Sun erupts to mark another Bastille Day, aurora possible in New England Sunday night

Solar storm, largest since 2005, causes aurora borealis over Canada, Britain

_The largest solar storm since 2005, which hit Earth over the weekend and caused northern lights called auroras, peaked Tuesday after the Sun released a solar flare of radiation and plasma. As Brian Vastagreported:_ Fast on the heels of a solar storm that delivered a glancing blow over the weekend — triggering bright auroras in Canada and Scandinavia — the sun released an even more energetic blast of radiation and charged plasma overnight that could disrupt GPS signals and the electrical grid Tuesday, especially at high latitudes, space weather experts warned Monday. Already, the storm could be affecting satellite communications as streams of radiation from the sun bounce across the Earth’s magnetic field, which extends above the surface into space. With the radiation storm in progress now, satellite operators could be experiencing trouble, and there are probably impacts as well to high-frequency [radio] communications in polar regions,” said Doug Biesecker, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. Such radio blackouts can force airlines to reroute flights between North America and Europe or Asia. Biesecker said any rocket launches scheduled for Monday probably would have to be scrubbed, although he said he was unaware of any. The solar storm is the biggest since 2005, he added. The storm will peak Tuesday when a speeding cloud of plasma and charged particles blasts past Earth, distorting the planet’s magnetic field with impacts possibly ranging as far south in latitude as Texas and Arizona. _The solar storm created light shows called northern lights over England and Canada on Tuesday, with more expected in days to come. As APexplained:_ The northern lights have lit up the skies above Scotland, northern England and northern parts of Ireland — and more light shows are expected in the next few days. The northern lights are sometimes seen from northern Scotland but they were also visible Monday night from northeast England and Ireland, where such sightings are a rarity. Ken Kennedy, director of the Aurora section of the British Astronomical Association, said the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, may be visible for a few more days. The Canadian Space Agency posted a geomagnetic storm warning Tuesday after residents were also treated to a spectacular show in the night sky. Monday night’s auroras were likely just variations in normal background solar wind, not the solar storm that erupted Sunday, said physicist Doug Biesecker at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. That was the biggest solar storm in more than six years. He said a geomagnetic storm Tuesday that came from that solar storm seemed to mostly miss Earth, going a bit north, so it was unlikely that auroras would extend too far south Tuesday night. _While scientists have rated this solar storm below an extreme event, some warn of more powerful solar storms in the next few years. As Melissa Bell reported:_ Streaming toward Earth right now is a blast of radiation and charged plasma the sun released Sunday night. Space weather experts warned about possible damage to the electrical grid when the charged particles hit Earth with full force midday Tuesday. Despite the warnings that the solar storm would be the biggest since 2005, the National Weather Service is rating the storm a 3 on a scale of 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme). Prof. W. Jeffrey Hughes, director of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling at Boston University, said that the storm was significant only in relation to the past six years, but when put into historical perspective, it was probably not going to be a major storm — and that far larger storms will most likely occur over the next two years. “In the last six years, we’ve gone through the quietest solar period in more than a 100 years,” Hughes said. Next year will be a maximum peak for sun activity, so Hughes says the solar disturbances are predictable. “Activity should pick up over the next few years. This is the biggest taste of what’s going to come next year and 2014.” Solar activity waxes and wanes on a roughly 11-year cycle. Hughes says the sun has been relatively quiet since 2002. **More fromThe Washington Post ** Some may benefit from global warming Astronomers seek photo of black hole ‘Leap second’ will stay to keep clocks aligned with earth’s rotation

When space weather attacks!

On a cool September night in 1859, campers out in Colorado were roused from sleep by a “light so bright that one could easily read common print,” as one newspaper described it. Some of them, confused, got up and began making breakfast.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Farther east, thousands of New Yorkers ran out onto their sidewalks to watch the sky glow, ribboned in yellow, white and crimson. Few people had ever seen an aurora that far south — and this one lit up the whole city. At the time, it was a dazzling display of nature. Yet if the same thing happened today, it would be an utter catastrophe. The auroras of 1859, known as the “Carrington Event,” came after the sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection, a burst of charged plasma aimed directly at the Earth. When the particles hit our magnetosphere, they triggered an especially fierce geomagnetic storm that lit up the sky and frazzled communication wires around the world. Telegraphs in Philadelphia were spitting out “fantastical and unreadable messages,” one paper reported, with some systems unusable for hours.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Today, electric utilities and the insurance industry are grappling with a scary possibility. A solar storm on the scale of that in 1859 would wreak havoc on power grids, pipelines and satellites. In the worst case, it could leave 20 million to 40 million people in the Northeast without power — possibly for years — as utilities struggled to replace thousands of fried transformers stretching from Washington to Boston. Chaos and riots might ensue. That’s not a lurid sci-fi fantasy. It's a sober new assessment by Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market. The report notes that even a much smaller solar-induced geomagnetic storm in 1989 left 6 million people in Quebec without power for nine hours.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “We’re much more dependent on electricity now than we were in 1859,” explains Neil Smith, an emerging-risks researcher at Lloyd’s and co-author of the report. “The same event today could have a huge financial impact” — which the insurer pegs at up to $2.6 trillion for an especially severe storm. (To put that in context, Hurricane Sandy caused about $65 billion in damage.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The possibility of apocalypse has piqued scientific interest in solar storms for many years. But researchers are now realizing that periodic space weather can cause all sorts of lesser mischief all the time, such as disorienting GPS satellites or severing contact between polar flights and air-traffic control. So, in recent years, scores of businesses and government agencies have started to take space weather more seriously. Electric-grid operators are devising plans to reroute currents through their systems to brace for solar storms. Airlines such as Delta have developed plans to reroute flights in the case of emergency. The U.S. military has begun to realize that space-weather blips can disrupt communication in the heat of battle. But preparing for disruptions isn’t easy. Just as interest in space weather is surging, the United States is facing the loss of key monitoring satellites in the coming years, as budget cuts mean that aging systems aren’t being replaced. And scientists are rushing to plug worrisome gaps in their knowledge about these storms. The problem is far from theoretical. Last month, at a conference on space weather held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Daniel N. Baker of the University of Colorado told the audience that the sun had unleashed another large coronal mass ejection in July 2012 that traveled at speeds comparable to the Carrington Event of 1859. It missed the Earth by a week.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “Had that storm occurred a week earlier, it would have been a direct hit,” Baker said. “And we’d probably be having a very different conversation about this today.” **A year without power?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University When it comes to space weather, the foremost concern is what a solar-induced geomagnetic storm might do to electric grids around the world. At certain points in the sun’s cycle, as sunspots appear and flares erupt, the sun will eject part of its outer atmosphere, a cloud of fast-moving charged particles. If one of these coronal mass ejections hits the Earth’s magnetic field in just the right way, it can induce strong ground currents that travel through power lines, oil pipelines and telecom cables. A truly severe geomagnetic storm could create currents powerful enough to overload electric grids and damage a significant number of high-voltage transformers, which can take a long time to repair or replace. That could leave millions without power for months or years. “That’s a key vulnerability,” Smith says. “If you had a really big solar event, there just aren’t enough replacement transformers available. It can take up to 12 months to build new ones.” As it turns out, most utilities don’t keep lots of spares around. The largest transformers, which convert the electricity in high-voltage lines to lower voltages, are custom-built, can cost millions of dollars and weigh up to 400 tons. Procuring a new one is a complex process that involves lining up the necessary copper and steel supplies, working with a long chain of manufacturers and arranging specialized transport. So, the Lloyd’s report notes, if even 20 transformers in the Northeast were knocked out, the logistical challenges would be “extremely concerning.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Smith notes that the Northeast, with its aging power grid and peculiar geologic features, is especially at risk. Suffice it to say, it’s not fun to think about what would happen to the region if 40 million people had to go without power indefinitely. Take Pittsburgh: One 2004 study by Carnegie Mellon University found that a large number of the city’s services were simply unprepared for an extended blackout. Half the city would lose water after three days if the city’s electrical pumps couldn’t be revived. Grocery stores, gas stations and cellphone networks would be knocked out. Police stations would go dark. Traffic lights would blink out. Most hospitals have backup systems in place, but emergency rooms would be strained if, say, the air conditioning went out during a hot summer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “The absence of such fundamental services could lead to major and widespread social unrest, riots and theft,” the Lloyd’s report warns. In theory, power utilities could try to take precautions if they had advance notice of a major solar storm headed our way. Using existing satellites, the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., can detect an incoming event that’s about 30 minutes away.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Grid operators would have to react quickly. For example, PJM Interconnection operates a huge swath of the U.S. power grid from Illinois to the District, serving 60 million people. After receiving a warning, human operators could re-dispatch electricity to reduce the flow of current from west to east. That would minimize the grid’s vulnerability to ground currents, Frank Koza, the executive director of operations support at PJM, said at the June space weather conference in Silver Spring.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University For a modest solar storm, Koza said, PJM’s operators could respond if voltages started to drop anywhere in the system. (Pepco, which delivers electricity to 778,000 homes and businesses in the District and Maryland, is a member of PJM.) But there’s a limit to how much these strategies can help. “The one we’re really concerned about is extreme space weather, a Carrington-level event,” Koza said. “What would happen in that scenario? I would have to tell you we don’t really know.” For bigger storms, there are technologies that could harden the grid, such as capacitors that can help block the flow of ground currents induced by a geomagnetic event. In Quebec, the Canadian government has spent about $1.2 billion on these technologies since the 1989 blackout. One problem, says Chris Beck of the Electric Infrastructure Security Council, is that many of these technologies are expensive and could make the current grid slightly less efficient in its day-to-day operations. “We’ve designed our power lines to work efficiently under perfect conditions — long transmission lines, high voltages,” Beck says. Unfortunately, those characteristics make the grid particularly vulnerable to a solar storm. So there’s a trade-off. Recently, the federal government decided to take a more serious look at the issue. Last fall, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order that will eventually require grid operators to prepare both operational and technological responses to a space weather event.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Koza said he expects most grid operators to have response plans in the next year or two, but “engineered mitigation” could be another two to four years away. Insurance companies, meanwhile, are trying to figure out how to get a handle on the risk from a solar storm. Will a major one come around once every 150 years? More often than that? “We’re hoping we might one day be able to cover these risks,” says Smith of Lloyd’s, “but we’ll need to be able to quantify them more accurately.” Policymakers have also started getting involved. For a long time, conservatives such as Newt Gingrich were mostly interested in the risks to electric grids posed by a nuclear weapon that exploded in the atmosphere and induced ground currents. In June, Gingrich spoke to members of the Electromagnetic Pulse Caucus in the House, a group of 16 Republicans and two Democrats, about this possibility. “This could be the kind of catastrophe that ends civilization,” Gingrich said, “and that’s not an exaggeration.” Now that the Cold War has ended, however, many of these Cassandras have switched over to warning about solar storms, which can have a similar effect, albeit on a smaller scale. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a founder of the EMP Caucus, has pushed a bill to protect against both “natural and man-made EMP events.” And in public, he tends to put more emphasis on solar storms.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “We’re starting to see more awareness there,” Beck says, “although we’re not quite to the point where we’re actually putting solutions in place.” **Unknown risks**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Setting aside apocalyptic blackouts, solar storms and space weather can create all sorts of hiccups in the global economy that scientists are only beginning to understand. Case in point: During the Battle of Takur Ghar in Afghanistan in 2002, a U.S. helicopter team was sent in to pick up a team of Navy SEALs. The SEALs sent a message to the helicopter warning the team not to land, but for some reason, it was never received. The helicopter landed under intense fire and four Americans were killed — an event dramatized in Sean Naylor’s bestselling account of Operation Anaconda, _Not a Good Day to Die_.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Some scientists now suspect that space weather could have been to blame for the incident. At the space weather conference in June, Michael Kelly of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory presented early evidence that a form of space weather known as “scintillation” can cause disturbances in the ionosphere and disrupt local radio communications. Researchers are working to model this phenomenon more accurately. Airlines, too, have to take even lesser outbursts from the sun into account. Delta runs a number of commercial flights over the poles, such as routes between Detroit and Beijing and between Atlanta and Tokyo. But if they get a last-minute warning from the Space Weather Prediction Center of a geomagnetic storm, the planes often have to divert their routes away from the poles or risk losing radio contact with the ground. These diversions can cost thousands of dollars, Delta officials noted, so better predictions would help a great deal. And those concerns only scratch the surface. Joseph Kunches, a scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, says we’re still learning about activities that could be disrupted by solar weather. Satellite communications can go astray. Pipelines can corrode from ground currents. Even human space travel faces a threat. “Radiation is a big issue for space travel — particularly once you get away from the Earth’s magnetic field,” he says. Astronauts working outside the Earth’s protective shield can be particularly vulnerable to bursts of solar radiation, which can have harmful health effects. That means that if we ever want to wander around in space, it would be helpful to have a better grasp of space weather. “In 1972, there was actually a huge eruption that fortuitously fell between two of the Apollo flights, so the radiation didn’t hurt anybody,” Kunches says. “But it’s a problem.” And there are still plenty of unknowns. Kunches and other experts pointed to the potential impact of solar eruptions on GPS technology. Certain storms could degrade the signal as it makes its way from the satellite to the ground. GPS is built into so much of the modern economy — from navigation to geophysical exploration by oil and gas companies — that any interference with GPS signals could be quite costly. “I call it the cyber-electric cocoon we’ve built around the Earth,” says Baker, who heads the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. “There are all these relationships that most people don’t even have a clue are there, and we’re still trying to understand everything that’s at risk.” **Satellite fleet may shrink**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University One big problem that businesses are having in preparing for a space weather attack is that they’re still not sure, exactly, what to prepare for. Minor impacts occur fairly often. But when might we expect a Carrington event? Or even something like the Quebec storm in 1989? “Until we know that, the industry will be limited in its response,” said Koza of PJM Interconnection. And there’s plenty more that space scientists are still trying to grasp. It’s difficult to predict, for instance, whether a solar outburst will actually create a storm when it hits Earth. A great deal depends on how a coronal mass ejection interacts with other solar winds as it moves toward us. Kunches likens it to knowing that a hurricane is coming, but not being able to measure its barometric pressure. It would also be helpful to have more spacecraft studying the sun and giving us advance warning of storms. But, if anything, the Earth’s alert systems are about to get worse, not better. Right now, NASA operates four space satellites situated between the Earth and the sun, which together can provide roughly 30 minutes’ warning of a major solar eruption. But these satellites are all reaching the end of their planned lives (and fuel tanks), and there’s only one replacement satellite scheduled to launch in 2014.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University At the space conference in June, various speakers discussed ways to improve our ability to watch the sun. One engineer described fantastical plans for a satellite with a 100-square-meter "solar sail” that would use be steered and pushed by the sun’s photons in order to get closer and closer to the star without getting sucked in by gravity. A solar-sail satellite could, in theory, give us twice as much warning to prepare for a space storm.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University But so far, these plans are all theoretical. “There’s a real need for a truly operational, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week space weather observatory,” Baker says. “But right now, we don’t see that coming from policymakers or the agencies that would have to step up.” That means we may have to hope for a bit of luck in the years ahead. Solar activity tends to follow an 11-year cycle, with the most intense events often occurring near the peaks of the solar maximum — which, NASA says, could well arrive in late 2013 and again in 2015, although it’s difficult to predict for sure.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University That doesn’t mean the big one will hit then. For one thing, sunspot activity has been rather muted of late, and the current maximum has been surprisingly weak. But for many experts, it's a good reason to keep the sun in mind.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “We’re really on an unknown timeline here,” Beck says. “One of these could happen at any time.”

Solar storm causes spectacular aurora borealis; is there more to come?

_The solar storm that began hitting Earth over the weekend continued to affect signal traffic and cause aurora borealis, with flares of color reported over Scandinavia, Canada and beyond. As Melissa Bellreported:_ The largest solar flares since 2005 blasted past Earth on Tuesday. Despite warnings from space experts of possible interference to GPS signals, the solar storm turned out to be a mild 2 on a scale of 1 to 5. Even so, it created some spectacular aurora borealis the past few nights. _As the Associated Pressreported, the sun is likely to be more active in the next few years:_ U.S. space weather experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday evening that so far they had heard of no problems from the storm that triggered the auroras, which made it as far south as Wales, where the weather often doesn’t cooperate with good viewing. It was part of the strongest solar storm in years, but the sun is likely to get even more active in the next few months and years, said physicist Doug Biesecker at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. “To me this was a wake up call. The sun is reminding us that solar max is approaching,” Biesecker said. “A lot worse is in store for us. We hope that you guys are paying attention. I would say we passed with flying colors.” Even before particles from the solar storm reached the Earth on Tuesday, a different aurora Monday night was dancing across the sky as far south as Ireland and England, where people rarely get a chance to catch the stunning light show. Those northern lights were likely just variations in normal background solar wind, not the solar storm that erupted Sunday, Biesecker said. _Outer space weather can have large and disruptive effects on electronic devices and GPS at high altitudes even during a mild solar storm. As Brian Palmerreported _:_ _ Solar weather experts, or heliophysicists, refer to the expulsion of large amounts of particles from the sun as a coronal mass ejection. They can involve as much as 220 billion pounds of charged material. While these incidents aren’t going to blow up Earth or even noticeably alter the Washington region’s weather on a given day, they can be a very serious problem. “Solar weather events have been occurring for millions of years, but they didn’t directly affect humans until recently,” says Madhulika Guhathakurta. She’s the head scientist for NASA’s Living With a Star project, which is helping astrophysicists better understand solar weather. “Hundreds of years ago, technology was too primitive to be disturbed by space weather. Today, we rely on countless devices that are vulnerable to a solar storm.” Think of all of the material you use that requires an electrical current: computers, televisions, cellphones, etc. Every one of those things is susceptible to a massive blast of ions from the sun. Planes flying over the poles are vulnerable to coronal mass ejections. Satellites can go haywire, and even collide, as a result of solar weather events. And astronauts on the international space station are cautioned to stay inside during solar incidents to avoid a massive blast of radiation. **More fromThe Washington Post ** Some may benefit from global warming Astronomers seek photo of black hole ‘Leap second’ will stay to keep clocks aligned with earth’s rotation

Intense green aurora danced across the northern skies on Sunday (Photos)

A strong solar wind delivered the perfect ingredients for a prolonged geomagnetic storm over the weekend. The storm triggered a beautiful green aurora lit up the sky across the Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to northern Europe, and as far south as upstate New York. On Saturday afternoon, a coronal mass ejection from the sun was detected by the satellite that monitors the solar wind between Earth and the sun. These ejections are massive explosions on the surface of the sun that hurl gases as well as the sun’s magnetic field out into space. If the ejection is pointed toward Earth, geomagnetic storming and radiation storming can occur, which can disrupt satellite, GPS and radio technology and create the northern lights at high latitudes.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The wake of this coronal mass ejection contained the essential ingredient for geomagnetic storming, an intense magnetic field with an orientation opposite that of Earth’s magnetic field. That orientation is referred to as “southward Bz.” These conditions fueled sustained G1-minor to G2-moderate geomagnetic storming on Saturday night and through the day Sunday.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Even despite the very bright, nearly-full moon, the aurora was glowing intense across the Northern Hemisphere on Sunday. Space weather forecasters cannot predict prolonged periods of this southward magnetic field, but it is in the realm of possibility that the aurora will be visible again on Monday night.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _This is the hardest space weather problem, and it’s a huge threat to infrastructure_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Monday night also marks the winter solstice — the longest night of the year, and the first day of astronomical winter. Webster, N.Y.:

Photos: Solar storm spurs dazzling northern lights

A geomagnetic storm bombarded Earth’s atmosphere Sunday, setting off the northern lights at high latitudes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center rated it a moderate storm, level 2 on its 0 to 5 scale. The storm was waning when darkness settled Sunday night and aurora finally became visible in North America. But vibrant green and purple lights streaked over the Canadian skies. In the northern United States, the hues were more subtle but still sensational. Photographers in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Upstate New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Washington state all captured the spectacle. The animation, below, from Mackinaw City, Mich., is particularly impressive: The show was even better in the Southern Hemisphere, because the storm’s peak coincided with nighttime there. The image below was taken in New Zealand:  Such events have been rare over the past year because the sun’s activity is near a minimum in its approximately 11-year cycle.

Aurora borealis glows in central Virginia, seen as far south as Texas (Photos)

A series of coronal mass ejections over the past few days have hurled bursts of solar gas and magnetic field at our planet, sparking a severe geomagnetic storm and pushing the aurora borealis deep into the Lower 48.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Monday night, the northern lights were photographed in states that rarely get to witness the optical manifestation of a solar storm. The Northeast was brimming with hues of green, pink and purple, but photographers in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas and even Texas. [ _Solar eruptions trigger severe geomagnetic storm_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If you happened to head outside around 1:30 a.m. in central Virginia, you might have caught this view. A very dark sky was needed to see the aurora down here, but David Murr in Louisa, Va., shared some great northern lights with us. Another shot from The Plains, Va.: Georgia: West Virginia: Arkansas: On the Appalachian Trail near the Massachusetts-Connecticut border: From the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire: New Hampshire: Nantucket: Minnesota: South Dakota: Michigan: Pennsylvania: Colorado: Wisconsin: North Dakota: Ohio: New York:

Photos: Spectacular aurora from severe solar storm light up northern skies

The St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic storm, the most intense since fall of 2013, spurred dazzling aurora before and after sunset, and then finally faded. _[Severe geomagnetic storm spurs beautiful aurora (Photos)]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Tuesday evening, forecasts indicated a slight chance aurora would be viewable as far south as the Mid-Atlantic, but the farthest south we’ve seen reports were in Illinois, Ohio and northern New Jersey – which is nonetheless quite unusual. Some of the most dramatic aurora were seen in Iceland and northern Europe.  Parts of the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, even, were treated to an amazing light show.  And the Southern Hemisphere was not left out.  Beautiful aurora were spotted in New Zealand and Australia, too. Here’s a selection of photos from Twitter, Facebook, and the SpaceWeather.com gallery – a tremendous resource for aurora photos.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **United States**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Alaska_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Illinois_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Massachusetts_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Maine_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Michigan_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _New Jersey_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _New York_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Ohio _Wisconsin_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Europe**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **Iceland**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Finland_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Germany_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Norway_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Poland_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Sweden_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _United Kingdom_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Southern Hemisphere**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Australia_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _New Zealand_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Global**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Beautiful aurora lights up the sky as far south as the upper Midwest

A beautiful display of colors lit up the sky on Tuesday night as the Aurora Borealis dipped as far south as Michigan and Wisconsin, and intense displays of northern lights were seen at higher latitudes. This week’s heightened aurora activity is being caused by the arrival of a coronal mass ejection from August 22, with some interesting enhancements. Space.com explains:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The resulting aurora photos were fantastic, as seen on Flickr and social media:  The aurora was also cranking in the southern hemisphere:

Watch: Dazzling fireball captured on police dash cam in New England

It was a routine Tuesday morning for the officers with the Portland Police Department in Maine. But as they sat inside a cruiser looking out for speeders — FLASH! The sky lit up. It was a meteor. A dashboard camera captured it blazing through the night sky at about 12:50 a.m. “Oh my God,” Officer Graham Hults said.   “The AMS has received 330 reports so far about a fireball event over Northeastern U.S.,” the organization said. Most witnesses saw the fireball in Maine, but it was also seen in Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Ontario and Quebec, according to the AMS. Other dashboard cameras captured the fireball, including one from the police department in Cumberland, Maine. “It was the most impressive one we’ve ever seen!” the department said on Facebook. Here’s a compilation of videos capturing the fireball: While several thousand fireball-magnitude meteors pass through Earth’s atmosphere daily, many aren’t seen by humans. The majority occur over oceans and uninhabited regions and are impossible to see, thanks to daylight. “Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them,” according to the American Meteor Society. “Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event.”  As for the Portland Police Department, they had a little fun with their dash-cam video. “The meteor (or alien spaceship) was caught on camera at approximately 0050 hours,” the department posted on Facebook. “Let’s hope the visitors are friendly. They could just be some of Stephen King’s friends on their way to visit him. Whomever they are I’m sure we could win them over with a whoopie pie.”    “While we wish we were already operational, I’m just glad this didn’t happen last week as it would have been one heck of a distraction,” Barrett told the newspaper. “We are very excited.”

Aurora watch tonight — could reach as far south as the Midwest

The aurora borealis may light up the skies tonight as far south as the Midwest. A G3-strong geomagnetic storm is shaking the earth’s magnetic field as a high-speed solar wind stream sweeps by. This fast solar wind emanates from a large coronal hole, a void in the sun’s corona allowing the uninhibited solar flow to escape. About a month ago, this same coronal hole caused G2-moderate storm conditions, and lit up a brilliant aurora in the process. This time it’s slightly stronger. Stable coronal hole structures affect the earth on about a 27-day period, so we could be having this same conversation again on November 21. Expect the disturbance to linger through October 26. With a new moon on October 30, the dark sky is favorable for aurora viewing, especially at high latitudes. Baseball fans will be up anyway; if the skies are clear you might get lucky. The Cubs haven’t repeated in 108 years, the Indians in 68. Recurrent anything would be a joy to either team. Even if you’re farther south than the aurora typically stretches, this might be the night you can cross it off your bucket list. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have a shot at seeing this one, plus all the states to their north, if the clouds cooperate. In the Plains, it could reach down to Nebraska. Those of you in the state of Washington could catch a glimpse, too.  Thirteen years ago, the Halloween Storms were probably the most disruptive few weeks of space weather since the space age began with Sputnik 1957. The sun caused extreme (category 5) geomagnetic storms and radio blackouts, and severe (category 4) solar radiation storms. Satellites were disabled, power grids blacked out, and aircraft re-routed during the most intense periods of the fusillade of solar eruptions.

The aurora borealis may light up the skies tonight as far south as the Midwest. A G3-strong geomagnetic storm is shaking the earth’s magnetic field as a high-speed solar wind stream sweeps by. This fast solar wind emanates from a large coronal hole, a void in the sun’s corona allowing the uninhibited solar flow to escape. About a month ago, this same coronal hole caused G2-moderate storm conditions, and lit up a brilliant aurora in the process. This time it’s slightly stronger. Stable coronal hole structures affect the earth on about a 27-day period, so we could be having this same conversation again on November 21. Expect the disturbance to linger through October 26. With a new moon on October 30, the dark sky is favorable for aurora viewing, especially at high latitudes. Baseball fans will be up anyway; if the skies are clear you might get lucky. The Cubs haven’t repeated in 108 years, the Indians in 68. Recurrent anything would be a joy to either team. Even if you’re farther south than the aurora typically stretches, this might be the night you can cross it off your bucket list. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have a shot at seeing this one, plus all the states to their north, if the clouds cooperate. In the Plains, it could reach down to Nebraska. Those of you in the state of Washington should keep an eye out, as well.

