SOLAR ECLIPSE ON JUNE 21ST: On the first day of northern summer, the sun will disappear. The Moon will pass directly in front of the sun on June 21st, creating a "ring of fire" over parts of Africa, the Middle East, the Himalaya, and Asia. Play this movie for a preview of the annular solar eclipse.
DYING COMET SWAN: Last month, Comet SWAN (C/2020 F8) had a close encounter with the sun. It didn't go well. Since the comet skimmed the orbit of Mercury on May 27th, SWAN has plummeted in brightness, a sign that solar heating may have broken its core apart. At least it still has a tail! Andrea Aletti of Campo dei Fiori Mount, Varese, Italy, photographed the green gaseous plume just before sunrise on June 5th:
"Despite bright moonlight and some clouds, 'Evanescent' Comet SWAN was visible 6 degrees above the horizon," says Aletti, who took the picture using a 14-inch Celestron telescope.
Back at the beginning of May, astronomers were excited about Comet SWAN. It had just undergone a naked-eye outburst and seemed poised to become a bright comet, widely visible by even casual stargazers by the time June arrived. But you know what they say about comets.
Now Comet SWAN is interesting for a different reason. It's dying. Amateur astronomers can witness the end, but it won't be easy. Comet SWAN rises in the northeast just before sunrise, surrounded by twilight and almost 20 times too faint to see with the unaided eye (magnitude +9.5). Photographers who like a challenge should point their optics here.
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ARCTIC WOLF PENDANT: This wolf glows in the dark--and it's been to space. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this special pendant to the stratosphere on April 15, 2020, on board a high-altitude cosmic ray balloon. The payload of radiation sensors (and lupine jewelry) traveled 107,611 feet above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the wolf in flight and describing its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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