THE INFINITY BLACK PEARL: It came from Tahiti--and now it's been to the edge of space. On April 15, 2020, this genuine Black Tahitian South Sea Cultured Pearl flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloon, soaring 107,611 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $249.95. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus are selling these exotic space pearls to fund their cosmic ray monitoring program.
Measuring 9 mm in diameter, the pearl is mounted on a 925 sterling silver infinity twist and suspended on a matching 17 inch long sterling silver chain. Each pearl comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.
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