Sun dogs delight D.C. skywatchers

This weekend was full of fantastic atmospheric phenomena. Spectators were dazzled by the aurora Friday evening, a white-hot fireball shot across the sky Sunday night, and on Sunday afternoon, sun dogs were spotted across the eastern U.S.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Sun dogs, also known as parahelia, are bright spots on either side of the sun, often associated with sun halos. Sun dogs and halos form when ice crystals in clouds refract the sun’s light like a prism. If these hexagon-shaped crystals are floating randomly all over the sky, we typically see a halo. But if they are all vertically aligned, as they would be as they sink through the air, sun dogs can appear. They are most common when the sun is low in the sky, and are always seen at the same elevation as the sun. Sun dogs can appear bright white or yellow, or they can take on a rainbow-like appearance, as they did on Sunday afternoon. While this stunning atmospheric phenomenon is fairly common, it never fails to impress. Photos of Sunday’s dogs were captured not only in Washington, D.C., but in Alabama and Massachusetts, as well. The above photo was taken by D.C. area resident Maja Andjelkovic on a trip to College Park.

Beautiful aurora timelapse captured by Mount Washington Observatory

Friday’s spectacular aurora was captured by the Mount Washington Observatory’s cameras, in addition to a beautiful show of undercast from atop the 6,300-foot New Hampshire peak. The video begins as the sun set, and clouds, known as “undercast” at these high elevations, roll around the Mount Washington peaks. Unfortunately, skies were cloudy to observe the aurora in much of the Northeast and the Midwest. However, where the observatory is located, a low deck of clouds is no hindrance for viewing the Northern Lights. The best time to see the aurora on Friday would have been after sunset, but before moonrise. This was about a two hour window, which turned out to be plenty of time for the Mount Washington observers to capture some of the best aurora images of the evening.  The timelapse documents shooting stars racing across the sky as the aurora starts to appear after sunset. The orange glow of city lights can be seen through the undercast in the distance. Many aurora photos that you see are the result of long exposures, which are able to increase the amount of aurora light that is captured in the photo. This timelapse is essentially what was seen with the naked eye on Friday night. The fact that red and purple hues were visible without the aid of a camera is remarkable, and speaks to the intensity of the geomagnetic storm. Mount Washington Observatory meteorologist Ryan Knapp said on Friday night that it was the best aurora he had ever seen.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Pic of the week: A solar storm brews in space while thunderstorms flash on Earth

Autumn is a swing season, featuring a taste of all facets of weather as the northern hemisphere swings from summer to winter. With this shift in seasons comes an eclectic range of weather, from thunderstorms reminding us summer isn’t quite over yet, to first frosts and even first snows providing a glimpse into winter. This beautiful photo, taken Sept. 22, captures the essence of both summer and autumn in a single moment. Thunderstorm towers illuminated by lightning tower over Lake Superior as you look north toward Canada symbolizing a last gasp of summer. Above the cumulonimbus clouds shines a vibrant aurora borealis, a sign of autumn and winter. The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is caused when electrically charged particles from the sun enters Earth’s atmosphere and interacts with the magnetic field. The charged particles are emitted from the sun during immense solar storms in the form of a solar flare or solar wind. It takes the particles about 40 hours to reach Earth’s atmosphere, and the collision produces a ballet of dancing lights over the northern horizon. So what causes the vibrant array of colors? When the charged particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, this excites the atoms causing them to light up. Different gases in the atmosphere emit different colors, with oxygen giving off green light and nitrogen igniting blues and reds. But the aurora is not unique to the northern hemisphere — it happens down south, too. The aurora australis is the strongest during southern hemisphere winter (our summer). The aurora australis is not captured as frequently as the aurora borealis for one simple reason: there’s less land in the southern hemisphere, and thus fewer people to see it. The aurora is the stuff of legends dating as old as time. Norse mythology believed it represented a fire bridge to the sky built by Gods, and a vehicle to communicate between the mortal and immortal. While the folklore is fun to learn and has its place in history books, what you’re really witnessing is a wonder of science and quite simply a process of physics involving the interaction of charged ions, protons, and electrons emitted by the sun as they collide with the elements of Earth’s atmosphere: nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. In other words, the aurora reminds us the sun is still shining, and Earth’s atmosphere still exists. The strengthening aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere is a sure sign of the changing seasons. In fact, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly talked about the aurora in a live Twitter chat. This is what the aurora looked like to Kelly from above on the International Space Station on Sept. 21. Have you ever seen the aurora borealis or australis? I have yet to see it for myself, but it is at the top of my weather-event bucket list. Weather is awesome. #CWGPicOfTheWeek

Here’s what you’ll see when the sun disappears during the total solar eclipse

As the last specks of sunlight disappear and totality commences Aug. 21, we will be able to see something impossible to see otherwise with the naked eye — the sun’s atmosphere. It’s always up there, but direct visual observation is impossible; after all, the sun produces enough light to outshine anything nearby. However, as the solar disk becomes obscured by the moon, the corona will brilliantly emerge for the bulk of totality. Steamers of plasma and fingerlike “prominences” will radiate outward around the sun, resembling thousands of strands of hair blowing in the wind. Meanwhile, scientists nationwide will document the spectacle   to gain insight into the magnetic field structure of the sun. The sun’s corona — Latin for “crown” — is a testament to just how incredibly energetic the sun  is. Torrents of plasma can be launched millions of miles in any direction as coronal mass ejections, with the resulting flare posing a danger to any space-borne object in its path. Even the corona itself is volatile, reaching temperatures of several million degrees — far surpassing the sun’s “mild” 11,000-degree surface. At temperatures this high, iron atoms are able to rapidly gain and rid themselves of electrons, subsequently emitting instantaneous bursts of red or green light.  The patterns you witness in the corona during the eclipse are a remarkably good indicator of the behavior of the magnetic field — outward-streaming “flux” will appear as lines zipping away in the solar wind, whereas a few returning coronal loops will connect the poles to the equator.  The results of a massive, Earth-directed coronal mass ejection could be beautiful but also disastrous; while a nearly worldwide display of the auroral lights could be in the ejection, unprotected power grids would be susceptible to voltage surges and overloads, wiping out much of the electrical grid and grinding the worldwide economy to a halt. However, there’s no cause for alarm Aug. 21. Instead, get ready to witness something that is truly out of this world.

Skywatch: Jupiter and Saturn entertain the evening crowd and Venus provides morning pageantry

Planetary motion perseveres as **Jupit er ** and  **Saturn** entertain the evening crowd, and  **Venus** provides morning pageantry. But in the not-too- distant summer, astronomy aficionados will prepare for August’s American-style **total solar eclipse** . As the sun sets in the west now, catch Jupiter in the southwest at negative second magnitude. Early in July, the giant planet sets around 1 a.m., and late in the month, it sets after 11 p.m. The young **moon** scoots over Jupiter on July 28 in the western heavens after sundown. Saturn hangs high in the south-southeast after dusk, at zero magnitude, which is bright enough to see for city dwellers. Find the fattening moon sliding over the star **Antares** — **Mars** ’ visual doppelganger — on July 5, and on the next night, the portly moon bellies up close to Saturn. The ringed planet hangs in the southern sky for most of July in the **constellation Ophiuchus** , setting generally a few hours before sunrise. NASA’s long  **Cassini** mission will crash into Saturn for a “grand finale” on Sept. 15. If you’re vacationing at an East Coast beach this month, you’ll catch Venus easily, as the brilliant planet rules the morning sky before sunrise. The spirited planet — bright at negative fourth magnitude — rises around 3 a.m. now, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory, and the sun rises before 6 a.m., so you can glimpse a pre-dawn show. Throughout the month, Venus and the star **Aldebaran** dance a tango. This week as you look east, Venus is far above Aldebaran, which is closer to the horizon. On July 20, see the sliver of a last quarter, crescent moon close to Venus. Mars returns in September as the Red Planet takes a summer sabbatical in the **sun** ’s glare. **Earth** reaches aphelion July 3, the most distant spot on its imperfect, annual orbit around the sun. A total solar eclipse occurs   Aug. 21, when a narrow band of shadow — the moon blocks light from the sun — makes its way from northern Oregon via Wyoming, Missouri, Illinois and other states, only to exit through South Carolina. Eclipse enthusiasts no doubt will jam into that 73-mile band to catch totality. The rest of the United States will see varying conditions of a partial solar eclipse. Eclipse Web resources include greatamericaneclipse.com and NASA’s eclipse2017.nasa.gov, which offers scientific information and interactive maps for feature events. The Naval Observatory has a website that provides local eclipse circumstances throughout the United States. You should also know about eye safety. Protect your eyes, as looking into the sun can make you blind. **Down-to-Earth Events:** **● July 3 —** Dream no longer about midsummer nights. Find heavenly reality with the “Stars Tonight” presentation at the David M. Brown Planetarium,   1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. **● July 5** **—** “Kiloscopes!” a talk by astronomer Brian Hicks, on the elaborate and powerful telescopes of the future. At the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting, wander the cosmos through today’s telescopes afterward. 9 p.m. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **● July 8 —** In anticipation of the total solar eclipse across America on Aug. 21, learn all about solar eclipses through hands-on activities and other exhibits. At the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **● July 15 —** The National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, offers a fun day of hands-on learning about eclipses, similar to the museum’s July 8 event in Washington. Parking $15.   10 a.m.-3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **● July 18 —** “Remembering John Glenn: The Man and the Legend,” with former Arkansas senator David Pryor, former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, the museum’s Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History; and journalist Bob Schieffer as panelists. At the Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, National Air and Space Museum.   8 p.m. For tickets: airandspace.si.edu. See it live online: goo.gl/FXs3cu. **● July 20 —** “Alien Atmospheres Near and Far,” a talk by astronomer Ashlee Wilkins, an exoplanet expert. At the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. View the night sky through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. 9 p.m. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **● July 21 —** Rock the red rocky planet. Celebrate Mars Day. While our neighboring planet hides in the sun’s glare until September, learn about the planet through hands-on activities. National Air and Space Museum, the Mall.   10 a.m.-3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu.

Look up! The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this weekend.

April’s meteor showers may turn out the indoor wallflowers. The Lyrids peak this weekend, featuring an estimated 20 each hour, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the International Meteor Organization. In a prediction for the International Meteor Organization, astronomer Robert Lunsford says the peak will be Saturday around noon on the East Coast. Since most shooting stars are difficult to see in the middle of daylight, Lunsford suggests going outside in the dark hours before sunrise on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The astronomical method for measuring meteors is the zenithal hourly rate, or ZHR. Even if you’re under a clear dark sky in perfect conditions, no one will ever see 20 meteors each hour at peak. The reality is that you’ll catch — if you’re lucky — only a handful. How do you find shooting stars? Go outside, get away from light (like streetlights or porch lights), find a dark sky and then look up. The mornings will be chilly this weekend in the Mid-Atlantic, so take some coffee with you and wear a warm coat. Your eyes will need to adjust to the dark heavens, but persevere. Shooting stars, generally speaking, are leftover dust from comets gone by. As comets orbit through our solar system, these dirty snowballs leave a trail of debris near the warming sun. Earth runs through these paths, and the little cometary dirt specks strike our atmosphere — zip! — and light up for a nighttime show. In this case of the Lyrid meteors, the parental body is Comet Thatcher, C/1861 G1, discovered literally on the eve of the Civil War, April 5, 1861, by astronomer A.E. Thatcher, according to NASA. The Confederate army opened the war by firing upon Fort Sumter on April 12. Comet Thatcher dashes by Earth every 415 years and it should swing by our blue planet again sometime around 2276. But in May 1861, it was bright enough to see, according to the late Patrick Moore’s book, “The Wandering Astronomer.” The comet should be at its farthest distance from the sun and Earth in the year 2068, when it rounds a cosmic corner and heads back to our cosmic neighborhood. If you scout for shooting stars on Saturday or Sunday morning, note the effervescent, brilliant planet Venus rising in the eastern heavens at about 4:45 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. On Sunday and Monday mornings before sunrise, find Venus near the waning, last quarter crescent moon — it’s quite a bright sight at -4.6 or -4.7 magnitude. The astronomical webcaster Slooh.com will present a special show on the Lyrid meteors at 4 p.m. Saturday — very close to the peak of the shower. Incidentally, Slooh will also celebrate Earth Day earlier Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. The webcaster will interview astronauts and carry you to various world points.

Strong geomagnetic storm lights up the sky with beautiful aurora (Photos)

A surprisingly strong geomagnetic storm swept over Earth’s magnetosphere on Sunday, sparking a beautiful green and purple aurora that was visible as far south as the Northeast. On Friday, the Space Weather Prediction Center was calling for a G1-minor geomagnetic storm. But the solar wind came in hot and fast, and G3-strong storming was observed Sunday evening. The driver of the disturbance was a fast, magnetized solar wind flowing from a coronal hole. Typically, the strongest geomagnetic storms and the associated aurora are caused by eruptions from the surface of the sun called coronal mass ejections. But the sun is now in the waning part of solar cycle 24, which means solar eruptions are becoming much less common, and storming from coronal holes more so. Coronal holes are long-lived voids in the solar corona that can persist for weeks to months. They rotate in step with the bright photosphere – the sun as we see it. Over the past few days, a potent coronal hole has rotated toward Earth like a fire hose of unimpeded solar wind. On Earth, we look for brighter auroras as one of the consequences of strong magnetic storms. The moon was helpful last night, being small and dim in the sky. NOAA forecasters are expecting the storm to linger into Tuesday night, providing another opportunity for aurora viewing in the high-latitudes.

Sunrise meets northern lights in sublime Space Station video

There are few things that put our world into perspective like the view from the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore captured this humbling view of East Coast lights as the sun was just beginning to creep above the horizon earlier this week. The faint, blue glow of the sun’s rays passing through our atmosphere can be seen on the right, mirrored by a beautiful, green aurora on the left. Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New York City, and Boston can be seen whizzing by. A thin layer of mid-level clouds blurs city lights over parts of the Northeast.

Stunning images of the Northern Lights as two space weather phenomena coincide

At the far reaches of the planet, where Earth’s magnetic field is weak and the stars seems somehow closer than normal, dancing, multi-colored flares of light stream across the sky. Ancient Europeans spoke of the lights as a mythical green serpent. People in Scandinavia thought it was the bridge over which the gods traveled to Earth. Now we know it’s the Aurora Borealis, a meteorological phenomenon caused by energy from the sun. But that doesn’t make the sight any less impressive. This week, the aurora brought hundreds of people out into the darkness with their cameras in hopes of capturing its colorful display. (The same thing happened at the South Pole, but only penguins were around to see it.) As explained by NASA, the phenomenon is caused by solar wind — streams of charged particles escaping the sun — that bumps into the Earths magnetic field and travels along it toward the poles. There, electrons from the sun interact with gases in the earth’s upper atmosphere, “exciting” them in physics terms. As the gas molecules calm down, they release particles of light, called photons. The colors of the light depend on what gases are being affected; nitrogen tends to produce blue light, oxygen emits green, or sometimes red.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Wednesday night’s aurora was particularly vibrant because of the position of the sun’s “coronal holes,” which send high-speed particles hurtling away from the sun’s surface. Right now, the holes are near the suns’s equator, meaning that the particles head out along the same line of latitude as Earth instead of “up” and “down” into the emptiness of space. It also helps that this is happening in autumn, which, according to Britain’s national weather service, is a better time for auroras, though we don’t quite understand why.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here’s how people captured Wednesday night’s event:

Equinox is here; snow may fall, but nothing stops the sun. It will get warmer

In a process basically unrelated to Friday’s snowfall in Washington, the vernal, or spring, equinox occurred at 6:45 p.m. Despite the cloud blanket that covered the area, astronomers were confident that the sun stood directly over the equator at that moment. Or seemed to, based on the relative motion of the sun and the earth. Obviously, the momentary positioning of the sun could not by itself transform winter into spring. The equinoxes involve unchanging celestial geometry, not transient terrestrial events, and they happen twice every year. It is also a fact that as the sun seems to advance into the northern hemisphere, and rise higher in the sky, the days, all things being equal, do get warmer. As the weeks go by, the concentration of radiant energy on every square foot of the Washington area will increase. Minor fluctuations occur. But the trend is up. ** **

Perseid showers will peak in August

Shout out for shooting stars! Should you desire relief from Washington’s unrelenting midsummer heat, the heavens offer a shower — that is, the **Perseid meteor shower** — peaking in mid-August. Provided we get clear, cloudless night skies, the annual Perseids probably will put on a nice display, especially at their peak on the nights of Aug. 12-13, with a heavier dose of meteors toward the morning hours, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. On the evening of Aug. 12, the waning crescent **moon** sets at 6:44 p.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Because the moon is on the verge of its new phase, the darker sky — free of a moonlight — means more meteors to see. At the peak, after midnight Aug. 13, the Royal Astronomical Society predicts about 90 meteors an hour, and the American Meteor Society (AMS) predicts about 100. (You won’t be able to see all of them.) Sky gazers can enjoy an occasional Perseid meteor from now through the peak, and then until about Aug. 26, the AMS says. Shooting stars occur when tiny, dirty pieces of comets break away on trips around the solar system — and that comet dirt leaves a celestial trail. When **Earth** passes through that trail, the dusty particles strike our atmosphere, burning up the minuscule rocks — and we get to see a light show. The Perseid meteors result from **comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle**. Co-discoverer Horace P. Tuttle spotted it in 1862, and in his career, he later worked as an astronomer at the Naval Observatory in the District. He died in 1923 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church near Seven Corners. **Saturn** opens up August’s evening heavens in the south at sunset now, and then the south-southwest late in the month. The ringed planet — loitering in the constellation **Libra** — is seen at zero magnitude (bright). This large, gaseous planet sets after 1 a.m. now, and then sets about midnight Aug. 20. In the western sky at sunset now, the big, gassy **Jupiter** is low and follows the **sun** , while the fleet **Mercury** makes a valiant attempt at visibility, close to the horizon. Jupiter and Mercury pass each other later this week, but their proximity to the horizon and the sun makes them difficult to discern. Our neighboring planet **Mars** rises in the eastern morning sky just before the sun, but the red planet may be hard to spot at 1.7 magnitude, which may be dim in twilight. Always cheery **Venus** (negative fourth magnitude, bright) starts showing up ahead of the sun in the mornings — in the latter days of August. **Down-to-Earth events:** **● Wednesday —** “Behind and Beyond APOD,” a talk about NASA’s popular Astronomy Picture of the Day (apod.nasa.gov), with Alice Allen of the Friends of APOD (www.friendsofapod.org), at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. View the night heavens through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **● Saturday —** On this family day, discover milestones in aviation and space, “Making the World Smaller and the Universe Larger,” hands-on activities that include meeting an astronaut at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (Gallery 113) at the National Air and Space Museum, the Mall, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. www.airandspace.si.edu. **● Saturday —** Seek respite from cosmopolitan stress by finding refuge in the constellations. Sean O’Brien of the National Air and Space Museum, along with local astronomers, bring you heavenly grandeur at Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. Parking is $5. Arrive before dark. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556. tinyurl.com/q92udac. **●Aug. 9 —** Thinking outside of the sphere, Marshall Eubanks, chief executive of Asteroid Initiatives in Clifton, Va., talks on “Asteroid Mining” at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. **●Aug. 15 —** “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. www.capitalastronomers.org. **●Aug. 20 —** “Water, Carbon Dioxide and Comets,” a talk by astronomer Mike Kelley at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Enjoy the night heavens through telescopes afterward. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com.

Severe solar storm bathes northern skies in dazzling green auroras

A severe geomagnetic storm whipped through Earth’s magnetosphere on Tuesday, causing fluctuations on power grids and spawning a green, St. Patrick’s Day- themed aurora that stretched from the Arctic Circle to as far south as Oregon and Illinois. The storm, which began Monday, is among the strongest in the current 11-year solar cycle, earning a rating of a “severe” G4 on a one-to-five scale, which means it had the potential to affect power grids, high-frequency communications and satellite operations. No abnormalities or disconnections, and only minor voltage fluctuations, were reported as of Tuesday afternoon. Interestingly, there was no radiation storm, which typically accompanies geomagnetic storms of this magnitude. Therefore, the Space Weather Prediction Center was not expecting disruption to satellite electronics or polar-routed aviation. But the changes in density in the ionosphere — the very high levels of Earth’s atmosphere — could cause more drag on low-orbit satellites, which operators may have to adjust for with thrusters. Simple GPS technology, like the kind in cars and smartphones, could be affected in the form of difficulties locating your position. The solar wind was not particularly fast, but it was potent enough to cause the severe geomagnetic storm, according to Joe Kunches, director of space weather services at Atmospheric and Space Technology Associates. The storm’s strength came as somewhat of a surprise to forecasters and was probably caused by the combination of two coronal mass ejections from an active sunspot region, forecasters at the prediction center said. Space weather models predicted just a “glancing blow” from these ejections, which instead have caused a stronger disruption here on Earth, and vivid auroras. Sunspots full of high magnetic energy frequently explode and send plumes of radiation called solar flares into space. When these flares and the super-heated plasma that can accompany them interact with Earth’s magnetic field, radiation or radioactive particles sometimes enter the upper atmosphere. These particles can interfere with radio communications and global positioning systems, and when strong enough they can even harm the electrical grid. But they do have at least one positive effect: The impact of the particles with the upper atmosphere creates a beautiful glow known as the northern lights. Because the Earth’s magnetic field funnels charged particles from these solar storms toward its poles, polar regions are much more likely to be affected by them. That’s why the auroras are most frequently seen in the North and South Poles and rarely make it to North America, as they have this week. Solar cycles are periodic changes in the sun’s activity, including the number of sunspots and solar flares, that last an average of about 11 years. They are marked by solar maximums and minimums. The sun is close to the solar maximum of this cycle, which began on Jan. 4, 2008, and likely peaked in April 2014. The Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ranks the intensity of geomagnetic storms on a G-scale of one to five, with five being the strongest. According to the center, around 100 G4-magnitude storms occur on average every solar cycle. This is the first G4 storm since the fall of 2013. There hasn’t been a G5 storm — the strongest on the scale — since August 2005. The current storm is in season, so to speak, because storms are most common around the equinoxes. Research as to why solar storms are more common and severe around the equinoxes is still ongoing, but it most likely has to do with the way the Earth’s position relative to the sun changes. The Earth’s orientation changes what parts of its magnetic field are interacting with the sun’s, making those interactions more volatile. **_Correction:_ ** _An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to radioactive energy sometimes entering Earth’s upper atmosphere during sunspots. It should have said that radiation or radioactive particles sometimes enter the upper atmosphere. This version has been corrected._ Rachel Feltman contributed to this report.

Zipping through the heavens, the Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend

Whetting your appetite for cosmic backyard adventure, the Perseid meteors will peak this weekend, but to see them successfully, two ingredients are required: cloudless heavens and patience.  For the 2017 edition of the annual Perseid shower, those shooting stars compete with a bright, waning gibbous moon. The official peak is predicted for Saturday in mid-afternoon Eastern, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Saturday night — closest to this peak — presents the best opportunity for viewing. Still, consider first checking out the heavens Friday evening, to see whether you can spot any Perseids before the fat moon rises. In Washington, the 84 percent-illuminated moon rises Friday night at 10:32 p.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. On Saturday evening, when the shower peaks and the chances of spying Perseids are maximized, the moon rises at 11:06 p.m. Patience, clear skies and a refreshing summer beverage will serve you well. Turn off your porch lights, get away from streetlights and find your dark, happy space. Pull up a lawn chair, let your eyes adjust to the darkness for about 20 minutes to a half-hour outside, and look up. For the peak, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada predicts about 90 meteors an hour, but don’t give yourself false hope. You may find ample meteors before moonrise, but perhaps a handful after the moon’s brightness washes away all but the brilliant ones.  Happy trails! We see meteors because of dirty snowballs called comets. For the Perseids, thank Comet Swift-Tuttle — periodic comet 109P, discovered during the Civil War. As the comet swings by our planetary neighborhood, the sun heats it up and the comet leaves a dusty trail, composed of pebble-sized specks. On its annual trip around the sun, Earth smacks into these dirty leftover trails. In turn, the flecks strike our atmosphere and burn up — giving us a gorgeous view of fiery bits streaking across our heavens: shooting stars! Comet Swift-Tuttle was discovered concurrently by astronomer Horace P. Tuttle on July 19, 1862, at Cambridge, Mass., and Lewis Swift on July 16, 1862, at Marathon, N.Y. — just north of Binghamton. Incidentally, during the Civil War, Tuttle joined the Union Army and later became an astronomer at the Naval Observatory. Tuttle died in 1923 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, very close to Seven Corners, according to astronomer Richard Schmidt of the Naval Observatory. The Perseids meteors last from now until about Aug. 26, when the numbers will be greatly diminished, according to the International Meteor Organization.     The nation’s best viewing, where skies are most likely to be clear, focuses in the Southwest, the northern Ohio Valley and interior Northeast, and parts of the northern Rockies (east of Idaho). Clouds will tend to be most prevalent in the Southeast United States and eastern New England, where viewing prospects are poor.  Scattered thunderstorms are possible in the D.C. area into Saturday evening, but there’s a good chance they diminish and at least partial clearing begins after sunset. Between about 9 and 11 p.m. may offer a reasonable window for viewing, but check forecast updates Saturday. Friday night viewing is a no-go, because of clouds and rain.

