THE HARVEST MOON: Tonight's full Moon has a special name: The Harvest Moon. It's the full Moon closest to the northern autumnal equinox. Long ago, farmers depended on the light of the Harvest Moon to gather ripening crops after dark. Post-Edison, we appreciate it mainly for its beauty. Maximum illumination occurs on Monday, Sept. 20th, at 7:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Browse: Harvest Moon Gallery.
SOLAR STORM CLOUD: A storm is brewing on the sun. High above sunspot AR2871, magnetized clouds of plasma are swirling in a tempest more than 300,000 km wide. Michael Karrer sends this movie from his backyard observatory in Austria:
"This is one hour of activity compressed into ~5 seconds," says Karrer. "It's a very dynamic prominence."
The cloud traces an unstable network of magnetic fields overlying and surrounding sunspot AR2871. Although the sunspot just emerged over the sun's southeastern limb, it's not new. We've seen it before. AR2871 is actually old sunspot AR2860, returning after a two-week trip around the farside of the sun.
During its previous appearance in late August, the sunspot produced 1 M-class flare and 21 C-class flares. Today's storm cloud could portend even more eruptions. Stay tuned. Instant solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
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STERLING SILVER OPAL PENDANT: It may be our most beautiful space pendant ever: The Sterling Silver Opal. Earth to Sky Calculus just launched one to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon. Here it is floating 103,018 ft above Earth's surface on Sept. 5th:
You can have it for $179.95. The opal is wrapped in a sterling silver Celtic love knot and suspended from a matching chain. Anyone who receives this far-out gift will be impressed by the accompanying greeting card, which shows the opal in flight and tells the story of its trip to the edge of space.
Opals are cousins of blue moonstones; in fact, they look much the same in low light. But when bright sunlight strikes an opal, something special happens. A spray of color emerges from the stone. This happened while the opal was in the stratosphere (see above) and it remains capable of this beautiful trick back on Earth.
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