ANOTHER COMET IS FALLING TOWARD THE SUN: It's happening again. A bright comet is falling into the sun today, Nov. 9th, following two earlier sundivers on Nov. 6th and 7th. These are Kreutz comets, fragments from the breakup of a larger comet centuries ago. They fall into the sun often, although so many bright ones in such a short period of time is unusual. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
URANUS AND THE OZONE FRINGE: During yesterday's lunar eclipse, most observers saw the Moon turn red. John Stetson of Sebago Lake, Maine, saw another color, too. "Blue! It's my favorite part of a lunar eclipse," says Stetson, who captured the phenomenon in this photo:
The blue is real. It's a sign of ozone. The core of Earth's shadow is red because it is filled with sunlight scattered by aerosols in the atmosphere. Sunsets are red for the same reason. However, the edge of Earth's shadow is blue. It contains light that has passed through the upper stratosphere where ozone absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer. This is the origin of the "ozone fringe." Other observers saw it, too.
That's not the only blue thing astronomers saw during the eclipse. Uranus made an appearance, too. The 7th planet from the sun is blue, and its azure disk popped out from behind the Moon during the eclipse. Bum-Suk Yeom sends this picture from Iksan, South Korea:
"I used a 150 mm refractor to catch Uranus emerging from the shadowed edge of the Moon," says Yeom.
Ths was the end of a lunar occultation of Uranus visible from parts of North America and Asia. Normally, the faint planet would be hard to see near the edge of a full Moon, but Earth's shadow darkened the lunar disk enough for easy visibility.
more images of Uranus: from Philip Bradbury at The Bund, Shanghai; from Dr. Ski of Valencia, Negros Oriental, Philippines; from Masayuki Nakamura of Otawara, Japan; from Shahrin Ahmad of Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia; from M. Shiraishi of Kumagaya-shi, Saitama, Japan;
Got a picture of the eclipse? Submit it here!
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STERLING SILVER HUMMINGBIRD PENDANT: This hummingbird has touched space. On Sept. 22, 2022, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched the sterling silver pendant to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon, more than 117,710 feet high:
You can have it for $149.95. The students are selling hummingbird pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the bird and red lily in flight, and telling the story of their trip to the stratosphere and back again.
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