Spring trifecta ends splendid week — solar eclipse, supermoon and equinox

The past few days have been great for sky-watchers as a beautiful aurora sank as far south as the Midwest and Northeast on Tuesday night, the result of a severe geomagnetic storm. And Friday will add even more splendor as three astronomical events coincide on one day: a total solar eclipse, a supermoon and the vernal equinox.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Friday at 6:45 p.m. will mark the vernal equinox and the first day of astronomical spring. At this point, the direct rays of the sun are passing over the equator, perpendicular to Earth. It might not feel like spring with snow still in the forecast for many in the eastern U.S., but it is the first day in the march toward summer as the sun’s direct rays return from their Southern Hemisphere vacation.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _Aurora photos from the U.S. and beyond_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But earlier in the day on Friday, a possibly more interesting astronomical event will be occurring — a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, which reaches its greatest point at 4:45 a.m., can be seen in partial form across northwest Africa, most of Europe and northern Asia. The total eclipse can be seen from points in the North Atlantic, south of Iceland, on the Faroe Islands north of the U.K., and Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago halfway between northern Europe and the North Pole. To make the day triple-noteworthy, the moon will be a “supermoon,” even though it’s in a new phase and not visible. The moon reaches lunar perigee, its orbit’s closest point to Earth, on Thursday afternoon just before entering new. If the moon were visible, it would appear slightly larger in the sky. [ _Severe geomagnetic storm spurs beautiful aurora_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Friday’s solar eclipse won’t be visible in North America, but you can watch it on Slooh.com‘s livestream starting at 4:30 a.m. They’re setting up shop on the Faroe Islands, north of the U.K. and close to the point of greatest eclipse. That means anyone with an Internet connection can watch the eclipse in its full, total glory.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So how often do solar eclipse and vernal equinoxes occur on the same day? Good question! According to EarthSky, the next time this convergence will happen is in 19 years, on March 20, 2034. They’ve also written a thorough explanation of why they don’t necessarily coincide every 19 years in that story — recommended reading for any sky-watching enthusiast.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Photos: Gorgeous aurora paint high latitude skies; Repeat performance possible tonight

A stream of solar wind bombarded the Earth’s magnetosphere Monday and Tuesday nights, producing beautiful aurora over the northern tier of the U.S. and Canada. More magnificent northern lights are possible tonight. “Last [Tuesday] night was amazing,” photographer Lia Simcox told SpaceWeather.com of the scene in central Washington state. “I hurried up to my favorite spot and was not only greeted with Northern Lights, but snow as well! What an absolutely gorgeous sight.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The wind originated from a coronal hole on the sun’s surface, facing Earth. Coronal holes are basically large ‘nozzles’ on the Sun for high-speed solar wind They don’t erupt suddenly like solar flares, but rather emit a constant and fast solar wind. Solar wind typically flows at about one million miles per hour, but through coronal holes it can be twice as fast. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a geomagnetic storm watch for possible “strong” storming Tuesday night, but the event ended up being more in the “minor” range. SWPC says minor storming remains possible into tonight and may briefly spike into the moderate range. Thus, another evening of aurora watching is possible in some of the same areas where it was visible the last two nights.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico And the sun is continuing to generate space weather activity likely to impact Earth over the coming days. Positioned near the center of the solar disk, NOAA sunspot region 2443 is large and dynamic. It produced a solar flare, technically an R1 (Minor) Radio Blackout, earlier today. There are early indications of a coronal mass ejection (CME), or plasma wave, too pending further satellite imagery. An attribute of the flare was the solar radio noise emitted at 1415 MHz, very near to the frequencies used by GPS. This interference may have affected some GPS users, typically those doing those most precise positioning. The sun is a powerful radio transmitter, and can overwhelm satellite transmissions when it erupts. _[The devastating potential of an extreme solar storm and what the White House is doing about it]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Forecasters will watch this region closely as it sits in a prime spot for disruptions at Earth. If a CME impacts Earth, it would probably take a few days, at which point more auroras would be possible. **Photos of the northern lights the last two nights**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Videos**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Extraordinary aurora photos from the U.S. and around the world

The Northern Lights put on quite a show Friday night as the second of two solar flare-induced geomagnetic storms peaked. While overcast skies made the aurora tough to see in many parts of the northern U.S., New England, in particular, got an amazing display of color.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Related:** Beautiful aurora paint northern skies    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Geomagnetic Storm:** Back-to-back solar flares prompt strong geomagnetic storm watch    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Solar flares:** Major, X-class solar flare erupts on sun, second in two days    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  The aurora was lightning up social media, as well.

Lyrid meteor shower peaks this weekend: its brush with history

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this weekend on the night of April 21-22, says the American Meteor Society and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada . Under a dark sky, the shower might spray 10 to 20 meteors an hour. However, the gibbous moon – in its glorious illumination – is likely to impede viewing and you may see substantially fewer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University You may spot some stray Lyrids for a few days before and after the peak. If you’re determined enough to hunt Lyrids with a vexing moon in the heavens, park yourself away from urban or suburban light. On it’s annual journey around the sun, Earth passes through many meteor streams. Comets are but dirty snowballs, filled with ancient ice and cosmic dirt. When they pass the sun, dust and gas fall away from the comet and dusty trails get left behind.  Thus, these residue rivers are the dusty, remnant paths of long-gone comets. When Earth runs into cometary trails, the dust particles smack our atmosphere, burn up and offer the cosmic light show – meteors! This weekend’s shooting stars appear to emanate from the constellation Lyra, hence the name Lyrid meteors. The constellation ascends the north-northeast heavens before 10 p.m. on Sunday night, but reaches appreciable height between 11 p.m. and midnight. On Sunday night into Monday morning, the bright moon likely washes many shooting stars. The moon will be 11 days old and about 83 percent illuminated. At sunset on Sunday, the gibbous moon loiters high in the south-southeast, at a very bright -11 magnitude. It sets at about 3:40 a.m. on Monday morning. Here’s a short video on the 2013 Lyrids from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore: **A little sense of history**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University This comet from which the meteor shower originates seems to have a knack for historical timing. The winds of a civil war swirled from Boston to Washington to the southern states on April 4, 1861. One man in New York City – A. E. Thatcher – gazed to the pristine, night heavens to discover the brightening, fuzzy cotton ball of a comet.  Eventually the comet would be officially named for him. Not until later would astronomers  connect it as the parent of the annual Lyrid meteor shower. Barely a week after Thatcher discovered that comet, the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter, igniting the Civil War. At the same time, the U.S. Naval Observatory astronomer John Ferguson spied the comet from Washington and sent a confirmation to the Royal Astronomical Society in London. Ferguson’s dispatch was dated April 12, 1861 – the first night of the Sumter bombardment. It was printed in the society’s monthly astronomical bulletin. Thatcher obviously had also reported the new comet to the Royal Astronomical Society, as well. In fact, John Herschel – the noted scientist and astronomer – responded personally with a kind note:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University _“Sir: I duly received your notice of the comet you discovered, which, after some time, became conspicuous enough here to be seen with the naked eye; and I beg leave to congratulate you on this result of your skill and diligence. I observe that the first discovery is attributed to you in the notice of the Astronomical Society. I hope it will be followed by many more instances of success in this and other lines of astronomical discovery. Believe me, etc., etc., Sir, with much respect, your obedient servant.”_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory keeps a comet database and it says the Lyrids’ parent Comet Thatcher returns every 415 years. This comet certainly senses history, since its last visit ushered in the Civil War. Comet Thatcher next returns to celebrate America’s quincentennial in 2276.

Venus, Mercury frolic together in early June

Much like the Washington Nationals lineup right now, planets leave, arrive, hit a cosmic hot streak and grab our fleeting attention. The magnificent planetary triangle **(Jupiter, Venus** and **Mercury** ) — in the western sky in late May — has dissipated. Jupiter, like a veteran ballplayer rehabbing on a farm team, falls out of view, veiled by the sun’s glare. Venus and Mercury are left to frolic together in early June. Mercury hangs out in the northwestern sky at dusk. On Sunday night, it will be low as the sky darkens at a negative 0.2 magnitude. Fleet Mercury changes rapidly over several nights and concurrently dims. Between June 6 and 8, it will be as high as it gets in this apparition but will continue to dim rapidly. Venus, also in the northwest, starts June lower in the sky than Mercury. By the end of the month, the effervescent planet stands alone at dusk in the western sky. You won’t miss the beacon, since it is negative 3.9 magnitude (very bright.) A very young and skinny crescent moon joins Venus and Mercury on June 10. As dusk falls, find the ringed planet **Saturn** high in the southeastern heavens. At zero magnitude (bright), the large gaseous planet loiters on the southern stage in the late evening in early June. Saturn gets brief company when the waxing, gibbous moon visits on June 17 and 18. Expect **Mars** to return from its planetary hiatus in the waning days of June, reappearing low in the east-northeast at morning twilight. Summer solstice: On the imaginary lines surrounding the **Earth** , the sun appears to touch the **Tropic of Cancer** on June 21 at 1:04 a.m. Eastern time, which marks the official, astronomical start to summer. From June 18 to 23, we get 14 hours 54 minutes of glorious daylight in Washington, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. And then from June 24 until Dec. 20, the minutes of daylight chip away. No doubt, a couple of days past solstice, you’ll hear media buzz about a big full moon. This month’s full moon on June 23 coincides with perigee — the monthly point when the moon is closest to Earth. Check this out: The official perigee is at 7:11 a.m. Eastern time, when the Earth and moon will be about 356,991 kilometers — or 221,894 miles — apart, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. The moon is officially full at 7:33 a.m., says the Naval Observatory. Thus on the evening of Sunday, June 23, as the sun sets in the west and the moon rises in the east, the moon will seem to loom large against the eastern horizon. (For a sneak preview, enjoy the fat moon rising on June 22.) **Down-to-Earth events:** **Wednesday:** “Molecules and Dust . . . in Space!” a lecture by astronomer Shaye Storm, at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Scan the night sky afterward, weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **Saturday:** Sean O’Brien of the National Air and Space Museum guides a heavenly tour through telescopes and binoculars at Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. Parking: $5. Arrive before dark. 8 to 11 p.m. Park phone: (540) 592-3556. www.nasm.si.edu/events/skywatching. **June 9:** Gathering X-ray images of the cosmos, the NuSTAR orbiting telescope provides a sense of the previously unknown. Will Marchant, a scientist on the mission, examines details at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Room 163, Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. **June 13:** Orbiters, landers and rovers have all revealed an amazing array of cosmic places. Learn more from “50 Years of Solar System Exploration: New Worlds, New Discoveries,” in a lecture by James L. Green, director of planetary science at NASA. At the Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 8 p.m. www.airandspace.si.edu. **June 14:** Astronomy Festival on the Mall. Local astronomers set up telescopes on the Mall for you to view. Representatives from NASA, the International Dark-Sky Association and Hubble Space Telescope offer demonstrations, discussions and activities. Organized by Donald Lubowich, professor at Hofstra University. At Constitution Avenue and 15th Street NW, across from the Ellipse. 5 to 11 p.m. Rain/cloud date: June 15. **June 20:** “Exploring Planetary Atmospheres: Follow the Trace Constituents,” a talk by NASA astrophysicist Hewagama Tilak, at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory. View the night heavens afterward, weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. Blaine Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@gmail.com.

An omen of doom and source of awe: A glimpse into the history of solar eclipses

Welcome to the dark side. On Monday, Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will immerse a sliver of the United States into an eerie cast of nocturnal darkness during what are typically daylight hours.  Even into the 21st century, they have continued to be a source of awe, while simultaneously helping us better understand the universe.   Some biblical texts suggest eclipses were an omen of doom. For example, in Amos 8:2, the Lord describes Israel as a “basket of ripe fruit,” a metaphor hinting that Israel was primed for judgment. The Lord then asks “when will the new moon be over?” He subsequently threatens in Amos 8:9 that “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”   Despite the panic and alarm that at one time was synonymous with the word “eclipse,” researches have benefited immensely from their visitations in the modern era. In 1919, an eclipse proved vital to Albert Einstein as he worked to confirm his theory of general relativity. Having posited his idea four years earlier, his theory suggested that, while Isaac Newton’s laws would hold true, space and time could behave differently in the pretense of large gravitational fields. In other words, Einstein’s theory dictated that light beams could actually be bent by the gravitational fields around massive objects. Unfortunately, the only way to test this theory was to encounter an enormous object, and the only one that proved large enough was the sun. Unfortunately for Einstein, the sun also happens to be a brilliantly luminescent source of light — as such, it would be impossible to detect light bending around it, as it would be outshone by the gaseous giant itself. But Arthur Stanley Eddington, a top physicist in the United Kingdom, had a solution: during a solar eclipse, sunlight is blocked out for several minutes, allowing for a cluster of stars to appear around the concealed solar disk.  The upcoming eclipse will also present a myriad of opportunities for scientists.

Sunday begins the brightest 12 weeks of the year

Meteorologists say summer starts on June 1. Many others hold out for the day of the solstice, June 21 this year. Not very many argue for May 11, but they, too, could cite reasons. This year, Sunday is not only May 11, but also Mother’s Day. That, however, may be beside the point. What distinguishes Sunday is that it starts a period of about 12 weeks when it stays light the longest — a time of early sunrise and late sunsets when daylight is as close to endless as it gets in Washington. Those long days do not begin with June 21, the day of the solstice, the longest day of the year. By the time June 21 arrives, half of the year’s longest days, the days on which darkness is least likely to curtail outdoor activities, have passed. On Sunday, the interval between sunrise and sunset in Washington is about 14 hours and 10 minutes. At least that much daylight is available on each of the 83 days from Sunday to the first day of August, both days included. The period is one day short of 12 weeks.

Stunning timelapse shows the Aurora Borealis from space

As someone who's always lived decidedly too far south to see it, I've always had a weird sort of envious fascination with the Aurora Borealis. But until I can afford to go dog sledding in Finland to see the lights for myself, or whatever, I guess I'll have to keep settling for the videos astronauts take of them from space.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Okay, fine._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The latest video taken from the International Space Station is short, but it's about as gorgeous a shot of the glowing phenomenon as one can hope to get. [ _This time-lapse video shows lightning, an aurora, and a sunrise — from space_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico An aurora occurs when solar winds \-- which carry highly energetic particles off of the sun at a million miles an hour -- interact with the Earth's atmosphere. They're more common at the planet's magnetic poles (near the Arctic and Antarctic circles) but they can happen farther south when electromagnetic activity is high due to solar flares.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _MAVEN spotted a strange and unexpected aurora around Mars_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In fact, in March of 2015 people reported seeing the aurora in parts of New England. Having stood outside in total darkness for an hour, I can tell you that it didn't make it to New Jersey. But the northern tips of the United States have better luck: Just days ago, solar activity was high enough to make the aurora visible in parts of Wisconsin and Iowa.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If the latest space weather video isn't jazzy enough for you, here's one that shows an aurora, a sunrise, _and bolts of lightning_ :    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  **Want more science? Give these a click:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **The Curiosity Mars rover caught a stunning blue sunset on the Red Planet**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **Bill Nye explains the ‘flight by light’ spacecraft launching on Wednesday**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **How astronauts fight fires in space**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **An astronaut’s surprisingly helpful guide to pooping in space**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

What’s better than the aurora? The aurora and lightning! (Photos)

Solar wind from a massive coronal hole on the sun triggered G1-level geomagnetic storming earlier this week, which sparked beautiful auroras across North America as far south as Wisconsin. Two northern lights photographers in the Midwest were lucky enough to capture the aurora and lightning from distant thunderstorms at the same time. Landscape and sky photographer Marcella Chester caught this time series of a blue and green aurora in southern Minnesota, while lightning illuminated the cloud tops in the distance. Chester says on her Facebook page that this time lapse was taken over a period of 50 minutes.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  Photographer Jake Stehli caught a similar intersection of weather and space from Wisconsin that same night (above), but many of sky-watchers across the northern tier saw at least a beautiful aurora this week as a result of the solar wind.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Saturday night’s moon will be a ‘supermoon’

The moon that rises over Washington on Saturday night will be what has come to be called a “supermoon” — only hours from being perfectly full and hours from one of the year’s closest approaches to Earth. The combination makes for a moon that appears bigger and brighter than usual, even for a full moon. In addition, because the moon always looks larger as it rises, moonrise Saturday night may show off a moon that appears about as big, bright and round as the moon can get. The moon will rise in the southeast at 8:36 p.m. Saturday. The silvery orb will sail west across the dark heavens through the night and early morning before setting in the southwest at 7:20 a.m. Sunday. Experts warn that without special equipment it may be difficult for the average skywatcher to assess the moon’s brightness or size. But a supermoon last year was reported to be about 15 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the year’s run-of-the-mill full moons, and many people may consider themselves capable of spotting a 30 percent boost in brightness. Of course, the brightness of the moon, as seen from earth, will depend, in part, on the sky’s clarity and the amount of cloud cover. If clouds do intervene, the next supermoon is not far off. There will be one in August and another in September.

Aurora watch: Solar eruptions trigger severe geomagnetic storm on Earth

Apparently the sun is observing the summer solstice by ramping up its activity and setting the stage for a potentially stunning aurora show here on Earth on Monday and Tuesday night. Three coronal mass ejections over the past few days have erupted and have made their way to Earth to cause a G4 (severe) geomagnetic storm on Monday afternoon. G4 storms are the second-highest on the five-point severity scale. Effects here on Earth include potential voltage control issues in power systems, high- and low-frequency radio issues, and orientation adjustments may be required for satellites. The last time a G4-severe storm occurred was on St. Patrick’s Day, when a beautiful, green aurora was seen far south as Tennessee, Oklahoma and even New Mexico.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The NASA satellite in charge of monitoring solar activity headed our way, the Advanced Composition Explorer, first detected the incoming coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blew at 2 p.m. The ever-vigilant solar satellite sits 1 million miles upstream between Earth and the sun. [ _St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic storm spurs green aurora_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Monday afternoon, the solar wind was very fast and contained a southward-oriented magnetic field. A fast solar wind with this characteristic tends to produce the largest geomagnetic storms — and most intense auroras — on Earth. In addition, there is an S3 (strong) solar radiation storm occurring, filling the polar caps with charged particles. High-latitude flights may make the decision to use a more southerly route to avoid the storm. In tandem, these two space weather storms — the geomagnetic storm and the solar radiation storm — will drive the auroras to lower latitudes over the next few days. The good news is that there’s a high chance of an auroral show to mark the start of our summer. With just a sliver of a moon tonight, the skies will be dark in the early morning hours. However, yesterday was the longest day of the year, so the lower 48 will have to wait until it gets truly dark. Also, the higher north you go, the longer the daylight lasts! For example, the sun doesn’t set in Fairbanks, Alaska, until 12:47 a.m. Here in the District, sunset is slated for 8:37 p.m., but you may have to wait until 10 p.m. for it to be dark enough to see the aurora, if clouds cooperate. We could see enough clearing overnight to catch a glimpse, especially if you’re using a long exposure on your camera. [ _A new satellite will take over for ACE in just a couple of months_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If you’re planning on trying to see the northern lights, you’ll want to track the K-Index — the larger the K-Index, the farther south the aurora is dipping. Usually in the Mid-Atlantic we want to see a K-Index of at least an 8. A K-Index of 7 might be good enough for Pennsylvania and New Jersey to see the aurora, but anything south of Virginia will need a K-Index of 9.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If you’re looking for space weather people to follow on Twitter, we suggest @Aurora_Alerts for real-time K-Index updates, and @TamithaSkov for general aurora and geomagnetic storm updates.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _The author, Joe Kunches, isdirector of space weather services at Atmospheric and Space Technology Research Associates (ASTRA), based in Boulder, Colo. Kunches was a former lead forecaster and operations chief at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Geomagnetic storm and aurora possible later this week after big solar flare

Another round of beautiful aurora may grace our high-latitude skies later this week thanks to a moderately strong solar flare that lashed out from the sun on Monday morning. Now heading toward a solar minimum, the sun has been in a relatively quiet period until today when sunspot 2449 erupted in a moderately strong M-class solar flare. Flares of this size have the potential to cause radio-blackouts here on Earth within less than an hour. The solar flare’s associated coronal mass ejection, or CME, does not appear to be headed straight for Earth, but it could brush our planet later this week. If it does, geomagnetic storm watches or warnings may be posted, and the aurora could be vivid. The sun has been fairly inactive over the past couple of months, except for the persistent solar wind from an Earth-facing coronal hole. While sunspots periodically erupt in electromagnetic radiation that sometimes streams toward Earth, coronal holes are massive spouts of energy that spew magnetic flux in whatever direction its pointed. [ _ **Photos:** Gorgeous aurora paint the high-latitude skies_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A coronal hole’s solar wind has been sparking beautiful aurora across the high latitudes over the past week or so, stretching as far south as the Midwest. **More space weather:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Watch a 5 million-degree tornado spin across the sun    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What makes the aurora so colorful?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico White House acts on devastating potential of extreme solar storm    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The hardest space weather problem is also a huge threat to our infrastructure    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

In Washington, darker days move in

Sunday and Monday were days of darkness in the Washington region, literally. When many people left work on Monday, daylight was suddenly gone. Also gone Monday was the once-brilliant illumination of the screen around the Washington Monument. On Sunday morning, a bit of the sun itself was blacked out, in a partial eclipse. Clouds reduced the view, but some people saw it. Three events joined to steal the light from the skies and skyline: the moon seeming to cross the sun’s face, the approaching end to repairs on the monument and the annual return of standard time. On Friday, the sun had set after 6 p.m. On Monday, the first workday on standard time, sunset was about an hour earlier. The National Park Service said Sunday was the last night of the decorative lights on the monument. They were to go off in preparation for removal of the scaffolding used to repair earthquake damage. Monday night, the obelisk looked pale and ghostly.

Jupiter, Venus and Mercury gather for Memorial Day party

Contemplate a crowded sky at dusk in the west-northwest toward the end of May. Like Ocean City sunbathers, **Jupiter** , **Venus** and **Mercury** jam-pack the sundown heavens for Memorial Day weekend. In the present, Jupiter commands our western evening heavens. You can’t miss Jupiter since it is a negative 1.9 magnitude (very bright), and you’ll spy it from the urban parts of the metro area. On May 11, a youthful sliver of a **moon** hangs under the bright Jupiter, but by the next night, the waxing moon has hopped over the large gaseous planet. While the moon plays hopscotch with Jupiter, check toward the low, western horizon for Venus. After a hiatus from our heavens, the effervescent Venus climbs away from the sun. At dusk, it’s emerging day by day from the **sun** ’s glare, and it gets closer to Jupiter night by night. When the fleet Mercury joins the Jupiter-Venus frolic in mid-month, sky-gazers will be set for the treat — a planetary triple play. By May 20, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury form a line in the sky. Mercury and Venus even up around May 22-23. On May 25, the planets form a triangle: Venus takes the bottom point, Jupiter grabs the top left position and Mercury holds at top right. By Sunday, May 26, Mercury takes the upper right position. The planets form a scalene-style triangle May 27. Then, over the next few days, the triangle breaks up. Mercury and Venus climb in the sky, as Jupiter walks off into the sunset. And so it goes. Find **Saturn** in the east-southeastern sky at dusk now, at zero magnitude, which is bright enough to see through urban light pollution. By mid-May, our favorite ringed planet hangs high in the southeast when dark falls, and the planet will be very high in the south in the evening’s later hours. On May 10, an annular solar eclipse occurs on the other side of the world in Australia and the Pacific Ocean. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs May 25, but the **Earth** ’s penumbral shadow casts such a razor-thin, imperceptible shade that we probably won’t see it. **Down-to-Earth events:** **●May 4** — “Star stories,” a program on constellations, at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. www.montgomerycollege   .edu/Departments/planet/. **●May 4** — As Saturn ascends the east, Jupiter sets in the west. “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. www.capitalastronomers.org. **●May 5** — Astronomer Owen Parry talks about the cosmos prior to telescope viewing at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/   openhouse. **●May 5** — “Space Weather Storms: Not if, but When,” a lecture by NASA astrophysicist Madhulika Guhathakurta, at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club meeting. Room 163, Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. **●May 7** — “Vesta in the Light of Dawn,” a lecture by Carol Raymond, principal scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who will present data from the Dawn spacecraft mission. At the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 8 p.m. www.airandspace.si.edu. **●May 11** — It’s Astronomy Day at Sky Meadows State Park, near Paris, Va., hosted by the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Enjoy safe views of the sun, games for kids, see gorgeous night-sky views through telescopes. Daytime talk topics include getting started in astrophotography and understanding meteors, asteroids and comets. 3-11 p.m. Free; $4 state park parking fee. Details at www.novac.com. **●May 11** — “Messenger’s Surprising Images of Mercury,” a talk by Nancy Chabot of the Applied Physics Laboratory, at the National Capital Astronomers meeting, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. www.capital   astronomers.org. **●May 16** — “Star Trek’s Continuing Relevance,” a panel discussion that features Nancy Reagin, Star Trek historian and author; Mike Gold, Bigelow Aerospace; Margaret Weitekamp, Air and Space Museum historian; and Dan Hendrickson, Aerospace Industries Association. 1-2:30 p.m. At Moving Beyond Earth (Gallery 113), Air and Space Museum on the Mall. www.airandspace.si.edu. **●May 20** — Demerese Salter talks about “The ALMA Observatory: The Largest Astronomical Project in Existence” at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Scan the night sky through telescopes afterward. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse.

