This evening will be the solstice, when the sun appears at its farthest north in the sky. For the northern hemisphere, it’s the longest day of the year. (And for the southern hemisphere, it’s the longest night of the year.) Cielos La Palma will be holding an activity on Wednesday 20th in El Paso, at the archeological site “El Verde”, which many believe was created to enable Awara observers to…
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this video in ultraviolet ( a wavelength of 171 angstroms.) It shows Venus passing in front of the sun, and also very large coronal loops, which are found around sunspots and in active regions. These structures are associated with the closed magnetic field lines that connect magnetic regions on the solar surface. Many coronal loops last for days or weeks but most change quite rapidly….
If you live somewhere where you can see part or all of the transit, -I hope the clouds stay away for you. REMEMBER NOT TO LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN. If you’re on the wrong part of the planet (like me) or unlucky with the weather, here’s some places to watch it live on the Internet for free. Slooh.com will be broadcasting ten feeds of the Venus transit live from…
Happy New Year. Are we all going to die? Yes. That was certain as soon as we were born. But is the whole world going to end? No. Well there’s always the small chance that some crazy person will do something incredibly stupid with nuclear weapons, but that’s about the same every year. Is the Earth going to collide with planet Nibiru? No. If there was anything that big…
Tonight is the biggest meteor shower of the year, the Perseids. In Spanish, they’re called the tears of St Lawrence, because St Lawrence’s day is the 10th. Astrotour will be at La Polvacera basketball court. From 8 – 9 pm they’ll hold workshops and from 9pm to 11:30, observation with telescopes. If there’s low cloud, you’ll get a better view up at one of the astronomical viewpoints. Enjoy!
Mercury is the planet nearest to the sun. In fact, it’s so close that it whizzes around its orbit in just under 88 days. Because it’s closer to the sun than we are, we always see it close to the sun in the sky, making it difficult to observe. But tonight (Tuesday 19th July) it will be at its maximum distance, 27º away. Look for a small star in the…