FARSIDE SOLAR ACTIVITY CONTINUES: During the past 24 hours multiple CMEs have billowed over the sun's southwestern limb. This is a sign of continued activity from a farside sunspot group, which has been exploding quasi-continuously since Dec. 3rd. The Earthside of the sun, meanwhile, is very quiet. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
AN ALIGNMENT OF PLANETS: When the sun goes down tonight, go outside and look southwest. Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon are lined up in the twilight sky. Marko Posavec photographed them last night from Lake Šoderica in Croatia:
"It was a lovely line-up of the three planets and the Moon," says Posavec. "The inset images were taken with a 700 mm lens. That's how they look through a small telescope."
The show is just getting started. For the rest of this week the Moon will hop from planet to planet, forming a series of loose conjunctions. The grand finale takes place on Dec. 10th when the four stretch themselves into a dramatic straight line across the southwestern sky.
Pro tip: Try to catch the planets before the sunset sky fades completely black. Conjunctions framed by the colors of twilight are out of this world. Sky maps: Dec. 6, Dec. 7, Dec. 8, Dec. 9, Dec. 10.
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