Pic of the week: Dazzling northern lights dance above Lake Superior

Wow. Just wow! As the first full week of spring comes to a close, there are still a few reminders we’re not quite finished with winter just yet. The snow cruising into New England this weekend is one clue winter is slow to exit. So is this surprisingly vivid display of the aurora borealis over Lake Superior this week.   Yes, we do! The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is caused when electrically charged particles from the sun enter Earth’s atmosphere. When they interact with our atmosphere, the result is a ballet of dancing lights on the northern horizon. While the vibrant lights in the sky seem close, this colorful interaction is actually happening 60 to 70 miles above Earth’s surface, nearly 10 times higher than where commercial airplanes fly. The wispy array of lights can also extend hundreds of miles into space, which is why it’s visible even from the International Space Station. In the photo above, notice the myriad colors ranging from yellow to green to purple — you can thank all the different gases in the atmosphere for that. When the charged particles from the sun hit the atmosphere, different gases emit different colors: oxygen gives off greens and yellow, while nitrogen emits blues and reds. As we fade from winter into spring, expect the aurora borealis to fade with the changing seasons. While the aurora borealis is technically visible year round, it is most common and most vibrant during winter while summer’s short nights make it nearly impossible to see regularly during that time of the year.  Weather is awesome. #cwgpicoftheweek

Venus, Jupiter, crescent moon meeting up this weekend

Look to the west after sunset Sunday night and, unless clouds impede the view, you’ll see three worlds. One is the moon, a thin crescent, upturned like a smiley face. The second is Jupiter, a gas giant reduced by distance to a bright dot. It’ll be just to the left of the lunar smile, like a beauty mark. Above the moon and Jupiter, about a fist’s distance away on an outstretched arm, will be Venus, beaming like a headlight. ****The last four weeks or so have been a spectacular time for stargazers, or, more precisely, planet-watchers. Venus and Jupiter have had a conjunction, and on March 13 passed so close to each other in the night sky that they could have exchanged business cards. Throw in the moon on Sunday and Monday nights and it’s a must-look situation. ****“When you get a configuration like this, people who don’t normally look up above the horizon find that their eyeballs are being hijacked,” said Alan MacRobert, an amateur astronomer and senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine. More news is on the horizon: On June 5, Venus will transit the sun, the last such transit until 2117. With a safe solar filter, the tiny black dot of Venus will be visible as it gradually moves across the sun’s face. Meanwhile, the sun is acting up. We’re building to a solar maximum, which means lots of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, northern lights and the potential for damage to satellites or the power grid. And by the way, there’s a new theory afoot that the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg sent into the shipping lanes by tides associated with a rare arrangement of the sun, Earth and moon. Dare it be said: The solar system is trending. What’s unfolding Sunday and Monday nights is a reprise of what happened Feb. 25 and 26, when the crescent moon slipped past Jupiter and Venus. The two planets have a conjunction like this about once every 24 years, said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory. This is what’s known as an evening apparition of Venus (it can be a morning star or an evening star), and it has been particularly sublime because the planet is relatively high in the sky. The second rock from the sun is near its greatest “elongation” — as far as it ever gets from the sun as seen from Earth — and so it’s up in the sky for a long time before it sets. It’s also preposterously brilliant. Its magnitude is almost at the maximum for Venus — minus 4.4. (The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object.) On a moonless night in a dark place, you can see your shadow in Venusian light, Chester said. “The circumstances for this evening apparition are about as good as they get,” Chester said. “Then you throw Jupiter into the mix, which is usually the second brightest planet, then you’ve got a couple months when the moon is playing footsie with them. And that’s what makes it particularly interesting.” Those unfamiliar with such things should be warned that planet-watching is a subtle pleasure, enhanced by the right attitude. Not much actually happens. The planets don’t zoom around. Nothing collides or explodes. There are no cameo appearances by comets. The moon and planets will drop below the horizon by late evening and some people may feel the need to find an after-party. The action in the sky, gentle though it may be, incited among ancient people some of the first stirrings of scientific inquiry. They didn’t know what a planet was, fundamentally. “Planets” comes from an ancient Greek term meaning “wandering star,” and thus describes the behavior of the objects rather than their nature. ****In ancient times, the heavens clearly revolved around the Earth, wheeling nightly on an axis pointed in the northern hemisphere toward the star Polaris. But anomalies among the planets required explanation and investigation. Mars, for example, had the perplexing habit of migrating east across the firmament and then reversing direction for a couple of months before reversing yet again. Not until the 1500s did astronomers, led by Copernicus, put together a fairly accurate model of the solar system (minus planets yet to be discovered), with the sun at the center rather than the Earth. Only then did it become clear that the retrograde motion of Mars is due to the Earth passing it on the inside lane of the orbital speedway. The irony of the Information Age is that people have forgotten so much of what their forebears knew. This is an era in which people talk of TMI — too much information — even as they couldn’t name a single star in the sky. Many people would no more learn the names of the stars than figure out how to boil lye to make soap. “All this stuff was common knowledge among ancient people. Even people just a few hundred years ago, your average farmer would be keeping a very close eye on the season, they’d be keeping a very close eye on the moons,” Chester said. And yes, “moons,” plural. The moons had names. The last full moon, for example, was the Full Worm Moon, because it’s the time of year when the worms start moving around in the soil, Chester said. Owen Gingerich, a professor emeritus of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that the spectacle in the western sky is so beguiling that “even our graduate students are aware of what’s happening.” That’s an inside joke because graduate students in astronomy do all their work now on computers and with equations and don’t spend a lot of time acting like Galileo and looking through telescopes. In certain respects, the planets are old news. The cutting edge in astronomy is the search for extrasolar planets — which orbit distant stars — and the investigation of the mysterious dark matter that is indirectly detected through study of the motion of galaxies. Cosmologists hope to understand the “dark energy” that is causing an acceleration of the expansion of the universe. But the nearby planets still have surprises. A probe orbiting Mercury discovered evidence of ice at the poles of the little planet that is seemingly fried by the sun. And this past week, scientists announced that they’d come up with a better measurement of the width of the sun, achieved by studying two transits of Mercury. The sun is 865,374 miles in diameter, plus or minus 40 miles. Now, about the Titanic. The ship hit an iceberg late on the evening of April 14, 1912. Where did the iceberg come from? The authors of an article in the latest issue of Sky & Telescope contend that an unusual abundance of icebergs in the shipping lanes that year may have had an astronomical explanation. According to Donald Olson, a professor at Texas State University and the article’s co-author, on Jan. 4, 1912, the moon was at its closest approach to the Earth even as the Earth was at its closest approach to the sun (the orbits are not perfectly circular but rather are elliptical). This created powerful tides noted around the world. Icebergs calved in Greenland would normally have grounded in shallow water along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, Olson said. But those unusually high tides would have dislodged the icebergs, and sent them on a roughly three-month journey down to the shipping lanes, where one of them greeted the great ocean liner. That’s the hypothesis. “We can’t prove it conclusively because we don’t know where the Titanic iceberg was precisely in January 1912,” he said. But his larger point is that astronomy can provide information about historical or cultural events. Olson has also studied Van Gogh’s painting “Road With Cypress and Star.” The painting shows a crescent moon close in the sky to a bright star. Look closely, and there’s another star, much smaller. Olson’s research suggests that the bright star was Venus and the smaller one Mercury. There’s actually a fourth world in that picture, one that will also be on view in the coming nights as the moon, Venus and Jupiter dance in the western sky. The fourth world is obvious yet subtle: It’s the one we’re standing on, the one that, in Van Gogh’s painting, grows a magnificent cypress tree. You can even see the Earth in the sky, sort of. In a good location with a dark sky and little light pollution from the city, you’ll see the “dark” part of the crescent moon illuminated in an ashen light known as earthshine. That’s sunlight that has bounced off the Earth (which would be nearly a “full Earth” if seen by a moon walker) to light up the night on the surface of the moon. Olson said he and his students will be looking at this weekend’s grouping of celestial objects through the clear air of central Texas. He expects it to be spectacular and memorable. And also inspiring — perhaps for the next Van Gogh.

Sunrise, sunset: Quickly go the days of summer with an unequal equinox

Summer has been vanishing in a variety of ways, but one of the most significant signs of the end of the warm season came this weekend when darkness finally exceeded daylight. The days on which daytime and nighttime are generally thought to be equal are the days of the equinox in March and September. This year’s autumn equinox came Sept. 22. But the hours of daylight and darkness are not quite equal on the date of the equinox. Almost, but not quite. The bending of light in the atmosphere permits the sun to be seen before it quite climbs over the eastern horizon. Similarly, it remains visible a little after descending below the horizon in the west. So according to Naval Observatory figures, the time between sunrise and sunset on the day of the equinox was actually 12 hours and nine minutes. Not until Friday did the time between sunrise and sunset in Washington amount to 12 hours, from 6:59 a.m. to 6:59 p.m. On Saturday, the time from sunrise to sunset dipped below 12 hours, with sunrise officially occurring at 7 a.m. and sunset at 6:57 p.m., in perhaps the surest of signs that summer has departed.

From a crowd of astronomical events, summer emerges

The summer solstice was Friday. Saturday and Sunday brought a big, bright “super moon.” And Monday may start a steamy stretch of days instantly recognizable as sweltering summer. Recent days have brought and are bringing to Washington one solar, lunar and meteorological event after the other. Meanwhile, Saturday was pleasant. It conformed to the marks for a true June day. The high temperature, as measured at Reagan National Airport, was 86 — the normal high for June 22. The low was within a degree of normal. A touch of humidity showed up, but it appeared to pose little impediment to enjoying a late-June Saturday. However, temperatures are expected to climb into the 90s by Monday, certainly by Tuesday, and possibly even on Sunday. And they are expected to linger there long enough to be classified as a heat wave. Saturday, however, was free of the humid haze that symbolizes summer discomfort, and the night sky was clear enough for a good view of the “super moon.” That is the name that has been adopted to describe the coincidence of a full moon with the moon’s closest monthly approach to the Earth. Any glimpse of the moon this weekend will reveal a sphere that is close to being the biggest and brightest that it will appear all year. It is about 15 per cent brighter than an average full moon. It looked that way Saturday night, looming above the city, as bright or brighter than the illuminated walls of the White House, or even car headlights.

Severe cold to blast eastern U.S. late week in two penetrating waves

Back-to-back waves of Arctic air dive into the eastern U.S. late this week, delivering some of the coldest air of the winter.  If some of the more extreme models forecasts are to be believed, parts of New England could witness its coldest air in years.  And polar air could sink all the way into Florida by Monday. The origins of both cold outbreaks can be traced to the polar vortex, the swirling pool of frigid air surrounding the North Pole. For areas of New England buried under multiple feet of snow, the added element of uncompromising cold will present extreme mid-winter conditions that may be recalled for generations. The first wave of cold, arriving Thursday – will drop temperatures 10-25 degrees below normal.  It may be complemented by another round of wind-driven snow – focused along the Northeast coast. Boston likely struggles to escape the teens Friday and may dip below zero Friday night. The disturbance ushering in the first wave of cold is currently associated with an air mass over Alaska that has produced temperatures as cold as 60 below zero. The second, more powerful, and more penetrating wave of cold – originating from Siberia – is forecast to sock the eastern U.S. Saturday night into Sunday. And it may bring more snow to the Northeast. By some time Sunday, both the GFS and European models suggest temperatures will plummet to around 30-degrees below normal from Burlington, Vt. to Orlando, Fla. On Sunday morning, the GFS model forecasts sub-zero temperatures throughout the Northeast and higher elevations of the Mid-Atlantic, with wind chills as low as 30-40 below zero north of the Mason Dixon line. _Sunday morning low temperature forecast from GFS model_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Sunday morning wind chill forecast from GFS model_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The GFS model has at times this winter been too aggressive with its forecasts for the intensity of the cold air in forecasts more than 3 days into the future.   But even if the GFS projections – shown above – turn out to be off by 10 degrees (too low), it would still be bitter cold, though not historic or record-threatening. The European model predicts cold not quite as severe as the GFS and delays the arrival of the second wave until Sunday afternoon and night. But even this more conservative model forecasts highs only in the single digits Sunday in Boston and Providence.   And the cold encompasses the entire East Coast, with highs below freezing as far south as Atlanta, in the 20s in Richmond, and teens in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. On Sunday night into Monday, the European model suggests freezing cold extends all the way into central and parts of south Florida. The cold pattern is forecast to relax some early next week, but additional waves of cold air are shown on forecast models beyond that – though their reliability deteriorates after 7-10 days.

Bubbly planet Venus starts off New Year

Set down your champagne and gaze west, as the bubbly planet **Venus** kicks off Sunday night’s first evening of the New Year. See this splendid planet about 23 degrees above southwestern horizon at sunset. You can’t miss this ultrabright beacon — about negative fourth magnitude — skimming over the treetops. By mid-January, Venus hangs 30 degrees above the horizon at sunset, and the planet sets about 8:10 p.m. On Jan. 24, a waxing young moon begins to ascend toward Venus in the western heavens. The lunar crescent sneaks closer to alluring Venus on Jan. 25, and by the evening of Jan. 26, the moon has passed by our neighbor planet. Like a 1950s teenager at a diner, **Jupiter** loiters in the east-southeast sky at dusk, in the Aries constellation. It’s a negative second magnitude (very bright) object. The waxing gibbous moon approaches this large planet Sunday and snuggles closer Monday evening. By Tuesday, the moon has passed Jupiter, but have no fear, we get an “instant replay” from Jan. 28-31. Bright enough to see from the light-polluted Washington area, **Mars** and **Saturn** , both zero magnitude objects, become the New Year’s late-night revelers. The reddish Mars rises just before midnight now in the east. A few hours later, at 1:30 a.m., the ringed Saturn ascends the east-southeast. By late January, both planets loiter in the Virgo constellation, as Mars will rise about 9 p.m. and Saturn appears just before midnight. Find fleet **Mercury** now before sunrise in the southeast, in the constellation **Ophiuchus** , hugging the horizon. With hot coffee, toast the Baby 2012 by viewing the **Quadrantids** meteor shower peak early Wednesday morning. The big, fat moon sets at 3:15 a.m., so very early risers could catch some falling stars between then and sunrise. The International Meteor Organization (www.imo.net) says the hourly rate could be 120, but, in all honesty, you’ll be lucky to spot a handful. If you spy them, they appear to emanate from the near the Big Dipper and Little Dipper constellations in the northeast. You might see a few errant Quadrantids up to Jan. 12, according to the IMO. Jan. 5 — “How Do Astronomers Know How Big Asteroids Are?” a lecture by astronomer Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting, see the night sky through telescopes after the lecture. 8 p.m., 301-405-6555. www.astro.   umd.edu/ openhouse. Jan. 8 — “A Survey of Star Atlases,” presented by astronomer Cal Powell at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club meeting, Room 80, Enterprise Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. Jan. 14 — Guy Brandenburg explains “Making Your Own Telescope” at the National Capital Astronomers meeting, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. www.capital   astronomers.org. Jan. 14 — Stargazing at the National Air and Space Museum’s Public Observatory, adjacent to the museum building. 6:45 p.m. National Air and Space Museum, National Mall. Free. www.nasm.   si.edu. Jan. 20 — Anne Lohfink, an astronomer who researches the physics of compact cosmic objects and their surroundings, speaks at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. View the heavens through telescopes after lecture, weather permitting. 8 p.m. 301-405-6555. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. Jan. 28 — Neither Bieber nor Bono compare to authentic stars: “How Are Stars Born?” at the Montgomery College Planetarium, Takoma Park. 7 p.m. www.montgomerycollege.edu/   departments/planet/. Jan. 28 — “Sand Dunes Throughout the Solar System,” a lecture by geologist Jim Zimbelman of the Smithsonian Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. This is part of the Smithsonian’s Stars Lecture Series. 5:45 p.m., Albert Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. After the presentation, stargazing at the museum’s public observatory (about 6:45 p.m.) www.nasm.si.edu _._

Biggest solar storm since 2005 underway, will peak Tuesday

Fast on the heels of a solar storm that delivered a glancing blow over the weekend — triggering bright auroras in Canada and Scandinavia — the sun released an even more energetic blast of radiation and charged plasma overnight that could disrupt GPS signals and the electrical grid Tuesday, especially at high latitudes, space weather experts warned Monday. Already, the storm could be affecting satellite communications as streams of radiation from the sun bounce across the Earth’s magnetic field, which extends above the surface into space. “With the radiation storm in progress now, satellite operators could be experiencing trouble, and there are probably impacts as well to high-frequency [radio] communications in polar regions,” said Doug Biesecker, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. Such radio blackouts can force airlines to reroute flights between North America and Europe or Asia. Biesecker said any rocket launches scheduled for Monday probably would have to be scrubbed, although he said he was unaware of any. The solar storm is the biggest since 2005, he added. The storm will peak Tuesday when a speeding cloud of plasma and charged particles blasts past Earth, distorting the planet’s magnetic field with impacts possibly ranging as far south in latitude as Texas and Arizona. “We expect moderate to potentially strong geomagnetic storming that can cause pipeline corrosion effects and power grid fluctuations,” Biesecker said. NASA scientists predict that the storm will peak about 9 a.m. Tuesday, although it could peak up to seven hours earlier or later, said Michael Hesse of NASA’s Space Weather Laboratory, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The storm is expected to continue through Wednesday. “It’s not going to be a catastrophe, but there could be noticeable geomagnetic current induced on the electrical grid,” he said. The storm began with a burst of X-rays shooting out of a sunspot — the same trouble spot that generated the previous storm — about 11 p.m. Sunday. A huge explosion of plasma, which scientists call a coronal mass ejection, then followed. The giant plasma cloud pushed an advancing wave of energized protons at the Earth, and that wavefront is now triggering the radiation storm in progress in the atmosphere. The bulk of the plasma cloud — a mess of super-energized electrons and protons — is speeding toward the Earth at about 4.5 million mph, according to Hesse’s calculations, which are based on observations from NASA’s four sun-watching satellites. “What’s special about this event is the coronal mass ejection that erupted is by far the fastest Earth-directed event of this solar cycle,” Biesecker said. And speed matters. The faster a cloud of plasma travels, the bigger its impacts are on Earth. Hesse said that NASA systems sent an automated solar storm alert to satellite operators and the Electric Power Research Institute. Hesse also notified the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy on Monday morning. Already, GPS devices in northern North America could be rendered less accurate by the radiation storm in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, said NASA’s Antti Pulkkinen. On Tuesday, when the bulk of the storm arrives, GPS devices might have trouble locking onto satellites as “scintillation” in the atmosphere “causes the [GPS] signal to bounce in random fashion. That can cause ground receivers not to get a signal at all,” Pulkkinen said. These disruptions — and possible impacts on the power grid — could spread from Canada and Alaska far south across North America, Hesse said, adding that estimating the range of the possible impact is difficult. The storms bring one bonus: possible strong auroras across much of North America Tuesday night. “We’re going to be monitoring this,” Hesse said. “The models we use to predict these events are not correct all the time. But at the moment, it looks like it will be pretty interesting.” Solar activity waxes and wanes on a roughly 11-year cycle. The current cycle is ramping up toward an expected peak in 2013 or 2014.

Why is the aurora so colorful? It’s an exciting collision where space meets Earth

A beautiful aurora lit up the skies this week, the product of a constant stream of solar wind that sparked minor to moderate geomagnetic storming here on Earth. In the northern hemisphere, the storm triggered the aurora borealis, and in the southern hemisphere, the aurora australis. The aurora comes in so many different colors, sometimes present all at once but others feature just one color at a time. So how does the sky turn into such a glowing rainbow during geomagnetic storms? Auroras are triggered when fast-moving electrons in space come in contact with gases in Earth’s atmosphere, mainly nitrogen and oxygen. The electrons that rain down into our atmosphere are very high energy, and when they meet up with our earthly gas particles, they excite them. Yep, that’s right — excited oxygen and nitrogen molecules are responsible for lighting up our sky. [ _Photos: Gorgeous aurora paints the high latitude skies_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Actually, it’s not the excitement itself but the letdown from the excitement that causes the color. As the molecules return to their normal, unexcited states, they release photons, also known as light. When this process takes place in a swath across an entire hemisphere over many hours, the result is a painted night sky. The aurora is most often a pale green, but sometimes it includes purple, pink and even red. The color is determined by which molecules or atoms are getting excited, and where. This is because different atoms give off specific colors, in the exact way that neon lights work. When you run electricity through neon gas, it glows red and orange. If you happen to see shades of blue in the aurora, that’s due to nitrogen molecules. A red-purple border at the bottom of the aurora is also caused by nitrogen. When they’re located about 60 miles above ground in Earth’s thermosphere, oxygen molecules are responsible for green auroras. But interestingly, if oxygen at very high levels of the atmosphere are excited then the aurora is red, and it’s only seen at the top of the light show above the green aurora. Red auroras are not entirely understood by space weather scientists. “Some researchers believe the red lights are linked to low energy electrons from the sun, which move too slowly to penetrate deeply into the atmosphere,” says spaceweather.com. “When such electrons recombine with oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, red photons are emitted. At present, space weather forecasters cannot predict when this will occur.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The “oxygen photon red” tends to be at the very limit of what the human eye can see, so you’re more likely to see a nice red aurora in a photo than in person. **More colorful aurora:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What’s better than the aurora? The aurora and lightning!    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Beautiful aurora time lapse captured by Mount Washington Observatory    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico March 2015: A severe geomagnetic storm sparked an intense aurora    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

December brings with it some heavenly gifts

Try to remember these gifts in December: **Jupiter** appears like a heavenly diamond, shooting stars sail overhead and the year ends by squeezing out more sunshine. Jupiter struts a celestial swagger throughout December. The large, gaseous planet rises in the eastern night sky when the **sun** sets — and stays out all night long. Officially, the planet reaches opposition on Monday, which means that from **Earth** ’s point-of-view, the sun and Jupiter are on opposite parts of the sky. On Saturday, Jupiter reached its closest point to Earth in the past few years. At -2.8 magnitude (very bright), you’ll spot this brilliant object easily, as it traverses from east to south to west throughout the night — and throughout the month. On the night of Dec. 25, much like the night of Nov. 28, Jupiter, the gibbous **moon** and **Aldebaran** form a tight pact. As if Jupiter weren’t enough celestial entertainment, look to the south- southeast before dawn now. Like grade-school kids lining up for the lunch march to the cafeteria, **Saturn** , **Venus** and **Mercury** form a morning line. Saturn (zero magnitude) is discernible at the top of the line, Venus (negative third magnitude) is very bright in the middle and Mercury holds at zero magnitude, visible above the horizon. Each morning between now and Dec. 10, watch Saturn and Venus rapidly appear to grow apart. Before dawn Dec. 10, the waning crescent moon picks Saturn as a dance partner. And before dawn Dec. 11, the vivacious Venus slow dances with the old, skinny moon. Meteors will catch sky-gazing attention, according to the International Meteor Organization. The **Geminid** meteors, seen from Dec. 4-17, peak on the night of Dec. 13-14, with possibly up to 120 meteors per hour at its best. How do you watch? Just look up. These shooting stars appear to emanate from the constellation **Gemini**. With no moon to worry about, watch late in the evening and into the morning hours. Still, meteor showers can be tricky, and you could see but a few each hour. A far less impressive **Ursid** meteor shower, derived from the cosmic dust of periodic **Comet Tuttle** , peaks Dec. 21-22. Expect maybe 10-15 meteors an hour. The fat moon sets after 2 a.m., so trotting outside after that time gives gazers a better chance. Grab your scarf and mittens, as the winter solstice occurs Dec. 21 at 6:12 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Although the sun is always still, the Earth’s motion gives the appearance of the sun moving back toward the Northern Hemisphere. From Dec. 1 through Dec. 11, Washingtonians enjoy the earliest sunsets of the year. For all 11 days, the sun officially sets at 4:46 p.m., says the observatory. On Dec. 12, sunset starts creeping back (4:47 p.m.) the other way. The latest sunrise for Washington this year is 7:27 a.m. on Dec. 31 – and we’re stuck at that time through Jan. 9. Washington gets 9 hours and 26 minutes of daylight from Dec. 20-22 — which is the least amount of daylight all year, says the observatory. **Down to Earth events:** **●** **●Dec. 3 —** For Arlington’s newly reopened David M. Brown Planetarium, a benefit concert at 2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. 8 p.m. Minimum donation $10. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. **●Dec. 5 —** “Colliding Galaxies and Monster Black Holes,” a lecture by astronomer Laura Blecha, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse.

Skywatch: Venus and Jupiter appear to move closer to one another in June

Much like young lovers running slowly in a field toward each other preparing to embrace, **Venus** and **Jupiter** spend all of June in an affectionate, cosmic jog. Watch it all unfold every night after dusk in the western sky. From Sunday night through the official planetary conjunction June 30, the brilliant Venus and bright Jupiter appear to move closer to one another. Which planet is which? Our neighboring planet Venus is much brighter than the more-distant Jupiter. If you look Sunday after sunset, Venus is near the star **Pollux** (as well as the star **Castor** ) in the **Gemini** constellation. The planet at -4.4 magnitude (extremely bright) can be seen to the lower right of Jupiter in the western sky after dusk. Meanwhile, the large gaseous Jupiter putters at -1.9 magnitude (bright) between the **Cancer** and **Leo** constellations. By early next week, Venus will have moved away from Pollux, deep into the constellation Cancer, while Jupiter moves from the constellation Cancer into Leo. In the middle of June, those planets are only about 9 degrees apart on the azimuth (the degree points along the horizon) and about five degrees apart in their altitude. The young crescent **moon** visits the planetary pair June 19-20, and then passes them June 21. On June 24, they are within a few degrees of each other and spend the next several days within planetary arm’s length. (Venus will be even brighter at -4.6 magnitude.) On June 30, they will be within a third of a degree of each other. Sadly, Venus and Jupiter spend July sinking and separating. Just after sunset, the planet **Saturn** loiters in the southeast, hanging out Sunday night with the nearly full moon. With its wide-open rings, Saturn (at zero magnitude, bright) is to the moon’s lower left. Monday night, Saturn hangs to the gibbous moon’s upper right. The moon becomes officially full Tuesday. Slather on the sunscreen and light up the grill. Summer officially starts June 21 at 12:38 p.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That’s the **summer solstice** , when we get 14 hours and 54 minutes of sunlight. **Down-to-Earth events:** ● **Friday —** “Solar Wind,” a talk by astronomer Haihong Che at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park, 9 p.m. Enjoy the heavens through telescopes, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● **Saturday —** “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m.   capitalastronomers.org. ● **June 11 —** “Hubble Telescope: Looking Back in Time at the Distant Universe,” a discussion by Sandra Faber of the Lick Observatory and Robert Williams of Space Telescope Science Institute, at the National Air and Space Museum. 8 p.m. Tickets via stand-by list: airandspace.si.edu. Webcast: tinyurl.com/qapklnp. ● **June 13 —** See Venus, Jupiter and Messier objects in the dark sky, far from the city light, as guided by Sean O’Brien of the National Air and Space Museum and other astronomers. At Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. Parking $5. 8 to 11 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556.   tinyurl.com/q92udac. ● **June 14 —** “The Evolution of Galaxies,” a talk by astronomer D.J. Pisano of West Virginia University at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m.   novac.com. ● **June 19 —** The 2015 Astronomy Festival on the Mall. See the young moon, Venus and Jupiter and other objects through telescopes on the corner of the Washington Monument grounds, near 15th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Astronomers from the region help guide you through the heavens. 6 to 11 p.m. Hosted by Hofstra University.   www.hofstra.edu/dcstars. ● **June 20 —** In his talk title, astronomer Alan Peel asks, “Do We Really Only Understand 4 Percent of the Universe?” The lecture will be at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. See the planets and stars after the lecture through telescopes, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● **June 30 —** “The Hubble Space Telescope: The Agony and the Ecstasy,” a lecture by historian Robert Smith of the University of Alberta, at the National Air and Space Museum. 8 p.m. Tickets: airandspace.si.edu. Webcast: tinyurl.com/qapklnp. Friedlander can be reached at _PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com_.

Photos of the Snow Moon and Jupiter from Washington, D.C., and beyond

Tuesday night featured a fun trio of celestial objects — the “Snow Moon,” Jupiter and an International Space Station pass. Given the clear evening skies, Capital Weather Gang readers joined photographers around the country in documenting the conjunction. The view of the Snow Moon — another name for the full moon that occurs in February — was particularly beautiful through a telescope. After it rose above the horizon around 5:30 p.m., Washington photographers captured the Snow Moon’s coincidence with Jupiter, which was just 4.5 degrees away in the sky. Bonus astronomy! Venus and Mars were also visible at twilight over the city. Venus can be seen shining brightly in the southwest sky in this photograph by Richard Barnhill. Many social media photos from around North America featured the Snow Moon and Jupiter wrapped in a halo.

