Our Sun

The sun is the heart of our solar system. It’s gravity holds everything from planets to stars in place. The sun, like other stars is a big ball of gas. The sun itself is 4.6 billion years old. The sun is 1.3 million times the size of the earth. One day the sun will completely engulf the earth. Don’t worry, it won’t happen for another 5 billion years or so.

Of course everyone knows it takes the earth 365 DAYS to travel around the sun. Well did you know it takes 250 million YEARS to make 1 revolution around the milky way galaxy? That makes our year look like nothing! Everyone loves a Gorgeous sunrise and sunset. Today the sun rose at 7:17 and it will set at 6:35 pm. It actually takes 8 minutes for the suns light to reach earth.

Most of the time the sun rises and it sets, but it actually has a very interesting historical past.  The Solar Storm of 1859, or the Carrington Event, was a geomagnetic solar storm that occurred in the 10th solar cycle, leading to the largest geomagnetic storm on Earth in recorded history. The energy released by one solar flares is like the amount of energy set off from millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding all at once.
Posted by Earth Warriors

Solstice, Full Moon w/ Planets

The yearly posting of Sun & Sky: the summer solstice will occur at 6:34 EDT this evening and like last year, two gas giant planets, slowly orbiting the sun in the outer reaches of our solar system, are in the sky. The moon and inner planets move on a much different time scale and while Venus was dancing with Jupiter last year the king is alone this year while the bright goddess of love planet is behind the sun from our view on Earth. Jupiter is still in Leo but farther east than last year and still bold and bright in the west at dusk. The ringed gas ball that is Saturn is much deeper in Scorpio than last year and has brilliant red Mars (which is actually in Libra- still Scorpio in pre-Roman times) as company this year. The two planets made a lovely triangle with the gibbous moon a couple of nights ago and tonight will be followed across the sky by the full moon of June. With the shortest night of the solstice and the bright Full moon only the planets and brightest stars will be out tonight.
Check out Antares, the heart of Scorpio and the point of a downward pointing triangle with Mars and Saturn. Antares means rival of Mars and the star is a red giant and similar in color and brightness to Mars - it's rival - but the 4th planet is much brighter than its rival in its current location, directly behind and closer than normal to Earth. Other stars out tonight will be the bright seven of the Big Dipper; Polaris, the north star pointed out following the two stars that make up the end of the dipper; Regulus, follow the dipper pointer stars away from Polaris; Arcturus found by following the Arc of the dipper handle to it's spot high above Jupiter and Spica, spike straight down from Arcturus to spot Virgo's brightest star.  The Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair will be rising in the northeast after dark.
There will be a few other stars out tonight but the moon will wash out the dimmer ones and it's the Summer Solstice and with our planet tipped as far toward our local star it's a short, bright night. Summer time has short nights because with the planet tipped so far over the sun's light shines over the top of the world; we only have night when the planet blocks the light, today it's not blocking much of that light. Get out and enjoy your day…and the little night there is, today on Earth.

Summer Solstice and Planet Moon Magic

The planet's northern pole was tipped as far toward the sun as it will be on this trip around the star today at 12:38pm EDT (or for me here in California, 9:38am); the Summer Solstice here in the north, the start of winter on the southern side of world.
And, while the solstice is a day long marked by humans for its importance to survival on the big seasonal world, the real spectator event today is the continued closing of the gap between Venus and Jupiter. The moon's appearance back on the evening side of the sun, sliding by the bright planets as the slim crescent has made watching the planet's narrowing even more lovely.  Last night the moon and Venus were the corners of a coat hanger-like triangle with Jupiter as the hook. Regulus, looking down on the planet pairing from its heart of Leo, itself moving westward each day, continues to lose ground to Jupiter but remains the end of straight line with the planets.
On the other side of the sky, Saturn still dominates the sky above Scorpio, although the Scorpion's heart, Antares, rivals the ringed world in brightness and shows a marked contrast in colors, Red-orange vs. pale yellow. Check it out, Today Off Earth.

Moon & Saturn, Venus & Jupiter

East or West, which ever way you look, tonight will present a sky show: Saturn is above and right of the nearly full moon in the east and Venus and Jupiter are the bright spots high in the northwest at sunset.  The Big Dipper is high overhead to the north, the pointer stars of the dippers end's always pointing toward Polaris, the current northern pole star for Earth.  The handle of the Dipper arcs to bright yellow Arcturus and then follows the spike to Spica, the alpha star of Virgo.
The two stars above bright Venus are Castor and Pollux, the twins of Gemini and the star to the left of Jupiter is Regulus, the heart of Leo. Saturn, in addition to hanging out with the Moon tonight, is just above and west of the 3 stars that are the head of Scorpio with the heart, red Antares, below.
While the short nights of late spring shrink your sky viewing time twilight is full of brilliant wonders right now, get out and check the sky, Tonight on Earth.

