A Fog Bow Over California
Is that white arch real? What is being seen is a fogbow, a reflection of sunlight by water drops similar to a rainbow but without the colors. The fog itself is not confined to an arch -- the fog is mostly transparent but relatively uniform. ...
Mercury's Transit: An Unusual Spot on...
What's that dot on the Sun? If you look closely, it is almost perfectly round. The dot is the result of an unusual type of solar eclipse that occurred last week. Usually it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. Last week, for the first ...
A Hurricane Over the South Pole of...
What's happening at the south pole of Saturn? To find out, scientists sent the robot Cassini probe now orbiting Saturn directly over the lower spin axis of the ringed giant. Cassini found there a spectacular massive swirling storm system with a ...
The Cat's Eye Nebula
Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known. In fact, the features seen in the ...
M51: Cosmic Whirlpool
Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry ...
Mercury and the Chromosphere
joying Wednesday's transit of Mercury from Dallas, Texas, astronomer Phil Jones recorded this detailed image of the Sun. Along with a silhouette of the innermost planet, a network of cells and dark filaments can be seen against a bright solar ...
Halo and Hexagons
As a bright November Moon lit up the night sky last week, Gil Esquerdo spotted this lovely Moon halo overhead at the Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. In the foreground, the structure and individual component mirrors of Whipple's 10 ...
Simulated Transit of Mercury
Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet, will spend about five hours crossing in front of the Sun today - beginning at 1912 UT (2:12pm EST), November 8. Specially equipped telescopes are highly recommended to safely spot the planet's ...
Janus: Potato Shaped Moon of Saturn
Janus is one of the stranger moons of Saturn. First, Janus travels in an unusual orbit around Saturn where it periodically trades places with its sister moon Epimetheus, which typically orbits about 50 kilometers away. Janus, although slightly ...
The Ghostly Tail of Comet SWAN
What causes the structure in Comet SWAN's tail? Comet SWAN, which unexpectedly flared up to naked-eye brightness last week, has been showing detail in its ion tail that might be described as ghostly. The ion tail is made of ionized gas, ...
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