For Bryce Harper in left field, here comes the sun

During the Nationals’ workout Sunday afternoon, just before 3 p.m. on the West Coast, the sun loomed over the AT&T Park upper-deck seats along the first base line and beat down on left field. The Nationals and Giants did not yet know when first pitch would come Monday. The television schedule determined they would play at noon (San Francisco time) if the Angels won Game 3 of the ALDS and at 2 p.m. if the Royals ended the series. Nationals reserve outfielder Nate Schierholtz, who played several seasons with the Giants, stood by the railing of the first base dugout and surveyed the sun. He said that if the game started at noon, the sun in left field would only come into play in the late innings, if at all. If it started at 2 p.m., then watch out, because by the third inning it could wreak havoc on left fielders. Since the Royals won, Game 3 will begin at 2 p.m. And the sun could have a significant effect, starting around the third inning or so, as the sun shifts to its position over the first base line. Nationals starter Doug Fister relies on groundballs, and that may be an advantage. Defenses and pitchers will want to keep the ball out of left field. The time of day may also impact hitters. Schierholtz was a member of the 2010 World Series champion Giants. During their run, they kept getting scheduled to play games in the mid-afternoon. The hitters all hated playing so many of those games, he said, because shadows creep across the infield, between the mound and the plate, making it impossible to recognize the spin of the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hands. It’s a bright, sunny morning here in San Francisco. Later in the day, the sun may have an effect on the NLDS. >>> If the Nationals had scored a run in the 15th, 16th or 17th inning Saturday night, Craig Stammen would have never needed to buy a drink in Washington for the rest of his life. He came out of the bullpen and fired three scoreless innings from the 13th to the 15th, mowing through the entire Giants lineup in 35 pitches.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stammen had also thrown 15 pitches in Game. Despite throwing 50 pitches in two days Stammen played catch during the Nationals’ workout Sunday and will be available for Game 3. “I think he’ll be fine to go,” pitching coach Steve McCatty said. “He’s one of these guys that has a rubber arm. The more you use him probably, the better his sink is. He’s resilient. It’s been amazing. They’ve all pitched, the last few days, extremely well.” >>> Sunday afternoon, Manager Matt Williams listed the attributes of Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner. “And,” Williams said, starting to smile, “he can rake.” Bumgarner hit .258/.286/.470 with four home runs, including two grand slams. He posted a 113 OPS+, which would have tied him with Denard Span and ranked him just ahead of Christian Yelich, Matt Carpenter and Daniel Murphy. The Nationals know they need to treat Bumgarner, a right-handed hitter, with care. “I watched him take BP,” McCatty said. “It’s fairly impressive. You’re not taking him lightly. Like Randy Knorr always says: A swinging bat is a dangerous bat. He’s an interesting guy when he swings, that’s for sure. He’s a big dude. He’s a strong dude.”

Major, X-class solar flare erupts on sun, second in two days

The sun has been active this week as two large solar flares have aurora photographers reaching for their cameras. A geomagnetic storm watch is in effect for Friday as a coronal mass ejection (CME) from Tuesday is expected to have a potent impact on Earth’s magnetic field. This storm could produce aurora’s grander than what we’ve seen over the past few weeks during storms less intense than this one.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Spaceweather.com describes Tuesday’s CME origins:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico According to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), Friday’s geomagnetic storm is expected to be moderate — a G2 on the scale of intensity from G1 to G5. Storms of this magnitude typically set off voltage alarms of high-latitude power systems, and could cause transformer damage if the storm lasts long enough.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Related:** Magnificent aurora viewed from the International Space Station    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The relatively high predicted intensity of the storm also means it could be possible to see the aurora as far south as the northern U.S. states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York. Fortunately for aurora watchers in the Northwest and Northeast, the weather should be playing along as skies are expected to be clear. However, the Upper Midwest could be fighting the clouds on Thursday and Friday night, though there will likely be some breaks. In addition to Tuesday’s ejection, scientists noted another flare on Wednesday afternoon from the same active region (AR2158). This flare was classified as X1. The X-class solar flares are the strongest classification on the scale, and can produce strong to extreme radio blackouts on the daylight side of Earth when they occur. They are also known to produce long-lasting geomagnetic storming when the associated CME arrives.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The SWPC was expecting impacts to high-frequency radio from this flare. While it’s likely that a CME was associated with this event, it’s not yet clear whether it will cause another geomagnetic storm over Earth in the coming days.

Extreme photographer captures aurora borealis

Dennis Anderson’s auroral epiphany arrived when he was 14. It was the night of April 1, 1975, and as he looked north from his home in Livingston, Mont., the sky exploded. “You had lots of rays and curtains and arcs and bands and lots of motion. It was almost a religious experience to be in the middle of that, to see the whole sky on fire, dancing,” says Anderson, now 51 and living in Homer, Alaska. Primed by that sense of wonder, Anderson now worships at the auroral altar night after long, frigid night, all though the Alaskan winter — with 10 or 12 cameras. Anderson is one of a handful of photographers who make a living by catching the fleeting northern lights on film. And only on film, because only film can produce the high-resolution images he seeks. In a digital world, Anderson is strictly analog. “No batteries, no electronics,” he says. His prize camera is a hand-built giant he calls “Franken-Cam.” Each frame of film is about 21 / 2 inches by 31 / 2 inches, much bigger than the film used in conventional cameras. Its images have a resolution of 40 megapixels, about twice as many as the best digital camera. He found the oversize lens he needed at an auction in Switzerland, a hunk of finely rounded surveyor’s glass rumored to have flown reconnaissance on French fighter jets and Israeli drones. At $1,500, he says, it was “a bargain.” Anderson’s cameras don’t have shutters, because he needs to manually control the long exposures he requires. Instead, he prepares to shoot by removing the lens cap and then holding the black-painted bottom of a coffee can in front of the aperture . . . and waits. When a sky dance commences, he pulls back this “black hat,” and magic streams onto film. “I’m lens-capping like your great-great-grandfather did 100 years ago,” he says. This is extreme aurora photography. When his calling calls, Anderson packs the van and motors north, hour after hour, seeking some spot that he’s previously seen and sketched and imagined as a pristine frame for a sky show. He’ll find it again, that copse with an opening aimed at the sawtoothed profile of Denali; or that one small lake backdropped by the spiky Wrangell Mountains; or that cabin up on stilts, unbroken snow sloping up to it, pines standing like silent sentinels. “The main thing is to put the time in,” he says. “Maybe it doesn’t happen tonight or tomorrow. Maybe you get lucky and it happens next week. Sometimes you run out of time and you have to come back next year.” Triggered by a restless sun, auroras can appear year-round. But by May, the Alaskan days are long, the nights short. So Anderson works through the winter. Sometimes he’s away from his wife and home for two or three weeks at a time. “I’m basically camping, in survival mode,” he says. “I do have a place to sleep. I don’t necessarily have a heat source. If I’m out where the temperature is 30, 40, 50 below or more, I might want to stay closer to my vehicle and keep it running. If I shut it off for a few days, it might not want to start up again.” He scrapes away snow to pitch a tent. He saws branches, gathers kindling. He boils water on the van’s engine, throws in an egg, makes some soup. He settles his tripods into hard patches. He carefully loads the film; some of it now costs $35 per exposure. He frames the shot, just so. Then he hunkers; then he waits. And sometimes, once in a while, when the sun is properly fitful and the clouds obligingly scarce, nature performs: undulating sheets of yellow, skybursts of green, ribbons of red, cosmic curtains waving in the stellar breeze. The sun comes up, the auroral lights go down, and Anderson ticks the shot off his “hit list.” Twice, and only twice, tendrils of blue have descended from the heavens. Anderson’s Franken-Cam captured this rarest of auroral hues. “It was absolutely vivid, just the bluest of blues,” he says. “I’ve spent thousands of hours doing this. You think you’ve seen it all, then suddenly you see something new.”

Skywatch: Planetary action along with the fireworks

For the coming Independence Day weekend, in addition to watching spangled stars, consider wrangling planets and a moon. As the fireworks burst in the air — likely around 9:30 p.m. on July 4 — gaze into the southwest sky to spy the reddish **Mars** and the ringed **Saturn** with a bright, variable double star called **Spica** between them. A young first-quarter **moon** skids toward Mars and Spica. On the next night, the moon has joined Mars and Spica, which should be a cool sight in binoculars steadied by a tripod. On July 5 in other parts of world — chiefly western Mexico, Central America and northern South America — the moon occults (eclipses) the planet Mars. Here, skygazers will see the moon nuzzle Mars. By July 6, the chubby waxing gibbous moon strolls between Mars (defined by its red) and Saturn (with its white appearance.) Saturn and the moon nuzzle on the evening of July 7. People in the southern part of South America will see the moon occult Saturn. Here, they look like lovers embracing. Mars is a zero magnitude object (bright) right now and dims slightly as the month progresses. Our reddish neighbor moves closer to Spica in our heavens and they’re separated by about a degree on July 12. Then, Mars pulls away from Spica — and moves toward Saturn. In late August, Mars and Saturn cross paths. Meanwhile, Saturn is a zero magnitude object (bright), and it hangs out in the constellation **Libra**. Early in the month, the large gaseous **Jupiter** slinks into the northwestern sky, following the **sun** at sunset. The planet will reappear as a morning object in mid-August. The morning heavens feature **Venus** in the northeastern sky — ahead of the sun now — rising about 4 a.m. This negative 3.9 magnitude (very bright) object loiters in the eastern morning heavens throughout the month, perfectly placed for early rising East Coast beach-goers. Fleet **Mercury** joins Venus early in July. After the first week of the month, Mercury may be seen close to the horizon in the morning sky. In early July, the planet is a second magnitude object (dimmer than Saturn) that brightens into a zero magnitude object in the latter part of July. Unlikely though it may seem, since it is summer, the **Earth** is 94.5 million miles from the sun July 3 about 8 p.m. It’s an event called aphelion, the farthest our planet is from the sun all year, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. **●July 1:** “Building New Worlds in Protoplanetary Disks,” a lecture by postdoctoral fellow Andrea Banzatti, at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Johns Hopkins University campus, 3700 San Martin Dr., Baltimore. STScI Auditorium. 8 p.m. _hubblesite.org _. **●July 5:** The stars, planets and constellations take over where the fireworks leave off, as you can scan the heavens after an astronomy lecture at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●July 7:** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3. **●July 16:** “Exploring Pluto and its Satellites at the Solar System’s Frontier,” with panelists Alan Stern, NASA’s New Horizons mission team leader; William McKinnon, Pluto scientist; and Dava Sobel, author of “Longitude.” Launched in 2006, the New Horizons mission approaches Pluto, as it is the first probe to explore this region since Voyager. Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, National Air and Space Museum, National Mall. 8 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **●July 19:** Capture a glimpse of Mars and the Summer Triangle at “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m.  _capitalastronomers.org_ . **●July 20:** After an astronomy talk, enjoy the summer’s night heavens through telescopes, weather permitting, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●July 25:** Lunacy abounds! It’s Discover the Moon Day, where you can bring the kids and learn about Earth’s dusty companion through interactive exhibits and experts. National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **●July 26:** Enjoy dark skies in an evening getaway from the light polluted metro area. Sean O’Brien, of the National Air and Space Museum, and volunteers with the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club will guide you through the heavens through the use of telescopes and binoculars. Sky Meadows State Park, near Paris, Va. Program for children precedes sky exploration. Parking $5. Arrive before dark. 8-11 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556. airandspace.si.edu.

Beautiful aurora paint northern skies, but real show may be tonight as solar storm peaks (PHOTOS)

A geomagnetic storm commenced Thursday night as the first of two waves of plasma from the sun – known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs)- bombarded the Earth’s atmosphere. Dramatic aurora filled the high-latitude skies. But this first wave – rated G1 on the 1-5 scale for geomagnetic storms – is expected to be weaker than the blast arriving today. It could peak at the “strong” G3 level.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Even more magnificent and widespread aurora – perhaps as far south as Chicago – are possible tonight with this second wave. “G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm Watch is still in effect for September 13th due to the combined influence of this [first] CME and the one projected to arrive late on the 12th,” writes NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The pair of CMEs originated from back-to-back solar flares Tuesday and Wednesday.  Wednesday’s flare was particularly powerful, an X-class flare, the most intense kind. “[T]he sunspot that unleashed these flares is about 5 times the width of the Earth,” writes Boston meteorologist Eric Fisher.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The University of Alaska expects “high auroral activity” tonight due to the geomagnetic storming. “[A]uroral activity will be … visible low on the horizon from Seattle, Des Moines, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and Halifax,” it says.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The K-index – a measure of geomagnetic activity – provides a good guide as to where aurora are viewable. “Kp-indices of 5 or greater indicate storm-level geomagnetic activity,” says NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Thursday night, levels peaked at 5, favoring viewing in very northern tier of the U.S. into Canada and over northern Europe (although one photographer in Arizona caught a glimpse, see below). In order for aurora to appear in the Mid-Atlantic, we’d want to see that index peak in the 8 to 9 range, or higher. A reasonable forecast for tonight’s level, given G3-level storminess, is around a 7.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Link:** Track the K Index    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The southern extent of aurora is very difficult to forecast and, like any night sky phenomena (aside from clouds), optimal viewing requires clear and dark skies. Your best bet for aurora viewing? Get away from city lights and look north. Check the K-index before heading out, too.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  **Photos of the aurora Thursday night**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The above image was reportedly photographed last night in central Arizona – much farther south than you might expect aurora to have been visible. Is it legit? SpaceWeather.com says yes:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

For D.C., no meteor, but signs of spring

Russians had their meteor on Friday and astronomers their asteroid. At the same time, Washington beheld still another indication of the inexorable workings of the cosmos: signs of spring. As measured at Reagan National Airport, the mercury soared to 60 degrees, Washington’s warmest reading this month. Also, Friday’s 6:59 a.m., sunrise was the first one earlier than 7 a.m. since late December, according to official figures. For much of the afternoon, Friday showed the glow and blue-sky sparkle of spring, as the Northern Hemisphere continued tilting away from the gloom of winter, and the sun climbed higher. With little swagger or suggestion of daring, many people shed winter coats. But before the sun set, dark clouds arrived and cold winds showed that spring may be coming, but it is not yet here.

The Geminid meteor shower peaks this weekend — here’s how to watch

Take a break from the holiday shopping frenzy and look up. The Geminid meteor shower — arguably the most prolific shooting stars of the year — will peak this Sunday night, Dec. 13, into Monday morning. Astronomy groups predict as many as 100 meteors an hour at the shower’s strongest point, though you will still be able to catch meteors in the nights before and after the big event. These fabulous falling stars should be easy to spot and all you must do is turn off your porch light, go outside, find a dark sky free of neighborhood streetlights and gaze toward the heavens. More or less, the peak should occur between 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday morning twilight. With any luck, the weather cooperates with cloud-free night skies. Geminids appear to emanate from the Gemini constellation – hence the name. But by scanning all regions of the starry night and simply looking up, you should catch lots of meteors. For several days leading up to the peak and days beyond it, and by staring at the sky long enough, sky gazers should catch stray Geminids. Even with warm daytime temperatures this weekend, you still should consider bundling up. “Staying warm is the key to enjoying this celestial show, so dress in your warmest clothes and have a Thermos full of your favorite hot beverage handy,” said astronomer Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Major meteor showers occur when Earth — on its own journey around the sun — smacks into dusty trails left from comets gone-by. When Earth plows through the trails, the granular dirt strikes our upper atmosphere at about 22 miles per second — or 79,000 miles per hour, explained Alan MacRobert and Kelly Beatty, Sky and Telescope magazine editors. The atmosphere’s air friction vaporizes the dust, so we see a white-hot shooting star streak across the sky.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico While the Perseid meteors are caused by the comet Swift-Tuttle, and the Leonids by the comet Tempel-Tuttle, astronomers believe the Geminid meteors are caused by asteroid 3200 Phaethon, discovered in 1983. Phaethon passes closer to the sun than any other named asteroid. “It also may be the nucleus of a defunct comet, still sputtering small bits of itself along its orbit which collide with Earth every year in mid-December,” Chester writes. “Phaethon’s dusty wake produces one of the best sky shows you’ll see in the winter sky.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Riverbend Park Astronomy Festival on Saturday**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Catch a Geminid meteor shower “peak preview” at Fairfax County’s Riverbend Park (8700 Potomac Hills Street, Great Falls) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Saturday. Get guided tours of the night heavens and enjoy star gazing, all the while catching a few early, stray Geminids. For information, call (703) 759-9018 or visit Riverbend Park. Fee: $6 per person in advance, $7 at the gate. Register here in advance.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Geminids on Slooh.com**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If the weather is crummy or if the sky is cloudy, the astronomical website Slooh.com will present a live show online devoted to the Geminid shower on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Slooh will have live feeds from partner observatories from all over the night part of our world.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Jupiter will be closest to Earth and brightest in the sky Friday and Saturday

Arguably, Jupiter is always brilliant in the sky. It’s the biggest, brightest spot we can see on a clear night. Friday and Saturday, Jupiter will be the closest it gets to Earth. If you’re out at night, there’s no way you could miss it. To find it, look to the southeast after sunset. Friday evening, the king of the planets (at least in this particular solar system) officially reaches opposition — from our blue planet perspective, Jupiter is directly opposite the sun and we’re in the middle. Think full moon, but Jupiter.  “Jupiter is at his best and brightest, as well as at his closest distance to us,” Chester wrote. “As bright as he is, he’s still an awfully long way from us, over distant, at his closest approach.” The luminous giant saunters into the night heavens amid the Virgo constellation, ascending in the east around 7:30 p.m., and becoming visible over the trees around 8 p.m. The planet sinks below the horizon Saturday in the west at 6:59 a.m. Don’t fear looking for it, since Jupiter is easy to spot with your naked eye. The planet is joined by cosmic comrade Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo and the 16th-brightest star in the sky. In the evenings, Spica is below Jupiter. But the pair travel south then west daily, and Spica will be to Jupiter’s left before dawn. The nearly full moon is close to Jupiter on Monday. The next day, the official full moon remains relatively close to Jupiter. By next Friday, the planet rises at 6:56 p.m. and sets the following day around 6:30 a.m., according to the Naval Observatory. On April 21, the planet rises at 6:24 p.m. and sets around 6 a.m. the next day. It takes this big planetary lug — the fifth planet from the sun, filled with hydrogen and helium — about 12 Earth years to orbit the sun, according to NASA. In fact, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope will use this favorable viewing opportunity to mint new planetary portraits and add fresh detail. Jupiter’s portraits can be enlightening: Hubble’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer captured a rare triple eclipse, featuring three of Jupiter’s largest moons — Io, Ganymede and Callisto — seeming to scoot across the planet’s face March 28, 2004. Last June, the Hubble telescope imaging spectrograph captured the extraordinarily vivid fireworks of aurora dancing, as high-energy particles pierced the planet’s atmosphere near its magnetic poles.

Zip! Zoom! Wow! Perseid meteors to dart through our heavens this weekend

Procuring providence this weekend, hope that clear night skies part the predicted thunderstorms in time to provide a view of the Perseid meteors – a shower that peaks this Sunday night into Monday. Since late July, the percolating Perseids have sporadically darted through our heavens. But a variety of astronomical organizations concur that this Sunday night, Monday morning and possibly Monday night may be prime time for this famous, annual shower. To enjoy these meteors, you don’t need heavy equipment. Simply go outside late on Sunday night, find a dark sky location (for example, no street lights) and look up for a little while. “Relax, be patient and let your eyes adapt to the dark,” says Bob Naeye, editor-in-chief of Sky and Telescope magazine. On Earth’s annual trip around the sun, our pale blue planet confronts many cosmic the dusty trails of comets-gone-by. Meteors are caused by specks of leftover comet dust. Earth runs into these trails and the dirt flecks strike our atmosphere and light up. Naeye and his brilliant Sky and Telescope crew explain that the meteoric dust resemble Grape Nuts cereal, since they are a “close match to the estimated size, color and texture of typical meteor-shower particles.” This year’s Perseid watchers need not worry about contending with the moon. In Washington on Sunday night, the new moon – on the verge of becoming a first quarter moon – sets in the west around 10:30 p.m. Just a bit later, the constellation Perseus rises in the northeastern heavens. Since the shooting stars appear to emanate to Perseus, we get the shower name Perseids. Expect to see a higher number of shooting stars, say about 90 each hour at peak, according to the Observer’s Handbook 2013, by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. You won’t see all 90 each hour – not even close. But if you persevere, you’ll have a handsome count. With the shower hitting a predicted peak in the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 12, says Sky and Telescope, this year’s sky gazers likely might enjoy extra innings of meteor watching on Monday night. Comet Swift-Tuttle, the dirty snowball meteoric parent, looms large. The nucleus is about 16 miles in diameter – that’s about the distance from Tysons Corner to Rockville. Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office says, “Most other comets are much smaller, with nuclei only a few kilometers across. As a result, Comet Swift-Tuttle produces a large number of meteoroids, many of which are large enough to produce fireballs.” NASA has produced a short video about the possible Perseid fireballs. Find it here:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Between 2008 and this year’s shower, the Perseid’s shooting stars have produced a hefty number of fireballs – extremely bright and long-lasting streaks – more than any other shower. Sky watchers have enjoyed 568 Perseid fireballs since 2008, while the Geminis have created 426 fireballs and the Orionids 319, according to the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Last year was the 150th anniversary Comet Swift-Tuttle’s discovery and this cosmic body has a Washington connection. While the United States was in the throes of the Civil War, astronomer Horace P. Tuttle found the comet July 19, 1862, from the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. He joined the Union Army a short while later and then became an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory here. Tuttle died in 1923 and is buried – in an unmarked grave – at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church. The other discoverer, astronomer Lewis Swift, made his finding on July 16, 1862, from Marathon, N.Y. Sky and Telescope offers a free guide called “Shooting Stars.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Skywatch: Celestial shows leading up to the summer solstice

**Mars** relays magic, **Saturn** supplies summer cheer and **Jupiter** furnishes fun through June’s night sky. As night falls, find Jupiter very high in the south-southwest at negative-2.1 magnitude (quite bright) near the lion’s rear legs in the constellation **Leo**. The waxing, first-quarter adolescent **moon** cavorts with Jupiter on June 11. This gaseous globe sets around 2 a.m. now, but in mid-June it sets in the west about 1 a.m. and by month’s end sets around 12:15 a.m. Magnificent and marvelous Mars — bright and bursting with red — ascends the southeastern sky as night falls. **Earth** ’s rusty-looking neighbor opens June with a negative-2 magnitude (very bright), making it an easy target for casual skygazers. At midnight now, when it crosses south, it is about 29 degrees above the horizon. By the middle of June, Mars passes south just before 11 p.m., high above the horizon. At the end of June, find the planet south before 10 p.m. and slightly dimmed at negative-1.6 magnitude. Saturn is an all-night-party planet at the start of June as it rises about 8:20 p.m. in the southeast and beams bright enough to be seen from the city, at zero magnitude. On June 3, Saturn reaches opposition — which means that from our earthly perspective, we’re between the ringed planet and the **sun**. In other words, it’s a full Saturn being lit by the sun. By the end of June, it rises at 6:20 p.m. — in full daylight — so at sunset, the planet will be high in the southeast. The plump, waxing gibbous moon jumps past Mars on the evening of June 16, scoots between Mars and Saturn on June 17, and the nearly full moon snuggles next to Saturn on June 18. The new moon arrives June 5, and the full moon officially appears June 20 — the **summer solstice**. While **Venus** is too close to the sun for us to see, **Mercury** gets morning attention. The fleet planet ascends the morning heavens in the eastern sky around 5 a.m., flirting with the horizon before sunrise. On June 3, it will nuzzle a last quarter moon. Now the planet is at 0.8 magnitude, but it brightens to negative-0.7 later in June. At the end of the month, Mercury will be negative-1.5, but getting closer to the sun. Hello, summer! The astronomical start to summer — the solstice — occurs at 6:34 p.m. on June 20, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. **Down to Earth events:** **● June 1 –** “Going to Extremes: Putting the Squeeze on Life,” a lecture by NASA astrobiologist Pamela Conrad, examines how life adapts to challenging locales. At the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 8 p.m. Request overflow tickets and webcast: airandspace.si.edu/events/tickets. **● June 4 –** Rain, go away! Through dark skies, gaze at the opulent heavens with star party host Sean O’Brien and astronomers from the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club at Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. Parking $5. Arrive before dark. 8 to 11 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556. airandspace.si.edu. **● June 4 –** Scrutinize planets, stars and other spirited cosmic objects at “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **● June 5 –** “Black Holes,” a talk by astronomer Erin Kara, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. View the heavens through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **● June 10 –** Enjoy Mars, Jupiter and Saturn — plus the sun and the moon — at the sixth annual Astronomy Festival on the Mall, where astronomers will set up telescopes at 15th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. 6 to 11 p.m. (Rain date: June 11 at Catholic University, 620 Michigan Ave. NE.) hofstra.edu/dcstars. **● June 13 –** The National Capital Astronomers celebrate science-fair winners at their regular meeting at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **● June 14 –** “Spaceflight: Then, Now and Next,” a discussion with Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, and Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, chief executive of Amazon.com and owner of The Washington Post. At the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 8 p.m. Request overflow tickets and webcast: airandspace.si.edu/events/tickets. **● June 20 –** “The Early Moon as an Exoplanet,” a talk by astronomer Prabal Saxena, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Barring clouds, scan the heavens through telescopes. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **● June 23 –** “How to Find an Inhabited Exoplanet,” a lecture by astronomer David Charbonneau of Harvard University, as he explains the chemical fingerprints needed to find life beyond our solar system. At the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, Air and Space Museum, on the Mall. 8 p.m. For stand-by tickets and webcast: airandspace.si.edu/events/tickets. Blaine Friedlander can be reached at postskywatch@gmail.com postskywatch@gmail.com .

