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SUNSPOT WATCH: A big sunspot, measuring about three Earth-diameters wide, has emerged over the sun's eastern limb. It has a "beta-gamma" magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Vern Raben of Louisville, Colorado, snapped this picture of the spot on March 26th. You can see it, too, but always use safe solar observing techniques.
PLANET PARTY : The five brightest planets in the night sky have gathered together for a rare display. Step outside tonight just after sunset and you can see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. The view won't be so good again for years. Science@NASA has the full story.
Mercury and Venus aren't all there, or so it appears through a telescope. Like Earth's moon, Mercury and Venus have phases, and at the moment they're half planets, as shown in these March 25th images from Pete Lawrence of Selsey, West Sussex, UK:
In recent days, sky watchers around the world have noticed Venus in broad daylight. The 2nd planet from the sun is that bright. Mars, on the other hand, is almost 200 times dimmer than Venus. Nevertheless, Becky Ramotowski of Albuquerque, New Mexico, photographed Mars during the day on March 25th:
"Finally! This was the shot I've been trying for, for so long," says Becky. She took the picture by holding her digital camera to the 26mm eyepiece of an 80mm refracting telescope.
More Planet Party pictures, March 26: from Paul Hillyer of Liverpool, England; from Anthony Arrigo of Park City, Utah; March 25: from Thierry Lombry of Luxembourg; from Jarle Aasland of Stavanger, Norway; from Pete Lawrence of Selsey, West Sussex, UK; from Khosro Jafari Zadeh of Ahwaz, Khoozestan, Iran;
JUPITER AND THE ISS: On March 25th, a cloudy night in northwest England, Robin Leadbeater photographed something rare and amazing: the International Space Station (ISS) passing directly in front of the planet Jupiter. "Thanks to some excellent predictions by Thomas Fly, I managed to grab this shot of the transit," says Leadbeater. "Equally amazing was the fact that cloud cover completely obscured the naked eye view! But my webcam on maximum gain and a slow shutter speed managed to punch through it. You can imagine my shouts of glee when the space station streaked straight across the middle of the planet."
More images: John Locker of Wirral, UK, observed the ISS almost transiting Saturn on March 24th; Jim Stryder of Grand Junction, Colorado, photographed a close encounter between Venus and the ISS on March 19th.
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