Venus, Mars and the Crescent Moon

It's cold here to go out and check the sky but bundle up and get out there: NOW! All 3 solar system neighbors are clustered in the southwest sky right now. Earth shine on the moon adds to the amazing shot. Venus, so much brighter than smaller and more distant Mars, sits right below the little red world with the moon looking on just to the west (right). Wow!
On the other side of the sky, mighty Jupiter outshines all the bright stars of the winter (still dimmer than Venus), as clear as cold as tonight is starting out, Jovian moons should be spottable through binoculars.
Anyone daring the brutal cold of early morning will find Saturn high up in the southeast with it's rings tipped spectacularly for telescope viewing.
It's cold out there but worth a look, tonight on Earth.

Saturn, The Moon, Mars and Meteors!!

With bats patrolling the dusk air in search of mosquito treats and mosquitoes buzzing about me hoping for a nibble, my look at the not quite dark, evening sky was a quick one; but what a treat.  The evening planets of the summer of 2014, Mars (right) and Saturn (left), are separated, almost equidistance, by our exactly quarter, moon (5:50pm EDT).  Mid to high clouds make those three hazy here in central Virginia, for now obscuring any summer stars.  But now, an hour later, post blog, the sky has cleared and the color differences of the two planets is stunning and spectacular, as are the summer stars.
Clouds have hidden the August sky to this point, three days in, blocking the slide of the growing crescent toward the two planets.  The breaks and thinnings today revealed both our nearby star for the first time in August and finally the planet, moon trio. As the moon slips past Saturn during this next Earth rotation our lone satellite will occult - block - the ringed planet for Australian sky watchers as they move into Earth's shadow.  Tomorrow night, here in Virginia, the then slightly gibbous moon will be left (east) of Saturn and while the moon will move away, Mars and Saturn will continue their slower eastward trek through the stars of Virgo and Libra before Mars catches and slides under and by Saturn later this month.
The largest full moon of the year is August 10 and slightly waning gibbous moon 2 and 3 days later will not make for a heavy dose of Perseid meteors this year.  Maybe catch a lucky, early, atmosphere edge skimmer before the moon comes up and outshines all but the brightest shooting stars of one of the year's most consistent showers.
45 minutes before sunrise on August 18, Venus, alone in the pre-dawn sky for much of 2014, gets close company as the king of the planets, Jupiter, continues its rise into the morning sky.  5 days later the waning crescent moon forms a lovely triangle with the two brightest planets.
With the unusually cool and often clear skies brought to the east coast this year by the summer version of the polar vortex, August could be great for checking out the sights of our solar system.  And, if you live where it's really dark, the sights way beyond out solar system and all the way to the heart of our Milky Way galaxy could be out there just waiting for your eyes to catch their long-travelled light...tonight on Earth!!

APHELION!

July 3 marks APHELION, the point in Earth's yearly elliptical orbit when our planet is the farthest from the sun.  If you are in the northern hemisphere it may not feel like you are at the farthest distance from the very hot sun!  Which helps make the point that our distance from the sun, and it varies by almost 3 million miles, has little or nothing to do with the seasons.  Changes in the earth/sun distance may well factor into advances and recessions of vast ice sheets but as a yearly weather influence the distance is minimal; it's the TILT that causes the seasons on Earth (as it does on Mars).
Earth's tilt, slowly shifting between 22 and 24 degrees (another possible factor in the comings and goings of ice sheets) with respect to the plane of our orbit around the sun, is the reason it's cooking hot on July 3rd in central Va.  Our current tilt of 23 1/2 (actually 23.45) degrees and the fact the Earth's north end was tipped as far toward the sun as it gets about 2 weeks ago is the cause of the heat; more direct sun for  a longer period of daylight.  That direct sunlight has less atmosphere to shine through and the northern end's tilt allows morning and evening light to shine over the top of the planet and keep the the days longer.  The southern hemisphere, currently tipped away from the sun, has low angled light for shorter stretches with the earth blocking the morning and evening light.
So does that mean it gets colder in the southern hemisphere because they are tipped away AND farther from the sun (and hotter in the southern summer when the tilt and closer distance combine for a potential opposite effect)?  Hard to tell for certain, there's a lot more water down south than up north and water moderates temperatures, whether hot or cold.  And, the land mass at our southern end, Antarctica, has so much ice piled on it, which adds altitude making things colder still, that it's hard to say with scientific certainty.  The coldest temps on earth have been recorded in Antarctica during the perennial dark of their winter.
With Hurricane Arthur, earth's natural heat dispersal device, bearing down on the Carolina coasts, being far from the sun is probably not on a lot of folks' mind.  But, here we are, as far from our star as we'll get this year but dealing with it's heat nonetheless.  Enjoy your Aphelion, because it is only...today on Earth.