Instagrammers capture rare and enchanting views of the Northern Lights

Stargazers across the globe captured stunning auroral displays late Monday night and early Tuesday morning. The unusually strong showing of the Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, occurred when solar eruptions triggered a severe geomagnetic storm over the weekend. The Post’s Capital Weather Gang explains:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “Three coronal mass ejections over the past few days have erupted and have made their way to Earth to cause a G4 (severe) geomagnetic storm on Monday afternoon. … [T]he solar wind was very fast and contained a southward-oriented magnetic field. A fast solar wind with this characteristic tends to produce the largest geomagnetic storms — and most intense auroras — on Earth.” [ _The beauty of a rare total solar eclipse_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Instagram and Twitter users from all over including New Hampshire, North Dakota, Norway, Minnesota, and New York stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to capture and share the dazzling display. Here’s a look:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **More about the Northern Lights:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Solar eruptions trigger severe geomagnetic storm on Earth    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stunning timelapse shows the Aurora Borealis from space    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Severe geomagnetic storm spurs beautiful aurora    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Aurora lights up the sky as far south as Midwest    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Monday night boasts the year’s one and only pink moon

No, the full moon will not actually appear pink Monday night. It will look more or less like any other full moon. But it’s the first full moon of spring, named the “pink” moon for its timely emergence with some of the season’s blooms. The moon becomes officially full at 2:08 a.m. Eastern early Tuesday, but to the human eye will appear totally illuminated from dusk to dawn. In Washington, the moon rises at 7:15 p.m. Monday night and sets at 7:05 a.m. Tuesday morning.  As the moon rises Monday evening, it will snuggle up close to Jupiter and the bright star Spica. The full moon has religious significance, marking the start of Passover for Jews, while Easter occurs the first Sunday after the pink moon. April’s full moon has several other nicknames including the grass moon, seed moon and egg moon. In the Southern Hemisphere, where autumn is just getting underway, it is called the hunter’s moon. Below, to celebrate the pink moon, see some wonderful recent photos of pink flowers from our readers…

Skywatch: Jupiter shines bright before its date with Juno

On this star-spangled holiday weekend, the western sky gives ample proof in the night that the planetary king **Jupiter** is still there. Just after sundown this evening, find Jupiter high in the west-southwestern heavens. You can easily see it with your naked eye, bright at -1.9 magnitude. Enjoy that view, since the large planet welcomes the NASA spacecraft **Juno** tomorrow night (July 4) in the midst of fireworks here. Jupiter loiters in the constellation **Leo** , near the back legs of its lion shape. It sets around midnight. By mid-July, the bright, gaseous giant will be about 25 degrees above the west-southwestern horizon at dusk, and by month’s end, the giant planet will be slightly lower in the same section of the sky, setting about 10:15 p.m. The young **moon** is under Jupiter on July 8, and on the following night, the moon leapfrogs Jupiter. Catch Juno’s arrival on NASA TV  and on astronomy webcaster Slooh.com, as both will feature the spacecraft’s orbit insertion maneuver and commentary starting at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time on July 4. Over the next 20 months, the craft will orbit the planet’s poles 37 times, all the while handling intense radiation and gathering data to understand the early solar system. Follow Juno on Twitter:   @NASAJuno. While the world focuses on Juno and Jupiter, the lovely **Venus** sneaks back into the evening heavens after hiding in the **sun** ’s brightness since April. Look close to the horizon in the west-northwestern sky, just after sunset in mid-to-late July. The effervescent Venus is -3.9 magnitude — very bright — but will be low and hanging out with best bud **Mercury** as the chums conjunct July 16. Mercury is zero magnitude — bright — later in July. When it gets darker after sunset, the reddish **Mars** , the ringed **Saturn** and the star **Antares** begin to emerge high in the south-southeast. They form a triangle. Mars, with its noticeable red tint, is to the right; Saturn is the white object on the left; and Antares, also with a red tint, blinks. Mars starts July at -1.4 magnitude — very bright — and gets dim as the month progresses. Saturn is about zero magnitude — bright enough to see from light- polluted urban areas, while Antares is at first magnitude. Mars, Saturn and Antares can be seen in prime time as you face south around the 9- to-10 p.m. hour throughout July. The waxing gibbous moon races toward the trio July 13, getting closer July 14 and then skipping by Saturn on July 15. The moon becomes full July 19. A small meteor shower, the **Delta Aquariids** , peaks July 28, with about 20 shooting stars an hour, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Due to imperfect light conditions around the metro area, you’ll likely see fewer. **●July 5 –** “Simulations of Fermi Bubbles,” a talk by Karen Yang, an Einstein Fellow, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Telescope viewing afterward, weather permitting.   astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●July 9 –** Days after the smoke from the fireworks clears, see cosmic creations at “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **●July 11 –** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3 for children 12 and under and seniors 60 and over; $5 for adults. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. **●July 20 –** Astrophysicist Francesco Tombesi asks, “Can Supermassive Black Holes Influence the Evolution of Entire Galaxies?” at the University of Maryland Observatory’s open house, College Park. 9 p.m. Star and planet viewing after the lecture, weather permitting.   astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●July 29 –** Paint the planet red, it’s Mars Day! Bring the kids and open your eyes and ears to learn about Earth’s rusty neighbor. The day features interactive exhibits and experts. National Air and Space Museum, National Mall. 10 a.m.–3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **●July 31 –** There are red giant stars that guzzle planets whole. And Joleen Carlberg, a NASA postdoctoral fellow, wants to find them. She’ll answer all of your questions in the Astronomy Chat Series. Phoebe Waterman Haas Observatory, National Air and Space Museum, National Mall. 11 a.m. airandspace.si.edu. Blaine Friedlander can be reached at  PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com. Twitter:  @BPFriedlander

Meteors streak through the sky Sunday night at a rate of 100 an hour

The heavens revel in the young year as meteors, the **moon** , a dim comet and five visible planets frolic — and some dance together — through the night. **Jupiter** rises about 10:40 p.m. in the eastern heavens. The planet, seen at a bright -2.2 magnitude, snuggles between the constellations **Leo** and **Virgo**. Late in January, the large gaseous planet rises about 8:45 p.m., while the chubby, waning gibbous moon hangs above Jupiter on Jan. 26, then leapfrogs the planet the next night. Looking like a beacon from above, **Venus** rises about 4:30 a.m. in the east, chilling in the constellation **Scorpius**. The planet seems to beam at a -4.0 magnitude (very bright). Throughout the rest of this week, Venus and the ringed **Saturn** (zero magnitude, far more dim than Venus) appear to move closer — that is, until those planets conjunct Saturday. The waning crescent moon hovers above Venus and Saturn on Wednesday morning, and then to the left of the two planets on Thursday. **Mars** rises about 1:40 a.m. in the eastern sky, in the constellation Virgo early in January, as a first magnitude object. Our reddish neighbor remains quite high in the southern sky by sunrise. Late in the month, it rises just after 1 a.m. Incidentally, Sunday is the summer solstice on Mars, according to the Planetary Society (planetary.org). The last Martian summer solstice was Feb. 15, 2014; the next is Nov. 20, 2017. Find the fleet **Mercury** loitering in the western evening sky for about the next week, when it sinks toward the sun. By late January the fast little planet emerges in the eastern sky — rising before the sun about 6:30 a.m. By Jan. 22, it’s about a 1.2 magnitude and brightening rapidly to start February. The **Quadrantid meteors** streak through Sunday and Monday nights, with a predicted peak time of 3 a.m. Monday. Although about 100 meteors an hour are predicted, according to the International Meteor Organization (imo.net), you may see only a handful because of urban and suburban light pollution. In the same region of sky, where the Quadrantid meteors seem to emanate, the double- tailed **Comet Catalina** (C2013 US10) is near the bright star **Arcturus** , in the constellation **Bootes**. Find the comet with binoculars before sunrise, high in the east. **• Tuesday** : Astronomer Elizabeth Warner explains upcoming sky events of 2016, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 8 p.m. After the talk, enjoy heavenly tours through telescopes. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Friday:** “Einstein, Time and Light,” a lecture by physicist and Nobel laureate William D. Phillips, explains how Albert Einstein’s thinking shapes the key scientific and technological wonders of contemporary life. Hosted by the Washington Philosophical Society, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. philsoc.org. **●Saturday:** Caroline and William Herschel — two of astronomy’s 18th- century superstars — come back to life at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers. Jennifer Horowitz plays Caroline and Dean Howarth plays William. The astronomers meet at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **●Jan. 10:** The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club features a telescopic show and tell at its regular meeting, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. **●Jan. 20:** “Exploring Alien Atmospheres,” a lecture by Hannah Wakeford, a NASA postdoctoral fellow who studies exoplanets, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 8 p.m. Afterward, look toward the heavens through telescopes, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Jan. 21:** “A Tale of Two Planets: What Earth and Mars Are Teaching Us About the Evolution of Habitable Worlds,” a lecture by Pamela Conrad of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. At the Carnegie Institution for Science, 1530 P St. NW. 6:45 p.m. Registration required. carnegiescience.edu. ● **Jan. 30:** “Exploring Venus, Earth’s Planetary Twin,” Jennifer Whitten, postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, reveals geological secrets of our toasty neighboring planet. 5:15 p.m. Albert Einstein Planetarium, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Sixth Street and Independence Avenue SW. airandspace.si.edu. **●Jan. 30:** “How Stars Are Born,” a presentation at 100 Science North Building, Montgomery College, Takoma Park. 7 p.m. (The college’s planetarium is being reconfigured.) Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com.

Skywatch: Annual Perseid meteor shower and another supermoon

With a pair of planets in the evening and morning heavens, muted **Perseid** meteors and a fun full **moon** , these lazy days of summer feature a bustling night sky. The drama opens Sunday night with **Saturn** and **Mars** flanking the young moon in the southwestern heavens. Reddish Mars (zero magnitude, visible from the city) hangs to the right, and the ringed Saturn (zero magnitude, visible from the city) loiters to the left. Because the moon continually inches through the heavens, it will pass over Saturn — which will be seen in other parts of the globe — on Monday morning. You won’t see this from Washington, but you can catch it live online at Slooh.com. The online astronomy group dubbed this “The Moon ‘Photobombing’ Saturn from Australia.” See it at 7 a.m. Monday at live.slooh.com. On Monday night in Washington, the moon starts to distance itself from Mars and Saturn. The red and ringed planets form a tight partnership by Aug. 27 and are within a few degrees of each other. The moon returns Aug. 31 to form another trio with Mars and Saturn. In the middle of August, very low on the eastern horizon see **Venus** (-3.0 magnitude, very bright) ascend the morning sky. **Jupiter** (-1.0 magnitude, bright) begins to emerge in the same vicinity about 6 a.m. in morning twilight. On subsequent mornings, these planetary paramours appear to gravitate toward each other, but on Aug. 18, Venus and Jupiter conjunct. Like teen sweethearts holding hands, they remain close for several days until the lunar chaperone — the moon — breaks them apart on Aug. 23. The moon becomes full Aug. 10, at 2:09 p.m. Eastern time, after it reaches perigee (the moon’s closest distance to **Earth** in this cycle) minutes earlier, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Astronomical Phenomenon 2014. It’s colloquially dubbed a “ **supermoon** ,” and it is the second of three big and bright full moons this summer. The luminous moon will likely wash out most of this year’s normally robust Perseid meteor shower, which peaks Aug. 12-13, according to the International Meteor Organization. (The peak may happen after midnight on Aug. 13.) Bill Cooke, NASA meteor expert, says the Perseids usually flash a few more fireballs than other large showers. On the nights leading up to the meteor shower (before the Aug. 10 full moon) and on the nights after the lunar influence fades, you may see a few stray meteors. **●Tuesday:** “A Journey Among Galaxies: From Nearby to Far Away,” a talk by astronomer Sebastien Heinis at the University of Maryland Observatory in College Park. Telescope viewing afterward, weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Aug. 10:** Sean McWilliams, assistant professor of astronomy at West Virginia University, hangs 10 to explain gravity waves, at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Room 163, Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. **●Aug. 20:** “Astronomy from 40,000 Feet: Observing with NASA’s SOFIA,” a lecture about studying astronomy via aircraft by researcher Tracy Huard at the University of Maryland Observatory in College Park. Afterward, gaze at the heavens through telescopes. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Aug. 22-26:** Registration space is filling fast for the Almost Heaven Star Party at the Mountain Institute in Spruce Knob, W.Va., hosted by the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Join fellow nature aficionados who enjoy stars, planets, birds and fresh air. www.ahsp.org. **** **●Aug. 23:** Late summer’s dark heavens await as Sean O’Brien of the National Air and Space Museum and local astronomers guide you through stars and planets at Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. Parking is $5. Arrive before dark. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556. airandspace.si.edu. **●Aug. 23:** Live from Rock Creek Park, it’s “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. Meet near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 8:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org.

Winter won’t go away: Possible light snow early Sunday, cold snap middle of next week

Temperatures on Saturday will reach the 50s, and spring officially begins early Monday morning. But winter may still have a couple tricks left up its sleeves. A little light snow could fall very early Sunday morning in parts of the area, and one more blast of cold may roll into town in the middle of next week.  A compact, but energetic high-altitude weather disturbance will zip through the region late Saturday night into early Sunday morning. It is likely to produce a few rain showers and, in some areas, the rain could briefly mix with and change to snow. A little sleet could be in the mix as well. As usual, colder areas north of the Beltway are most likely to see snow and, even there, it’s not a sure thing. Computer models seem to target the period between about 5 and 8 a.m. Sunday for any flakes, so some of us may sleep right through it. It’s almost not even worth talking about, but we didn’t want folks to be surprised. Where it does snow, temperatures should be safely above freezing, in the mid- to upper 30s — so we don’t expect much accumulation — expect maybe a coating on cold surfaces, such as decks, mulch, car tops, trash cans and the like. The model simulations presented below illustrate how spotty any snow may be.      Early next week, temperatures are predicted to rebound with afternoon highs from 55 to 60, which is near normal. But forecast models are predicting a quick-hitting surge of Arctic air in the Northeast in the Wednesday-Thursday time frame. There are questions about how far south the cold air will penetrate, and the coldest weather relative to normal is likely to focus in New England. The European model is more aggressive with the cold than the American (GFS). But it’s not out of the question. Washington has two more days with highs stuck in the 40s and overnight lows in the 20s to near freezing. All indications are that by next weekend, the cold will depart. Perhaps, finally, spring will be here to stay.

With the start of spring just weeks away, several planets are becoming hard to miss

After this bleak and blustery Washington winter, smile when you see these two words: **vernal equinox**. The astronomical start to spring — the vernal equinox — occurs at 12:57 p.m. Eastern time March 20, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That’s the moment when the **sun** appears to cross the equator into the Northern Hemisphere. For the next three months, as our hemisphere gets its turn to tilt toward the sun, we’ll gain more light and warmth. Conversely, the Southern Hemisphere moves into autumn. As you thaw, catch a few bright planets. When night falls, the sky reveals that **Jupiter** still loiters in the **Gemini** constellation. It rises in the northeast just before 1 p.m. in the afternoon now, which means that by sunset, the fat, gaseous giant is already high in the southeastern sky. Jupiter is hard to miss at negative 2.4 magnitude (very bright). The portly waxing gibbous **moon** cruises under Jupiter on March 9-10. By the Ides of March, the planet crosses due south about 8:20 p.m. Like connecting the dots, draw a straight line from Jupiter down to **Sirius** , the Dog Star (negative 1.46 magnitude, very bright) in **Canis Major**. The large H-shaped constellation **Orion** stands to the west, or right, of that imaginary line. Colorful encounters: Our red neighbor, **Mars,** saunters through the sky in the **Virgo** constellation and is close to the blue star **Spica**. Mars, at zero magnitude and visible through the District’s light-polluted urban skies, rises about 9:30 p.m. now in the east-southeast. This planet remains visible throughout the night, as early risers can scope Mars in the southwest before sunrise. If you’re looking for rings, **Saturn** rises about midnight now, ascending the east-southeast. The planet will be nearly 30 degrees above the southeastern horizon about 3 a.m. Early risers can spot this other giant before sunrise in the southern heavens. Like a gem worn by Academy Award nominees, the planet **Venus** oozes radiance in the morning sky. Our gorgeous neighboring planet — the other neighbor — rises in the southeastern sky just after 4 a.m., and becomes high enough to see long before sunrise. It’s a negative 4.7 magnitude, very bright, around mid-month. The thin, waning moon passes Venus on the morning of March 27. You have a week to enjoy standard time: It’s nearly time to spring forward with our clocks, as we return to daylight saving time on March 9, when you move clocks forward one hour at 2 a.m. — which becomes 3 a.m. ● **March 3 —** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. ● **March 5** **—** “MAVEN,” a talk by NASA’s Kelly Fast on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission. It launched last November and arrives at the red planet in September. At the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. View the heavens through telescopes, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● **March 7** **—** “Heart of Darkness: Understanding the Invisible Universe of Dark Matter and Dark Energy,” a lecture by Jeremiah Ostriker, Princeton University professor emeritus. This is hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8:15 p.m. www.philsoc.org. ● **March 8** **—** “Rediscovering the Milky Way,” a lecture by Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University astronomy professor, at the Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 5:15 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. ● **March 9** ******—** “Mars: A World Where Air Goes to Sleep at Night,” a talk by research scientist Timothy Livengood, at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, Room 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. ● **March 13** **—** “Living and Working in Space: Conducting Solar Observations from Skylab,” a talk by Owen Garriott, former NASA astronaut. 7:30 p.m. Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, Air and Space Museum on the Mall. airandspace.si.edu. ● **March 20** **—** “The Vernal Equinox: the First Day of Spring,” a program at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet/. ● **March 20** **—** “When Chunks of the Universe Collide,” a talk by astronomer Simona Giacintucci, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Scan the night sky afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse.

Photos: Northern lights display over Norway becomes holy experience for local astronomer

As a swift solar wind bombarded the Earth’s magnetic field Wednesday night, spectacular aurora danced in the skies at high latitudes. For Geoff Chester, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory vacationing in Norway, the display was profoundly moving. “I’ve just come in from watching the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my six decades upon this planet,” Chester wrote on his Facebook page. “Over the past 4 hours the sky has done things I never thought were possible. The insane beauty of the northern lights is very nearly overwhelming. I feel as if I’ve been privileged to read the thoughts of God, and I am not a religious person. I am continually amazed at the powers of Nature…tonight I feel very humbled to have been able to see this amazing sight with my own eyes.” The aurora were mostly seen at high latitudes, although one eyewitness captured the phenomenon in rural southwest Virginia (Botetourt County)! “The aurora was bright because this coronal hole had really fast solar wind flowing through it, almost 2 million mph,” said Joe Kunches, Capital Weather Gang’s space weather expert. “Plus it was of a magnetic polarity — positive — that is particularly geoeffective around the fall equinox.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[Stunning images of the Northern Lights as two space weather phenomena coincide]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The lights were viewed from the International Space Station, where astronaut Scott Kelly beamed this image back to Earth: On the wild side, a photographer in Norway videotaped whales roaming in the seas under the northern lights earlier this week, when solar activity was also elevated: _(Video hat tip:Andrew Freedman @Mashable)_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico High latitude auroras may appear again this evening as the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center calls for an 80 percent chance of polar geomagnetic storms. Below, find more pictures of the aurora Wednesday night from both hemispheres, obtained from SpaceWeather.com’s wonderful aurora gallery and from Twitter:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Quadrantids meteor shower peaks this weekend — where to see it

The Quadrantids, which is the first meteor shower of the year, peak this weekend. Unfortunately most of the eastern half of the country will be too cloudy to catch a glimpse, but viewing is expected to be good in parts of the central and Southwest U.S. this weekend. The meteor shower will be best seen on Friday and Saturday night, after midnight and before dawn. Though the peak meteor rate is short-lived in the Quadrantids — just a couple of hours — the rate tends to be high, with as many as 80 meteors visible per hour between 3 a.m. and dawn. You’ll want to look to the northeast sky, just under the Big Dipper, where the meteors will originate from. Early Saturday morning, the European model is forecasting cloud cover to be thick across much of the eastern U.S. Northern New England, including most of Maine, might have a good shot at seeing the meteor shower early Saturday morning if the clouds thin out enough. The Southwest U.S. has the best viewing weather with mostly clear skies. The forecast for Saturday night is similar, though New England will have clouded over by then, and parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas might have improved, cloud-free conditions. If you plan to brave the cold, NASA shares a few tips on viewing the meteor shower:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

MAVEN spotted a strange and unexpected aurora around Mars

For five days before Dec. 25, Mars gave NASA scientists a Christmas light show. NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft detected an ultraviolet glow in the planet's northern hemisphere.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Earth is no stranger to this phenomenon. On Tuesday, unusually high solar flare activity had people spotting auroras as far south as the Northern United States, but the display caused by high-energy particles interacting with Earth's atmosphere is more common in the polar regions.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _This time-lapse video shows lightning, an aurora, and a sunrise — from space_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But they're a little different on Mars. "What's especially surprising about the aurora we saw is how deep in the atmosphere it occurs - much deeper than at Earth or elsewhere on Mars,” Arnaud Stiepen, a MAVEN team member at the University of Colorado, said in a statement. “The electrons producing it must be really energetic." [ _NASA launches four spacecraft to study a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Earth has a magnetic field that protects the inner atmosphere from space's radiation. When we see auroras on our planet, it's because some of the sun's energetic particles have managed to break through it. Mars lost its magnetosphere billions of years ago, so solar particles can hit the atmosphere directly and penetrate deeper. Less pretty (but possibly even more intriguing) is a dust cloud also detected by MAVEN. While the aurora was unexpectedly deep in the atmosphere, the dust cloud was at an unexpectedly high altitude -- about 93 miles to 190 miles above the surface. The cloud has been present the whole time MAVEN has been operating, and NASA representatives say it doesn't pose a threat to any of the spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet. But it's not clear yet whether it's a temporary thing or a long-lasting phenomenon, because MAVEN has only been in orbit for four months. There are several places the dust could come from -- Mars's two moons, solar wind, or comet debris, for starters -- but scientists don't know how exactly it got there. MAVEN has another eight months left in its primary mission, so hopefully more data will help solve the mystery. **MORE READING:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **NASA’s MAVEN mission is getting an unprecedented look at Mars’s atmosphere, revealing the planet’s past**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Most stars in the galaxy have planets in the habitable zone, according to new research**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **NASA discovers an underground ocean on Jupiter’s largest moon**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Winter arrives Wednesday morning: Five maps that explain the solstice.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. If you’re an avid sun observer, or just want to learn more about the solstice, have a look at these five maps to learn more:  This map projection of the Earth shows how dark the Northern Hemisphere is at the time of the winter solstice, 5:44 a.m.     The solstice is the shortest day of the year, but how long is the sun up where you live? This map — the first of four created by Alaska-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider — shows how daylight hours vary with latitude across North America:  In Washington, D.C. the sun is up for 9 hours and 26 minutes (rising at 7:23 a.m. and setting at 4:49 p.m.). That’s about an hour less daylight than in South Florida, but still an hour longer than in cities across the Northern Tier, like Minneapolis and Seattle. Of course, our long winter night pales in comparison to Alaska, where the sun barely climbs above the horizon for 3-4 hours in much the Last Frontier. North of the Arctic Circle — at 66.5ºN latitude — the sun never rises, and darkness prevails as the Earth rotates on its axis.  This next map shows how daylight balances out over the course of a year. The higher one’s latitude, the greater the change in daylight from summer to winter:  Cities at lower latitudes, such as Atlanta and Dallas, see less variation in daylight between the longest and shortest day of the year (only about four and a half hours). Further north, in Chicago and Boston, the difference amounts to over six hours. Then there’s extreme Alaska, where nighttime is anywhere from 12 to 24 hours longer now than it was six months ago.  The shortest day of the year means dusk arrives early. While our earliest sunsets are already behind us (more on that in map no. 5), this map presents a time-zone adjusted view of sunset times in the U.S. and Canada just before the solstice. In gray regions — which includes D.C. and the Mid-Atlantic — the earliest sunsets are between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Light yellow regions encompass the cities of Chicago, Boston and Seattle, where the sun sets between 4 and 4:30 p.m. In purple areas, the earliest sunsets are not until after 5 o’clock. One thing we can glean from this map is the combined effect of time zones and latitude on sunset times. The color contours are slanted from northwest to southeast because the Earth’s northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun during winter. Pick any two points on the map within the same time zone and draw a line between them. Anytime you move north and east, sunset arrives earlier, while moving south and or west means sunset will be later.   What causes this astronomical oddity, though? The succinct explanation is that solar noon — the time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky each day — moves several minutes later in December, a phenomenon caused by Earth’s planetary tilt and elliptical orbit around the sun. When the sun takes more than 24 hours to reach the same point in the sky from one day to the next, we start to see a lag between our 24-hour clocks and the sun’s apparent daily motion in the sky. This discrepancy pushes sunrise and sunset times later even as the days continue to shorten right up until the solstice. Note from this map how the dates of the earliest sunset and latest sunrise change with distance from Earth’s equator. At higher latitudes, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise happen closer to the solstice, while in lower latitudes they can be well over a month apart.  But even though our latest sunrise and earliest sunset don’t neatly coincide with the shortest day of the year, remember that the days will slowly start to get longer now. So if the dark days of winter are getting to you, rest assured, it only goes up from here — and that’s something to celebrate.

Colorful green and red aurora lights up the sky as far south as Virginia (Photos)

The solar wind has been streaming into our upper atmosphere this week, igniting colorful auroras as far south as the Mid-Atlantic. The geomagnetic storm that sparked the northern lights was only moderately strong, but it was still enough to push an intense red aurora much farther south than typically seen. Virginia photographer Terry Aldhizer caught the red aurora glow in Botetourt County, Va., just north of Roanoke, on Monday. “I couldn’t see it with my unaided eye, but the camera picked up the colors nicely,” said Aldhizer on spaceweather.com.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Red auroras, which occur much higher in the atmosphere than the more typical green auroras, are not entirely understood by space weather scientists. “Some researchers believe the red lights are linked to low energy electrons from the sun, which move too slowly to penetrate deeply into the atmosphere,” says spaceweather.com. “When such electrons recombine with oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, red photons are emitted. At present, space weather forecasters cannot predict when this will occur.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who’s in the midst of his year in space as a part of the twins study, shared the wavy green aurora from the vantage of the International Space Station on Monday.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The day-night band sensor on the Suomi NPP satellite captured amazing images of the aurora from space. This particular satellite sensor is able to detect very dim lights like the aurora, airglow, gas flares, city lights and even reflected moonlight, says NASA.

Venus to star in evening sky

It seldom happens. It will not be visible from Earth again for more than 100 years. But it will be possible to see it Tuesday. And it’s free. Tuesday evening people in Washington and elsewhere on the East Coast will be able to see the planet Venus cross the face of the sun, starting shortly after 6 p.m., in a celestial phenomenon known as the Transit of Venus. A NASA Web site called it a “a rare and striking phenomenon you won’t want to miss.” Viewing will not be easy. Looking at the sun with unprotected eyes is dangerous, and experts warn against it. Sunglasses are inadequate. Eclipse glasses or extremely dark welders’ glasses are needed. Beyond the special measures necessary to protect the eyes, keen vision will be a plus. The sun is relatively small in the sky, and Venus will be little more than a black dot crossing its face, starting at the sun’s upper left. “The Transit of Venus is best viewed directly when magnified,” NASA said. But it warned that any telescope or binoculars used should be equipped with a filter to protect the viewer’s eyes.

Solar storm: Fall colors may include the glow of the aurora at high latitudes

The sun, now in the declining phase of Cycle 24, has established these nozzles for the fast solar wind, coronal holes, which will continue to beat on the Earth’s field on a repetitive manner for the next few years. Forecasters love these as they come around on about a 27-day revisit rate, usually packing the about same punch. Scientists have seen, though, that during the equinox months, when Earth is most tilted in the forward direction in its orbit around the sun, a certain magnetic polarity seems to have a stronger effect. In September, a positive (outward pointing) high-speed stream magnetic field will cause the largest disturbances. In March, it’s the negative polarity in the solar wind that’s the most meddlesome. A positive polarity stream fuels today’s storm. The forecast is for this current storm to peak at the end of this week. If you happen to be in the northern United States or northern Europe, check the night sky out your back door. You might get lucky.

Geomagnetic storm lights up the sky with a beautiful aurora in northern latitudes

The same region caused a G2-moderate storm last month, and lit up a brilliant aurora in the process. Yesterday’s storm was stronger, but we didn’t see the aurora south of Canada. But this region could also generate a storm next month around Nov. 21.  Yesterday the K-index peaked at 7 late in the afternoon and then faded to 5 and 6 after dark in North America. That means the Lower 48 was out of luck, but Canada and other higher latitudes got some beautiful photos of the light show.

