SUNSET SKY SHOW, AGAIN: A month ago, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon aligned beautifully for evening sky watchers around the world. Tonight it’s happening again. On March 25th and 26th, the three will form a bright triangle in the western sky at sunset. Marek Nikodem photographed the early stages of the convergence over Szubin, Poland, on March 24th:
Observing tip: Try catching them before the sky fades completely black. Bright planets are extra-beautiful when they are framed by twilight blue. Sky maps: March 25, March 26.
Space Weather News for Nov. 13, 2011
http://spaceweather.com
SOLAR ACTIVITY: The sun is putting on one of its best displays of the new solar cycle–not with sunspots and flares, but rather with towering walls of plasma and filaments of magnetism. One dark filament is stretching more than a million kilometers across the face of the sun, about three times the distance between Earth and the Moon. Visit http://spaceweather.com for pictures and more information about these remarkable structures.
Use the link below to find when the space station will be visible in the next few days. In general, the space station can be seen either in the hour or so before dawn or the hour or so after sunset – this is because it is dark and yet the Sun is not too far below the horizon so that it can light up the space station.
Note: I observed the ISS three times recently and was amazed as to how bright it has become.
Find details of sighting possibilities from your location from: Location Index
See where the space station is now: Current Position
We watched the sun slowly disappear in the horizon. It looked so beautiful.
I wanted to learn more about the sun and here are some cool things I found out.
Are there other Suns in our Solar System?
There is only one sun in our solar system but there are billions of stars in the Universe, and many of them are “suns” for other planetary systems. As we discover more extra-solar planets, we discover more “suns”.
What’s a Heliologist?
A heliologist would be a person who studies the Sun.
What elements are found in the Sun?
Sun contains all of the naturally occurring elements, although some are very, very rare. The Sun is mostly hydrogen (90%), and helium (9%). Everything else is only 1% of the Sun. If you are asking what states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) are in the Sun, the Sun is 100% gas, and more exactly it is a plasma, which is an electrically charged.
How Hot is the Sun’s Core?
The temperature of the Sun’s core is about 15 million degrees Kelvin or about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
How long has the sun been burning?
The Sun has been burning for about 5 billion (5,000,000,000) years. Our Galaxy is more than 10 billion years old, and new stars are forming all the time.
How far is the Sun from the earth?
If there was a highway and we had to drive at 65 miles per hour and you drive non-stop 24 hours a day with no meal or bathroom breaks, it should take 163 years and 120 days to get to the Sun from the Earth.
How much does the Sun weigh?
The Sun weighs about 300,000 times the total weight of the Earth.
Facts researched by Sana Desai, Sunset photo taken on Friday 26th November
- Sand Point Beach, Florida
Alexis and Brandon Hammond took this fantastic photo of Jupiter through a telescope on Sept. 20, 2010 from Veterns Memorial Park. Brandon described what he saw through the telescope as a "golf ball". Lexi said it looked as though it was sand paper.
Everyone should sign up for this! It is exciting for parents as well as for the children to see the wonders of the night sky.
Then write your comments here, telling what you witnessed!
By: Mrs. Brunette on September 29, 2010
at 4:26 am