VERY QUIET SUN: Despite the emergence of two new sunspots (AR2774 and AR2775), solar activity remains very low. The sun's X-ray output is flat, and the chance of solar flares today is no more than 1%. Almost a year after it began, Solar Cycle 25 has not yet broken the doldrums of Solar Minimum. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.
THE ALIEN WORLD IN OUR OWN BACKYARD: Most worlds in the Solar System are staggeringly far away. Tens, even hundreds of millions of miles separate us from them. Have you ever tried to see a crater on Mercury or a glacier on Pluto through a backyard telescope? Be prepared to use your imagination!
Not so, the Moon. It's the alien world in our own backyard. And the view through small telescopes is spectacular:
Italian amateur astronomer Alessandro Bianconi took this picture of crater Plato on October 10th. His 14-inch telescope revealed towering mountains, lava plains, and striking shadows cast by the 2-km-tall jagged peaks, which ring the ancient crater. The full-size image is a must see! Browse our gallery for more Moonshots.
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THE PINK AURORA PEARL: Inspired by the color of rare pink auroras, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a pink pearl to the stratosphere on Sept. 25th. It hitched a ride onboard the students' cosmic ray balloon, and reached an altitude 112,205 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:
You can have it for $249.95. The students are selling space pearls to support their cosmic ray monitoring program. Measuring 9 mm in diameter, the Aurora 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.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
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