Venus, Jupiter will beam brightly this month

The heavens convey planetary gifts this month: a vivacious **Venus** and a jammin’ **Jupiter**. Effervescent in the truest sense, Venus’s appearance is as bright as it gets. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada estimates a negative 4.9 magnitude for the planet as it loiters in the south-southwest at dusk. You can’t miss Venus, as it looks like someone pointing an LED flashlight at you. On Friday, the planet will reach “greatest illuminated extent,” according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Our neighboring planet, draped in sulfuric clouds, will be 37.8 million miles away, or about 3.4 light-minutes from **Earth**. Throughout the month, you might notice that Venus, inching closer to the horizon, sets earlier in the western evening sky. Jupiter rises in the northeastern sky rises around 7 p.m. early in December, providing prime-time entertainment from the **Gemini** constellation. It is easy to find in the urban light pollution, since it appears at negative 2.6 magnitude (very bright). This fat, gaseous planet rises around 6 p.m. toward the latter portion of the month. **Comet ISON** , which astronomers had hoped would brighten our Northern Hemisphere skies, may not have escaped the **sun** ’s wrath. Prospects for the comet’s survival are slight, as it reached perihelion — the closest approach to the sun — on Thursday. Images taken from the European Space Agency and NASA satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) on Friday showed a bright comet emerging from the sun’s glare, giving astronomers pause and hope. With further emergence Saturday, the comet had dimmed substantially, an indication that it may have broken apart. Astronomers around the world will observe this object to provide confirmation of the comet’s viability in the coming days. If Comet ISON survived, sky gazers may find the reconfigured body near the horizon in the east-southeastern morning sky. You’ll need binoculars Tuesday morning, and should look for it to the right of **Mercury**. Later in the week, it may be found to the lower left of **Saturn** , according to previous estimates from Mike Lewis of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. * * * The waxing **moon** essentially will wash out most of the **Geminid meteors** on the peak night of Dec. 13-14. Lucky observers may see a few shooting stars late at night and in the morning hours. Our beautiful autumn folds into the **Winter Solstice** on Dec. 21 at 12:11 p.m. Eastern time, according to the Naval Observatory. It’s the official start to astronomical winter, and soon we will start to see more daylight. “Season of Light” — A holiday planetarium program about the coldest, darkest season that holds the warmest, brightest celebrations. David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays, 1:30 and 3 p.m., now through Dec. 22. $3 adults, $2 for children, seniors.  _friendsoftheplanetarium.org_ **●Dec. 2 —** Winter’s sky develops in the “Stars Tonight” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3 admission. _friendsoftheplanetarium.org _. **●Dec. 5 —** “Comet ISON,” a talk by astronomer Dennis Bodewits at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Check out planets and stars afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. _www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse _. **●Dec. 7 —** “Oh, Swear Not by the Inconstant Sun,” a lecture by historian David DeVorkin. Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 5:15 p.m. _airandspace.si.edu _. **●Dec. 8 —** The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club offers an astronomy equipment show-and-tell at its regular meeting. Room 163, Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. _www.novac.com _. **●Dec. 12 —** “Sculpture on the Moon: Meet Artist Paul Van Hoeydonck,” a discussion between the artist and space historian Margaret Weitekamp. Moving Beyond Earth Gallery, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 1 p.m. _airandspace.si.edu _. **●Dec. 13-14 —** “An Astronomer Looks for the Christmas Star” explores the natural phenomena that may be the basis for the Christmas Star. 6:30 p.m. each night. Hosted by the Friends of the Planetarium. David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. $7 adults; $5 members, seniors; $3 kids. _friendsoftheplanetarium.org _. **●Dec. 14 —** “First Mission to Pluto: The Origins and Voyage of New Horizons,” a lecture by historian Michael Neufeld. Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 5:15 p.m. _airandspace.si.edu _. **●Dec. 14 —** “Water Vapor and Hydrocarbons on the Outer Planets,” a lecture by NASA astrophysicist Gordon Bjoraker, at the National Capital Astronomers meeting, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. _capitalastronomers.org _. **●Dec. 20 —** “The Southern Skies: Astronomy in Chile,” a talk by astronomer Mia Bovill, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Scan the heavens afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. _www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse _. **●Dec. 21 —** “The Day of the Sun’s Return: The Winter Solstice,” at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park. (Note: Special 5 p.m. start time.) _www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet/ _.

Mercury has ice, announces NASA

NASA announced Thursday afternoon that, after careful study, they had concluded that the substance in the polar regions of Mercury was water ice. Mercury has ice, and we should come over. It has tons of ice, in fact. Enough ice, Gizmodo says, “to cover the capital of the United States.” That’s an idea I think we can get behind! Nothing good comes out of here anyway, except hot air, tangles of regulation and failures to reform the filibuster. The hot air might cause the ice some problems, but if it can survive on the dark side of Mercury, much closer to big, gassy sources of as much heat as light, it can probably cope. NASA noted that there was “no other compound” the discovery could be besides ice. And it might even contain the same rich soup of organic substances that led to human existence, probably brought by the same comet collisions! Sure, the Mars Discovery still has yet to turn up any Radical New Signs of Life to write home about. But hey, Mercury has ice! This is exactly what Mercury would be expected to bring to the potluck. It can throw a small, staid party now, assuming someone else brings the whiskey. Maybe Venus has vermouth or gin, and we can really turn this into something.

Skywatch: March roars in full of planetary events

March roars in like a lion full of planetary events: **Venus** illuminates the heavens before dawn and a bright **Jupiter** hangs out all night. To start March, Venus rises before dawn around 5:40 a.m. in the east- southeastern sky low on the horizon. This ebullient planet hangs in the constellation **Capricornus** with a negative-3.9 magnitude (very bright). If you walk the dog early March 7, catch an elderly, waning crescent **moon** meeting Venus before sunrise. By mid-March, our bright neighboring planet rises around 6:30 a.m. — just ahead of the **sun**. That evening, the big and boisterous Jupiter takes command like a greaser teen hanging out at Mel’s burger drive-in. The huge planet reaches opposition March 8. Think of opposition as you would a full moon, but it’s a full Jupiter. It’s a very bright negative-2.5-magnitude object. The gassy planet rises in the east at 5:56 p.m. March 8, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory, crosses the meridian 22 minutes after midnight and sets at 6:43 a.m. After the daylight saving time change, Jupiter rises at 6:24 p.m. in mid-March. The fat, gibbous moon greets Jupiter on March 21. **Mars** and **Saturn** arrive later in the night. Mars rises in the east- southeast about 12:15 a.m. now, loitering in the constellation **Libra** , at zero magnitude (not very bright). While the giant, ringed Saturn rises about 1:40 a.m. now, snuggled between the constellations **Ophiuchus** and **Scorpius** , also at zero magnitude. **Spring ahead:** On Sunday, March 13 at 2 a.m., turn your clocks forward one hour as we move to daylight saving time. We’ll retreat to standard time during the first weekend in November. Speaking of spring, it officially starts March 20 early in the morning, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. When the **total solar eclipse** occurs March 8, the sun will be on the other side of world — focused on Indonesia and the South Pacific Ocean. To watch the eclipse from here, go online and see it live on Slooh.com; you can tune in starting at 6 p.m. Two weeks after the total solar eclipse, the western United States can witness a feeble **penumbral lunar eclipse** March 23. At the height of this weak eclipse, the moon darkens slightly. To an unsuspecting eye, it looks like a normal full moon. The deepest part of this eclipse occurs at 4:48 a.m. PDT, according to NASA. For details, visit eclipse expert Fred Espenak’s websites, including: EclipseWise.com, AstroPixels.com and MrEclipse.com — a site dedicated to eclipse photography. **●March 5 —** Astronomer Brian Hicks talks about exoplanets — planets that are beyond our solar system — at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 8 p.m. See the night sky through telescopes afterward, weather permitting.  _www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse_ _._ **●March 7 —** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. General, $5; children/elderly $3.   friendsoftheplanetarium.org. **●March 12 —** Explore “Women in Aviation and Space Day” at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, 14390 Air and Space Museum Pkwy., Chantilly, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Free admission. Parking, $15. _airandspace.si.edu _. **●March 12 —** “Cosmic Crashes: The Many Facets of Neutron Star Collisions,” a talk by NASA research scientist Eleonora Troja at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m.   _capitalastronomers.org_ . **●March 13 —** Mark Kochte, mission analyst at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, discusses the New Horizons mission at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. _novac.com _. **●March 20 —** “The Vernal Equinox: The First Day of Spring,” a presentation at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. _montgomerycollege.edu/departments/planet _. **●March 20 —** “Active Galactic Nuclei: Shining a Light on Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Evolution,” a talk by astronomer Taro Shimizu at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 8 p.m. Gaze at the heavens afterward, weather permitting. _www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse _. **●March 31 —** “Building Stars, Planets and the Ingredients for Life in Space,” the John N. Bahcall Lecture by Ewine F. van Dishoeck of the Leiden Observatory, Netherlands. She examines the discovery of planets around stars other than our sun, 8 p.m. at the Airbus Imax Theater, Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly. airandspace.si.edu. Free tickets: _airandspace.si.edu/events/tickets _. Friedlander can be reached at  postskywatch@gmail.com .

Searching for the northern lights in Norway

**Who:** Connie Gerrard (the author); her sister, Judy Haeder; and Judy’s daughters, Connie and Valerie Haeder. The two Connies live in Washington, D.C., and Judy and Valerie live in Rapid City, S.D. **Where, when, why:** We took a boat trip up the west coast of Norway into the Arctic Circle from Jan. 14 to 25 to experience the glory of the aurora borealis. To see it had been our lifelong dream. **Highlights and high points:** Six days into the voyage, our ship, the MS Midnatsol, entered the Arctic Circle in the early morning. The ship signaled our approach with a piercing blast from its thunderous horn and by training its spotlight on a globe-shaped marker on a small nearby islet designating our entry into the frigid Arctic zone. “King Neptune” presided over a baptismal ritual on the top deck of the ship to mark the occasion. That night, just as we had hoped, the northern lights majestically filled the clear, starry sky. While the ship sailed silently through the waves, we stood bundled up on the front deck, freezing in the raw and biting Arctic air as we gazed in amazement at the heavens. The lights put on a spectacular performance! They danced and glided and rippled and floated across the sky, changing form and direction, exceeding our great expectations. The following night they were again dazzling in different ways, with equally exquisite formations and composition, leaving us enthralled and transfixed as we ignored our shivering bodies to take in their unbelievable beauty and magnificence. We knew that we would never experience anything like this again, and we couldn’t tear ourselves away in spite of the bitter cold. Charming coastal hamlets and mountain peaks at water’s edge added a picturesque panorama for the dramatic performance. My nieces also loved the exhilaration of dog sledding on trails outside Tromso, Norway, known as the Gateway to the Arctic. Ten energetic and joyful dogs pulled their sled over the frozen landscape with such glee that it was hard to know whether the dogs or the girls enjoyed the invigorating adventure more! **Cultural connection or disconnect:** Only a handful of Americans were on the ship to experience the celestial phenomenon of the northern lights. Among the passengers were 80 German astronomers. All of us shared a sense of awe at seeing the astonishing aurora borealis in all its glory. **Biggest laugh or cry:** We responded to a late-night mayday call of the Leif Roald, a fishing vessel that had hit a submerged reef and capsized with all nine members of its crew thrown into the frigid, inky Norwegian Sea. While a helicopter hovered overhead, our ship fixed its huge spotlights on the scene, illuminating it as a search-and-rescue boat plucked the dazed men from the treacherous water. Thankfully, all were rescued and rushed to a hospital. We were later told they were alive but suffering from severe hypothermia. **How unexpected:** We originally embarked on our trip on the MS Kong Harald in Bergen, Norway. On day three, an alarming noise came from the ship’s engine room, and a smoking generator necessitated a stop in Trondheim, Norway. With the Kong Harald out of service, the Midnatsol was contacted to take us the rest of the way. While waiting two days for it to arrive, we were treated to a lovely drive inland through frosty mountains to Roros, Norway, a winter’s dream of a village with snow-packed streets, small wooden dwellings with snow- piled roofs, a quaint and historic church, snowdrifts everywhere, and villagers on their daily errands pushing chair sleds across the glistening white terrain. Lunch included reindeer meat in a lodge with a roaring fire. Roros was the perfect tableau of snow-laden rural Norway. **Fondest memento or memory:** It’s hard to pick one: soaking up life high above the Arctic Circle; reveling in the greatest natural light show on Earth; having canine chauffeurs steer us over rural trails; being captivated by the charm of the Norwegian coastline, villages and vistas; evacuating our disabled ship; participating in a life-saving rescue at sea. Every one was a unique and indelible memory — this was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure!

Winter officially arrives, bringing a blast of heat

Certain days in December come only once a year. One is Christmas and another is the day of the winter solstice. The solstice occurred Monday at 11:49 p.m. when the sun reached its lowest point in northern hemisphere skies. Often the solstice is regarded as the start of winter. Whatever the merits of that designation, this year’s solstice is expected, perhaps confusingly, to bring warmer weather, not colder. The day of Christmas Eve is expected by the National Weather Service to set high temperature records, with the mercury in Washington possibly reaching 75. This would be startling in an area where the official Dec. 24 temperature has never exceeded 69 degrees. Christmas is also expected to be warm, with highs in the upper 60s. Of course, the warmth of the sun, or lack of it, is only one ingredient of the temperature. But the significance of the solstice depends on such unvarying factors as geometry, astronomy and the tilt of the Earth’s axis. They make the day of winter solstice the year’s shortest. Some object to that designation, contending that the length of each day is the same: 24 hours. However, no less an authority than the book of Genesis supports the usage of “day” as the hours of light. The King James version of the Bible reads: God “divided the light from the darkness” and “called the light Day.”

The Perseid meteor shower could be twice as awesome this year. Here’s how to watch.

The pleasantly prolific Perseid meteor shower — a shooting-star show that reigns each August — may become an “outburst” this year, if astronomical predictions hold firm.  Of course, nothing is a shooting-star slam dunk. Naval Observatory astronomer Geoff Chester tempers the excitement with caution, reminding all sky gazers that meteor showers can be unpredictable.  So here’s hoping for clear skies. What are meteors? Comet trash. As ancient comets pass near Earth, they leave a dusty trail — and our planet speeds through the debris each year on its journey around the sun. When our planet crosses these paths, the little granular specs strike Earth’s atmosphere, and they light up and streak through our skies. For the Perseids, that comet is Swift-Tuttle, discovered independently in 1862 by astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace P. Tuttle, who happens to be buried in an unmarked grave at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, Va. Watching the Perseids is easy: Go outside and look up. It’s that simple. If you’re in a neighborhood or an urban location, get away from porch lights and street lights — find a dark area and let your eyes adjust to the night. At 100 to 200 meteors per hour, at peak, you’re not going to see every shooting star, but it should be persistent — such as one every few minutes. Meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus, which now rises before 10 p.m. in the northeast. But looking at any part of the dark sky will do — because they seem to zip through the heavens from every direction. Throughout this week until the peak, if you look up at the night sky, you could find a few Perseid meteors are already zipping across the evening heavens. After the peak, you can still find some stray shooting stars.

Friday’s Astronomy Festival hails planets above and history’s stars

The pageantry of heaven unfolds Friday afternoon into the night, as the northeastern grounds of the Washington Monument becomes filled with telescopes, binoculars and cosmic cheer. It’s the fifth annual Astronomy Festival on the National Mall, from 6 – 11 p.m., at the corner of 15th St. NW and Constitution Ave. (across Constitution Ave. from The Ellipse). The event is free. “My goal is to bring science directly to the people,” says Donald Lubowich, astronomy outreach coordinator, Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y., who organizes this yearly event. **Link:** Festival official web site    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday In the fashion of star party, astronomers from many Washington area groups – the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, the National Capital Astronomers, the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Goddard Astronomy Club, the Astronomical Society of Greenbelt – will put a plethora of telescopes on the Mall and invite casual sky gazers to see Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, the moon and deep sky objects. See the sun, too. Specially filtered telescopes allow gazers to safely see the sun like you’ve never seen it before. Lubowich says there will be a half-dozen solar telescopes. (Never look at the sun through a standard telescope or binoculars. You will go blind.  But in this venue, gazers do so safely.) Kerry Smith from the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers will bring his IBT – that would be the Itty Bitty Telescope – and demonstrate how home-based radio astronomers use handcrafted, easy-to-obtain materials to examine the heavens for radio emissions. While Astronomy Festival-goers move between telescopes, history arises as famed astronomers Caroline Herschel, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler – science luminaries from centuries gone-by – roam the grounds. Lynn King, an astronomer from Wilmington, Del., portrays Herschel (1750-1848), noted for her comet discoveries, was the sister of composer-astronomer William Herschel. Dean Howarth, physics teacher at McLean High School in Fairfax County, plays astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), while Jeff Jones, physics teacher at Mountain View Alternative High School, in Centreville, depicts German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). Howarth, who runs a living history program with his students, explains the importance remembering the past. “[Science students] can benefit from understanding the human and historical sides of the story. I’ve always included that in my teaching. … Teaching science is all the more exciting when you can bring the fundamentals ‘to life,’” says Howarth. “I think Ben Franklin, Archimedes, Curie, Kepler and Brahe would agree that science, technology, engineering and math have been pretty important for all of history.”

Lunatics, arise! ‘Super moon’ rules this weekend

It’s a weekend full of lunacy. The impending full moon, coinciding with the moon’s closest approach to Earth in its orbit, has become known as the “super moon.” In proper astronomical terms, this coupling is referred to as the perigee full moon. Our lunar companion travels in an elliptical orbit, which means that for every lunar cycle, it snuggles in to a position nearest Earth- its perigee, and strays to a position farthest away – its apogee. When the moon’s full phase coincides with perigee, the ‘super moon’ moniker is invoked. **Reader gallery:** Submit your super moon pictures    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The full perigee or ‘super moon’ appears about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the more distant apogee full moon. **Matter of minutes:** The upcoming perigee occurs within minutes of the official full moon (but after the moon will have set for the day and not visible in that particular time window). Make some toast and pour your coffee, since on Sunday, June 23 perigee is at 7:11 a.m. eastern, when the Earth and moon will be about 356,991 kilometers, or 221,894 miles apart, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. A mere 22 minutes later – at 7:33 a.m. – the moon becomes full, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **Since the coincidence of perigee and full moon falls on Sunday morning, the plump moon on Saturday and Sunday night will be each a sight to behold.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **Saturday night, June 22:** The moon rises at 7:50 p.m. (yes, it is still daylight) in the southeastern sky. About 99 percent of the waxing gibbous moon’s visible disk is illuminated, according to the Naval Observatory. And at -12 magnitude, it is very bright and you can’t miss it. This moon is due south at 12:53 a.m. eastern on Sunday morning and it sets at 5:58 a.m. in the southwest. (Compare the moon’s brilliance to Venus, low in the northwestern sky at dusk is -3.9 magnitude, very bright, much like a distant airliner on approach to Washington Dulles Airport.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **Sunday night, June 23:** Moonrise occurs at 8:48 p.m. eastern in the southeast and the lunar disk remains magnificently bright at -12 magnitude.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University On either Saturday or Sunday, if you catch the moon rising as it ascends the horizon, it may look gigantic. Sure, the moon appears slightly larger than your average full moon, but you’ll still be experiencing the moon illusion. Astronomer Sten Odenwald offers an explanation on his Astronomy Café website. Earthly objects, such as trees or houses or mountains give the moon context. As the moon reaches toward the heavens, the moon appears smaller, but in reality it is the same size as minutes or hours before.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University He says our brains and eyes fall victim to illusion: “It has to do with how our brain uses information in the eye’s visual field for finding clues about the sizes of things it is seeing.” As mentioned earlier, the moon can be close … and far away. Our little orb reaches apogee – the most distance between the new moon and earth on July 6 at 8:36 p.m. eastern (July 7 at 12:36 a.m. UT).  At 406,493 kilometers (252,583 miles) it is also the most-distant moon of the year. To provide ample time for party planning, the full perigee or ‘super moon’ next returns Aug. 10, 2014 – just in time to wash out some of next year’s Perseid meteors. **Related:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Supermoon Saturday: The biggest, brightest moon of 2012    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Supermoon 2012: Reactions and photos (May 2012)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Super Moon over Washington, D.C. (March 2011)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Magical moment: a snowy owl basks in the eerie green light of an aurora

Snowy owls, in all their endearing majesty, have become beloved this winter – after several high profile visits from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Meanwhile, the mystical northern lights make many people’s bucket list. In Sauk Rapids, Minnesota last night, these two awe-inspiring works of nature converged.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University As a wave of plasma – known as a coronal mass ejection – bombarded the Earth’s atmosphere, the sky turned a fluorescent green – illuminating a lone snowy owl proudly perched on a power pole. Photographer Douglas Kiesling captured this extraordinary scene.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “The auroras were so bright, I could actually see a snowy owl on power pole back lit by the green glow,” Kiesling told SpaceWeather.com. “The owl itself was illuminated by bright moonlight.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Kiesling, a storm chaser who runs the Web site StormChasingVideo.com, graciously shared the photo with us.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University He also captured this video of the aurora north of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, which he posted to YouTube: EarthSky reports the northern lights were seen as far south as central Illinois.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The northern light show was a result of a moderate geomagnetic storm, still ongoing. Writes NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Solar flare activity prompts beautiful aurora, radio blackouts on Earth (Photos)

Our sun has been fairly active over the past few days, unleashing an X-class flare on Friday evening which was powerful enough to trigger radio blackouts on Earth. The solar activity over the past week prompted a beautiful Auroras that were seen from as far south as the northern tier of the Lower 48. The X1.8 solar flare jolted low-frequency radio communications for more than two hours in parts of the Southern Hemisphere, writes spaceweather.com:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Though the X-class flare was a potent one, the associated coronal mass ejection was not directed at Earth. However, there has been plenty of solar activity over the past week to put on a beautiful aurora show for the high latitudes, and even as far south as Colorado. Space.com writes about last week’s activity:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The spaceweather.com photo gallery chronicles the gorgeous aurora photos from the weekend:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Magnificent aurora viewed from the International Space Station

For much of the summer, the sun has been relatively quiet – with few solar storms and displays of the northern lights.  But for several days over the last week, the solar wind has breathed into Earth’s atmosphere. Overnight, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center reported minor geomagnetic storming, which spawned a beautiful aurora viewed from the International Space Station.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico German astronaut Alexander Gerst shared these words and awe-inspiring views via Twitter (@Astro_Alex):    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Words can’t describe how it feels flying through an #aurora. I wouldn’t even know where to begin…_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ Swimming in an ocean of glow. In some moments it feels like Earth is actually alive_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Thursday, U.S. astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this stunning timelapse view of an aurora:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico He also shared this swirly still: The action began on Wednesday, when Wiseman posted this series of images: **See also:** Beautiful aurora lights up the sky as far south as the upper Midwest    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

A rare coincidence: The full ‘Strawberry Moon’ meets the summer solstice

It’s a once-in-a-generation pairing: the start of astronomical summer and emergence of the full “Strawberry Moon.”    The moon officially reached 100 percent fullness at 7:02 a.m. Eastern Monday —about 11.5 hours before the evening solstice (6:34 p.m. Eastern). Monday evening — about two hours after the solstice — the moon rises, almost fully illuminated, in the eight o’clock hour (8:41 p.m. Eastern in D.C.) along the East Coast.  The golden-orange hue given off by this low-suspended moon is the reason that one of its alternative names is “Honey Moon.” It also sometimes called the  “Rose Moon” and “Mead Moon.”

Skywatch: Jupiter, Venus are low on the horizon as September begins

Prominent planets frolic in the playground of September’s evening sky, while **Mercury** dashes through the morning later in the month, all while other parts of the world get to enjoy two eclipses. On the waning days of August and as the new month starts, **Jupiter** and **Venus** are low on the horizon in the western sky at dusk. On Sept. 2, the brand-new **moon** and Jupiter snuggle — both edging the horizon. The bright Venus is to the left of Jupiter and on Sept. 3, the new moon’s sliver loiters to the left of Venus. **Saturn** , **Mars** and the star **Antares** form a noteworthy triangle in the evening’s southwestern sky. A month ago, the reddish Mars (zero magnitude) hung out on the triangle’s western flank. Now, our neighboring Mars is the triangle’s eastern point, on the left. Bright Saturn, at zero magnitude, forms the top of the triangle and the scarlet star Antares maintains the bottom. The waxing, young moon approaches the Saturn-Mars-Antares cosmic clique on Sept. 7, and you can catch the first-quarter moon literally on top of Saturn the next evening, Sept. 8. Our lunar companion moves past Mars on the following night. If you’re walking the dog or jogging before sunrise in the last week of September, the morning sky features a visual treat: the bright, fleet Mercury in the east. The crescent, elderly moon lollygags under the nimble Mercury on Sept. 29. Thursday features an annular eclipse — when observers on the centerline in Africa can enjoy a ring of fire surrounding the moon, according to Fred Espenak, noted eclipse expert at EclipseWise.com. The greatest part of this fiery phenomena happens just after 5 a.m. Eastern time, and it’s not visible in North America, but you can catch the entire event on Slooh.com starting at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time. Much like a total eclipse, the moon slides between the **Earth** and the **sun** , but for an annular eclipse, the moon is slightly farther out in its orbit — so it does not fully block the sun. Two weeks later, the moon moves through Earth’s penumbral shadow, entertaining Earth’s sky gazers with a harvest moon penumbral lunar eclipse on Sept. 16. Sadly, it won’t be visible in North America either, but Europe, Africa and Asia should see it. Go online to Slooh.com, starting at 3 p.m. Eastern time. In this type of eclipse, the full moon appears with an slightly darker shadow. Bid adieu to summer, as the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22 officially starts fall at 10:21 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That’s when the sun appears to tiptoe across Earth’s equator toward the Southern Hemisphere. Providing equal time, more or less: For Washington on Sept. 25, the official duration of daylight is 12 hours, one minute — and on the next day, Sept. 26, it’s a mere 11 hours, 58 minutes, says the observatory. **Down-to-Earth Events:** **Sept. 3:** “Exploring the Sky” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 8 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **Sept. 5:** A talk on exoplanets by graduate student Mahmuda Afrin Badhan at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. See the night sky through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **Sept. 10:** “Comets Observed By SOHO,” a talk by astronomer Matthew Knight of the University of Maryland, at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers. University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **Sept. 11:** “The Upcoming Exploration of Europa,” a talk by Marshall Eubanks of Asteroid Initiatives at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club meeting, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. **Sept. 17:** Find out how the Mayans tracked days with amazing mathematical precision, at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet. **Sept. 20:** “The Era of Gravitational Waves,” a talk by astronomer Cole Miller, at the University of Maryland’s Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Heavenly views of the night sky afterward, weather permitting. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **Sept. 23:** “NASA’s Kelly Twins Study: How Space Affects Human Physiology,” a lecture by NASA’s Craig Kundrot, the lead scientist for the study, hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Avenue NW. 8 p.m. www.philsoc.org. Blaine Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com Twitter: @BPFriedlander

Here’s what the first big solar flare of 2015 looked like

The sun was relatively quiet at the end of 2014, at least in comparison to some of the powerful solar storms seen earlier in the year. But it only took a couple of weeks of 2015 for the star to send out some crazy streams of radiation. These images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory record the sun's peak activity at 11:24 p.m. Eastern time Monday. During a solar flare, dark spots of high magnetic energy shoot off from the star, sending radiation into space — and sometimes towards us. In some cases, solar flares (aka solar storms) can cause planet-wide radio blackouts here on Earth. No, you didn't sleep through a major halt in radio communications. Monday's solar activity was only an M-class flare — solidly in the middle of flare classification, based on X-ray brightness. C-class flares are hardly noticeable on Earth, and M-class flares typically only cause brief interruptions in radio waves, and even then only in polar regions. It's an X-class flare that can really make itself known.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

As Venus crosses the sun, a rare treat for skywatchers

The annals of European astronomy burst with famous names: Copernicus, Kepler, Halley. Jeremiah Horrocks? Not so famous. But in 1639, the young Englishman became the first person known to witness one of the rarest events in the heavens: the passing of Venus across the face of the sun — a transit. On Tuesday, Venus again crossed the sun, for just the sixth time since. It won’t do so again until 2117, making this the last transit of Venus for nearly everyone alive today. Telescopes around the world — and up in space — turned sunward as the roughly seven-hour transit began at 6:03 p.m. Eastern time. As the black dollop of Venus inches along, scientists will examine the planet’s atmosphere and gather clues that may help them find Earth-like planets circling other stars. “This is a full-court press,” said Jay Pasachoff, a transit tracker leading an expedition to the Haleakala Observatories high atop Maui in Hawaii. Pasachoff, chairman of the astronomy department at Williams College in Massachusetts, is also coordinating observations across a global network of solar telescopes. In space, NASA’s most advanced sun-spotter, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, will stream the event to computer screens while banking gigabytes of data. “We are going to give the world the best data ever seen from a Venus transit,” said Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. A special NASA Web site is preparing for a million viewers. Transits of Venus are so rare because the planet’s orbit is tilted relative to the Earth’s. The two planets line up with the sun only four times every 243 years. (The timing between transits is odd: 1211 / 2 years, then eight years, then 1051 / 2 years, then eight years again.) Johannes Kepler — that master of orbital mechanics — was the first to puzzle most of this out. In 1627, he predicted a transit would occur in December 1631, and then not again until 1761. The first occurred on schedule, although no one in Europe could watch; the six-hour event happened at night there. Kepler missed it, too; he was dead by then. Several years later, Horrocks was checking Kepler’s figures when he found an error, which revealed that Venus would make another transit in December 1639. Horrocks jumped at the historic opportunity. He set up a telescope — a relatively new invention — and projected a six-inch image of the sun onto paper. His figuring showed that the black spot of Venus should nudge into the bright edge of the sun around 3 p.m. The spot appeared on schedule. Horrocks traced it as it moved, the first record of this heavenly rarity. But it was winter in England and soon the sun set. Venus had moved just a smidge of the way across the sun, William Sheehan and John Westfall recount in their 2004 book “The Transits of Venus.” __Horrocks died tragically young, just 22, shortly thereafter. The next set of transits, in 1761 and 1769, triggered scientific drama around the world. European powers sent 100 expeditions to Siberia, the South Pacific, Indonesia, India and other remote locales where the entire transit could be seen. The most famous scientists and explorers of the day chased the event. Telescopes in tow, Captain James Cook sailed his first Pacific expedition, a seven-month voyage to Tahiti, and built an observatory there. All to watch a black dot on the sun for six hours. Before Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, the Royal Society of England dispatched them to Indonesia for the 1761 transit. They turned around soon after departing when a French ship shelled them and killed 11 crew members. But upon their return to England, the Royal Society threatened the pair with jail if they didn’t chase the transit. So they did, making it to Cape Town, in what is now South Africa, but no farther. This was the big science of the time. And all for a single goal: to figure the size of the solar system. “This was _the_ __measurement to make,” said Pesnell. Earlier in the 18th century, English astronomer Edmund Halley — of comet fame — had struck on a way to make this measurement with the transit. It requires viewers stationed as far apart as possible to measure the angle between Venus as it crosses the sun and two points on Earth. From those readings, pages of math would reveal the distance between the Earth and the sun. This measurement requires precise timing, with observers noting to within a second when the dark disk of Venus enters the sun and leaves it. “It’s not a spoiler to say all of the expeditions were unsuccessful” at arriving at a precise figure, said Lawrence Marschall, a professor of physics and astronomy at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. The problem: As Venus approached the sun, a smudge, or what some described as a “black drop” appeared on the outer edge of Venus’s disk. This smudge made it difficult to note when Venus had actually entered the sun. Viewers at the same site disagreed by up to a minute. Still, in one of the first examples of international scientific cooperation, Marschall said, the observations were eventually collected and sent to a scientist in Paris who made an estimate of the distance between Earth and the sun that was, all things considered, not far off — about 100 million miles (the actual distance is 93 million miles), much more than the scientists of the time had believed. Space was, indeed, vast. A century later, the transits of 1874 and 1882 saw the United States catch expeditionary fever. Congress allocated $200,000, a princely sum at the time, and tapped Simon Newcomb of the U.S. Naval Observatory to head the venture. Typical for government then as now, Newcomb went way over budget, spending close to $500,000. The public got excited, too, and John Philip Sousa wrote the “Transit of Venus March.” (You can listen to a recording by searching the Library of Congress Web site, www.loc.gov) But soon scientific interest began to wane. Other methods had been developed to measure the solar system. By 1884, it was clear that the major impetus for future expeditions to see the transit would be adventure, and to see something rare. That remains true today, as it was with the last transit, in 2004. Pesnell from NASA is taking a team to Fairbanks, Alaska, where the entire transit will be visible, and various adventure companies are sending tourists to remote Pacific islands. And while the puzzle of the black drop, or smudge, has been solved — it’s an anomaly of telescope optics and the Earth’s atmosphere — other scientific questions remain, said Pasachoff. On Tuesday, sensitive telescopes should glimpse Venus’s outer atmosphere as sunlight passes through it. And measuring how much light Venus blocks will help astronomers calibrate space telescopes now searching distant stars for transiting planets. For the rest of us, the event should inspire awe, Marschall said. “What’s impressive is this sort of clockwork nature of it, the notion that the universe is moving around very precisely and silently and taking no account of us.” A few viewers may even think of Jeremiah Horrocks, who was ecstactic upon seeing the 1639 transit. He wrote, “Contemplate, I repeat, this most extraordinary phenomenon, never in our time to be seen again! The planet Venus, drawn from her seclusion, modestly delineating on the Sun, without disguise . . . .”

Mars may have beautiful blue aurorae visible to the naked eye

Forget Iceland: If you want to see a dazzling light show in the sky, Mars might be the place to do it. According to new research from NASA, a glowing aurora phenomenon could be visible from the planet's surface. Unlike the green glow we see on Earth (well, some of us get to see it) Mars has a blue hue.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[Stunning timelapse shows the Aurora Borealis from space]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico These aurorae were first suspected based on data from the SPICAM imaging instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, but were then confirmed by NASA's MAVEN mission, which completed its 1,000th orbit of the red planet on April 6. In a study published recently in Planetary and Space Science, researchers from NASA, the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble (IPAG), the European Space Agency and Aalto University confirm that the display is in the visible light spectrum.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[MAVEN spotted a strange and unexpected aurora around Mars]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico To figure out how aurorae on Mars might behave, they used a simulator called the Planeterrella. It's a sphere that's magnetized to create a magnetic field. Shooting energized particles at the magnetized sphere creates a miniature version of what happens when an aurora occurs -- solar particles interacting with the planet's magnetic field. The researchers filled it with carbon dioxide to simulate the red planet's atmosphere.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico They believe that blue is the most prominent color, though red and green may also make an appearance, and that the lights -- like ones on Earth -- appear several times in a solar cycle, after intense solar activity. If an astronaut looked to the southern sky from the surface of Mars during one of these flare-ups, the researchers say, he or she would see a sky glowing with blue. Until then, we'll just have to keep imagining them. **Want more space? Give these a click:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **The Curiosity Mars rover caught a stunning blue sunset on the Red Planet**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico ** _This time-lapse video shows lightning, an aurora, and a sunrise — from space_**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **NASA’s MAVEN mission is getting an unprecedented look at Mars’s atmosphere, revealing the planet’s past**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Dr. Gridlock’s weekend travel tips: Shoppers, festival-goers will cross paths; 4 Metrorail lines will be disrupted

Much of the local travel activity this weekend will be stimulated by the holiday season. Watch for extra traffic around the D.C. region’s shopping centers on Saturday and Sunday. This also is a weekend for many holiday festivals. The Capital Weather Gang has a wonderful forecast for weekend travel: Breezy and sunny on Saturday; less breezy, but some more clouds on Sunday. Sporting events: The Midshipmen play football at noon Saturday in Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Annapolis. The Baltimore Ravens are home in M&T Bank Stadium at 1 p.m. Sunday. BB&T Classic college basketball games are at Verizon Center, starting at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Below, you will find details of some of the weekend’s holiday events, plus the Metrorail schedule. (This is the first weekend for the SafeTrack maintenance project on the Orange and Silver lines.)  The annual Holiday Boat Parade of Lights, pictured above, is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Saturday on the Alexandria waterfront. More than 40 illuminated boats will travel up the Potomac and into the District’s Washington Channel. Prime viewpoints are Waterfront Park in Alexandria and the Wharf in Southwest Washington.  Rockville’s Christmas tree lighting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday in Town Square Plaza, 30 Maryland Ave.     On Sunday, the trains are scheduled to operate on their regular timetable, despite the single-tracking.

For some, eclipse day showcases God’s majesty. For others, it means the Rapture is coming.

It’s easy to understand why many people will view Monday’s solar eclipse as an act of God. After all, in the middle of the day, the sky will go dark. The temperature will suddenly get several degrees colder. Birds will stop chirping and retreat to their nests. And tens of millions of people who spent the weekend in traffic and are now crammed into a 60-mile-wide path crossing from Oregon to the Carolinas will look at the sky. The total eclipse that will cross America — an event that last happened 99 years ago — will be an important moment for scientific observers and a massive nationwide spectator event. It will also, for many people of faith, be evidence of God’s majesty — and even, to a few, a harbinger of the coming end of the world.  Ross is leading a trip to watch the eclipse for about 80 people interested in finding spirituality in science. They’re preparing Monday to travel down a dirt road into a field in Eastern Oregon, where they will wait for the sun to be blotted out. Across the country, other church groups are preparing to do the same. A solar eclipse isn’t all that rare. The moon is always revolving around the Earth, while the Earth revolves around the sun. Usually the moon appears slightly higher or lower than the sunlight hits the Earth. But twice a year, it’s right smack in front of it, and the moon blocks out the sun during the daytime, and that’s at least a partial solar eclipse. When a total eclipse occurs, the shadow falls on just a tiny part of the Earth, about 60 to 100 miles wide, and then moves about a thousand miles over the course of a few hours. Because so much of the Earth is water, this almost always happens over an ocean. The last total solar eclipse visible from the continental United States was in 1979, and it was only over a corner of the Pacific Northwest. Something like this summer’s event, where so many people on land can see a total solar eclipse, is exceptionally rare — although the United States actually will experience another one, crossing an opposite diagonal swath of the country, in 2024. The “path of totality” for the 2017 eclipse cuts across the entire country, and every single spot in the continental United States will see an eclipse up to 60 percent. That means that anyone in the country can step outside and see some darkness. But eclipse-watchers — including Jay M. Pasachoff, a Williams College astronomer who has traveled around the world to witness an astonishing 65 eclipses — say that one truly has to see totality to really grasp the awe-inspiring nature of an eclipse. Even 99 percent, Pasachoff said, is nowhere near as dramatic as the moment it totally goes dark, which will last for up to two minutes and 40 seconds. “You have to be in totality to do it. Basically the universe gets a million times darker,” Pasachoff said. “It is absolutely necessary to be in the path of totality. It’s a poor second to be off to the side.” For Ross and other clergy planning to showcase the eclipse as both a scientific and a religious event, that stunning experience of seeing totality is an opportunity for discussing God’s handiwork. When Ross was a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, he would take his fellow scientists on hiking trips in the Sierra Nevada, he said. “When they would say, ‘Yeah, it’s gorgeous,’ I would say, ‘Why is it so beautiful?’ It would always lead to a discussion about the Christian faith,” he said. For that reason — the opportunity to use natural beauty as a tool for evangelism — this eclipse will be a popular Christian event. “A lot of leaders of churches are going to be encouraging people,” he said, to go see the eclipse. It’s certainly not just church leaders who have that idea. Visitors from as far as Europe and Asia started booking hotel rooms months ago in sleepy little corners of Wyoming and Idaho where they will be able to see the eclipse. The population living in that long path of totality, from Oregon to the Carolinas, is about 12 million people, by the count of Angela Speck, co-chair of the American Astronomical Society’s task force on the 2017 eclipse. Speck says another 12 million or many more could easily visit for the eclipse date. Nearly everyone in the continental United States lives within one day’s drive of the eclipse path — so if 4 percent of the country decided they wanted to drive to the right spot that day and see the sun go dark, 12 million would turn to 24 million overnight. There’s precedent: In 1991, Speck said, so many people tried to enter Mexico to see a total eclipse that the country closed parts of its borders. In certain religious communities, the talk surrounding the eclipse has to do with a different sort of preparation. Gary Ray isn’t worried about just travel plans and adequate eye protection. He’s focused on the Rapture. Ray, a writer for the evangelical Christian publication Unsealed, views this eclipse as one of several astronomical signs that the day when Christians will be whisked away from the Earth is fast approaching. “The Bible says a number of times that there’s going to be signs in the heavens before Jesus Christ returns to Earth. We see this as possibly one of those,” Ray said about the eclipse. He is even more interested in another astronomical event that will occur 33 days after the eclipse, on Sept. 23, 2017.  Ray says that image will be created in the sky on Sept. 23. The constellation Virgo — representing the woman — will be clothed in sunlight, in a position that is over the moon and under nine stars and three planets. The planet Jupiter, which will have been inside Virgo — in her womb, in Ray’s interpretation — will move out of Virgo, as if she is giving birth. Astronomers don’t see this as a particularly unusual event. But to Ray and others, it could be the sign that the Rapture is ready to happen: “We think it’s God signaling to us that he’s about to make his next move.” And Ray thinks the two eclipses that are slated to travel across the United States in 2017 and 2024, together marking an X across the nation, could be the starting and ending signs bookmarking a seven-year period of awful tribulations that Revelations says waits in store for nonbelievers who are left behind on Earth when the Rapture occurs. “That time frame is speculative, 2017 to 2024. But it makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of things that really point us to that,” he said. Therefore, the eclipse preparation that Ray recommends is a bit different from the scientists’ association’s advice. “My number one encouragement to people would be to just trust God. More importantly, to trust the right God,” he said, warning that those who do not believe when the day of the Rapture comes will be left behind to face the tribulations. “If people want to be ready, the one thing you can do is accept what He has offered, which is the gift of grace and forgiveness. That’s all we have to do to be ready.” University of Redlands astronomer Tyler Nordgren, who is advising the National Park Service on handling this eclipse, looked at prior events. Just a partial eclipse, not a total one, set visitor records in 2012 when it crossed through National Park Service sites in the Southwest. For this summer, he told the Park Service, “Imagine the biggest event you’ve ever had, and double it.” So come Monday, even nonbelievers looking out at the crowds on the eclipse path may find themselves comparing it to an apocalyptic event. For one Eastern Oregon park, Nordgren predicts 25,000 to 50,000 sky-watchers. The park has one toilet.

Skywatch: Heavenly bodies are abuzz in October’s active skies

With visible planets in the evening and morning, October becomes autumnally awesome. Find **Venus** in the west-southwestern heavens just after dusk in early October. It looks like a beaming LED flashlight just hanging in the sky. Our neighboring planet bubbles with brightness at -3.9 magnitude, and on Monday, Oct. 3, the skinny crescent of a waxing **new moon** loiters over Venus. The planet sets now about 8 p.m. The ringed **Saturn** can be seen after dusk in the southwest at about zero magnitude (bright, though not as luminous as Venus), lollygagging above the reddish star **Antares**. Saturn now sets just before 10 p.m. but will set after 8 p.m. in October’s waning days. Late in the month, the mesmerizing Venus is an amusing body to watch as it scoots between cosmic buddies Saturn and Antares and then slow dances with Saturn into Halloween. Reddish **Mars** (zero magnitude, bright) strolls the southern evening heavens — inside the constellation **Sagittarius** — and sets about 11 p.m. now. Mornings feature energetic planetary activity, like a cosmic Zumba class. Before dawn, the fleet **Mercury** scurries above the eastern horizon through mid-October while **Jupiter** emerges from the **sun** ’s glare. If you’re outside before sunrise, look to the east, as Jupiter (-1.7 magnitude, bright) and Mercury (-1.1 magnitude, bright) do-si-do to change places Oct. 10-12. On Oct. 28, the crescent waning moon moves under Jupiter before sunrise. The moon becomes officially full Oct. 16 at 12:23 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Nature sends us shootings stars: The **Orionid meteor shower** — leftover bits of **Halley’s Comet** — peaks Oct. 21-22, most likely after midnight. The shower contends with a last-quarter moon. Compared with the **Perseids** , this shooting-star show is relatively small, with 20 meteors an hour. Considering the moon and normal light pollution, you may see one or two meteors an hour. **●Monday , Oct. 3:** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3. _friendsoftheplanetarium.org _. **●Wednesday , Oct. 5:** “The End of Rosetta,” a talk by research scientists Dennis Bodewits and Lori Feaga. The Rosetta spacecraft finished its mission Friday by crashing into Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The talk will be at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Afterward, see the heavens through telescopes. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Friday , Oct. 7:** “Prospects for Life and Human Habitability Around Nearby Stars,” a lecture by Carey M. Lisse of the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University. Hosted by the Washington Philosophical Society at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. philsoc.org. **●Saturday , Oct. 8:** “Hispanic Heritage Month: Innovators in Air and Space,” a chance to learn about Latin American contributions to aviation and space exploration and to meet Hispanic scientists and engineers. Held at the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **●Saturday , Oct. 8: **“How to ‘See’ Supermassive Black Holes,” a talk by astrophysicist Erin Kara, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **●Oct. 9:** “When Rocks Attack,” a lecture by former NASA astronaut Tom Jones, who flew aboard the space shuttles Endeavour, Columbia and Atlantis. He speaks at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. **●Oct. 15:** “Commercial Space Program,” a talk by Carissa Christensen, a founder of the Tauri Group consulting company, about commercial firms in the aerospace industry. 7:30 p.m., David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. (Additionally, video artist Brandon Morse shows his new work, “In This Convex Hull,” on Oct. 14-15.) Information and tickets: friendsoftheplanetarium.org. **●Oct. 20:** “The Most Energetic Particles in the Universe,” a talk by researcher Ke Fang, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Enjoy the night sky through telescopes afterward. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Oct. 29:** Astrophysicist Michael Stevens of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory explains “Solar Probe Plus: A Mission to Touch the Sun,” a NASA mission scheduled to launch in August 2018. Einstein Planetarium, Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 5:15 p.m. Free tickets required. airandspace.si.edu. Friedlander can be reached at  postskywatch@yahoo.com.

No end in sight: Winter storms, brutal cold and wind line up for Boston area

Two winter storms — the second more powerful than the first — are lining up to take aim at southeast New England while the region is trying to recover from the five to seven feet of snow it’s already seen this winter.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The first storm, currently bringing snow to the Great Lakes, will swing down through the Northeast on Wednesday night before intensifying off the East Coast. Light to moderate snow will begin early Thursday morning in the Northeast and last through most of the day, ending by Friday morning. Fortunately for Boston, this storm is on the weaker side and is expected to track too far east to generate large snowfall amounts. As of Wednesday morning, the “most likely” snowfall forecast from the Weather Service in Boston for this storm was one to two inches, with the worst-case scenario being three inches around Boston and increasing to six inches on the Cape. While Thursday’s weak storm will come as a relief to eastern Massachusetts, which has seen over 90 inches of snow in some locations, all eyes are turning toward the next winter blast, due to arrive Sunday. The forecast is still very uncertain at this point, but Sunday’s stormy onslaught could prove to be the climax of winter for the Boston area. As it currently stands, the track of this storm is nearly identical to Thursday’s but is forecast to deepen rapidly off the coast and linger there through most of Sunday. The coastal storm could churn up piercingly strong winds which, in combination with a surge of Arctic air, will push wind chills down to minus 30 and minus 40 pretty much everywhere north of and including Connecticut. Wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph could be widespread across New England on Sunday afternoon, leading to whiteout conditions in the heavier snow bands. If the model forecasts are correct, blizzard conditions could grip Boston, Cape Cod and the rest of eastern Massachusetts for hours Sunday afternoon. Boston racked up an additional 23.1 inches of snow through Monday, putting the city’s total so far this season at 77.3 inches. Monday’s storm pushed Boston past its previous 14-, 20-, 30- and 40-day snowfall records. Not even two weeks into the month, it is the third snowiest February on record. With a total of 107.6 inches, 1995-1996 has long held the title of snowiest season on record, but this winter is giving it a run for its money. Of the 77.3 inches Boston has seen so far this winter, 64.4 inches has fallen since Jan. 27, alone, and the season has skyrocketed into ninth place in just two weeks. On Wednesday morning, the Weather Service in Boston suggested getting used to the idea. “Winter is not coming to an end any time soon,” it said. “Temperatures expected to remain below-normal for quite some time. No confidence to assume this pattern will break any time soon.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Related:**   Boston plows toward snowiest winter on record   What Boston’s snowfall tells us about global warming    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Skywatch: Want to see a partial solar eclipse? Better get up before sunrise Nov. 3.

November’s heavens offer a cornucopia of cosmic abundance: bright planets, an eclipse, a comet . . . and a night of extra sleep, sort of. Next Sunday, we turn back our clocks an hour, returning to Eastern Standard Time, officially at 2 a.m. Nov. 3. We get an extra hour to sleep. But here is nature’s kicker: If you want to catch the last remnants of a **partial solar eclipse** , you’ll have to wake up before sunrise. Hours later, exactly at sunrise and barring any clouds, we awaken to a partial solar eclipse starting at 6:38 a.m., says Geoff Chester, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory here. The **moon** takes a significant chunk from the **sun** at that time, but the eclipse ends for Washington at 7:10 a.m. (Next Sunday’s eclipse is an annular/total eclipse – a hybrid eclipse. Some of the world sees annularity, where the moon aligns with the sun, but the lunar disk doesn’t completely hide the sun. Parts of the world get a short totality. The centerline runs from the Atlantic Ocean to southern Africa.) Warning: Do not look directly at the sun during a partial eclipse and do not look at the sun through unprotected binoculars or a telescope, or you could severely damage your eyes. Instead, go old school: Put a pinhole in cardboard and project the sun’s image on a piece of paper. For information, see eclipse expert Fred Espenak’s Web site: www.mreclipse.com/MrEclipse.html. Find **Venus** – amazing and gorgeous – high in the west-southwestern sky at dusk now. The planet looks like a beaming, gigantic LED flashlight aimed directly at you. The planet appears brighter at -4.8 magnitude (extraordinarily bright) by month’s end. The young moon casually visits Venus on Nov. 6. **Jupiter** rises in the late evening now and midevening after the time change, in the east-northeast at a bright -2.4 magnitude. The big, gaseous planet hangs high as it crosses to the south in the hours before dawn. The middle of November gives sky-gazers an excellent chance to see **Mercury** , a zero magnitude object. From about Nov. 11 to Thanksgiving week, find the fleet planet in the south-southeast, low in the sky. **Saturn** (a zero magnitude object) returns from the sun’s glare. While you’re packing the minivan for Grandma’s house, Mercury appears to pass Saturn within a degree on the morning of Nov. 26. Our red neighbor, **Mars,** loiters in the eastern morning heavens. By midmonth, the first magnitude Mars rises (east-northeast) around 1:30 a.m., standard time. The moon accompanies the Red Planet on the morning of Nov. 27. As we loosen our belts from a fattening Thanksgiving dinner, **Comet ISON** will reach perihelion – it’s closest fly-by of the sun — Nov. 28. Generally, astronomers expect the comet to reach naked-eye visibility just days before perihelion. If the comet gets that bright, it will look like a faint, fuzzy cotton ball. Late in November, you should be able find it before sunrise in the southeast, in the neighborhood of Mercury and Saturn. **Down to Earth events:** **● Saturday —** “The History of Water on Mars and What it Means for Life,” a lecture by geologist Bob Craddock, at the Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 5:15 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **● Saturday —** The Pleiades and winter constellations emerge at the last “Exploring the Sky” this season, with the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 7 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **●Nov. 5 —** “Titanic Collisions!” a talk by astronomer Doug Hamilton, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting, sky viewing through telescopes after the talk. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. **●Nov. 9 —** Kent Wood of the Naval Research Laboratory discusses “An All- Sky Discovery Machine: A Gamma Ray Telescope and an Optical Survey,” at the National Capital Astronomers meeting, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. **●Nov. 10 —** Daniel Reichart, astronomy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses Skynet — a network of robotic telescopes operated by students, faculty and staff at UNC. Reichart’s talk will be at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, in the meeting room at the base of the observatory in Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. **●Nov. 16 —** Learn about black bubbles, black holes and gravity at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet. **●Nov. 18 —** “Rivers and Lakes on Mars,” a lecture by geologist Ross Irwin at the Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. 5:15 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. **●Nov. 20 —** “Kepler and the Search for Other Earths,” a lecture by astronomer Drake Deming, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Enjoy the night heavens through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. Blaine Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@gmail.com PostSkyWatch@gmail.com .

D.C.-area thunderstorm pales beside celestial and meteorological wonders

When it rained in the District on Friday evening, when it seemed as if a spigot suddenly opened overhead, it was hard to muster much atmospheric awe. After all, within mere hours this week, the region had already seen a solstice, a full moon and a tornado. Two of those, the solstice and the full moon, occurred within less than 12 hours on Monday. The moon was full at 7:02 a.m, and the solstice occurred at 6:34 p.m. Each year, June’s solstice occurs reliably about the same date, to start astronomical summer. With similar reliability, at least one full moon occurs every June. But for it to fall on the same day as the solstice is rare. According to the EarthSky website, it last occurred in 1967. Not only that, it will not soon recur, not until June 21, 2062, according to the same source. So, given the rarity of that coincidence of celestial events, it seems clear that for a tornado to touch down in the region the next day would be even less likely. But one did. Amid the storms that lashed the region Tuesday, a tree-toppling twister with maximum winds of 80 mph ravaged a relatively rural strip of Howard County, Md. Its path began near a crossroads southwest of Lisbon, and it slashed south and east on a corridor that ran parallel to Interstate 70, brushing the Glenelg area, according to a National Weather Service report. No injuries or fatalities were reported during the 19 minutes in which the twister snapped branches and uprooted or topped trees, littering roads along its 12-mile route. It lifted west of Ellicott City. Howard County authorities said they opened two temporary sites for disposal of brush and branches through 8 p.m. Saturday.