When five cosmic events adorned the sky

During the last week, sky-watchers could spot the moon dancing with celestial luminaries like planets and stars. Within a half hour after sunset on Tuesday, September 24, Mercury made a remarkably close encounter with Virgo constellation’s brightest star Spica. The cosmic pair appeared to squeak past each other—well within 1 degree—the closest conjunction between a planet and such a bright star in 2013.

This cosmic duo posed a real challenge for observers because of its proximity to the horizon. Using Venus and Saturn as a convenient guidepost helped track down Mercury/Spica which were about 22 degrees apart—a little more than the width of two side-by-side fists at arm’s length.

Into the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 25, the eastern and southern skies had a stunning waning moon passing the left of the red giant Aldebaran—the bright “eye” of Taurus. The near quarter moon was said to join Aldebaran - the brightest star in the constellation Taurus - the bull on Sept.24/25.

Earth’s natural satellite appeared less than three degrees from the 68 light-year distant star—equal to the width of your three middle fingers at arm’s length. The moon during daytime on Wednesday passed through the southern sky, and one could catch sight of Aldebaran with binoculars.

Last-quarter moon occurred on Thursday, September 26 at 11:56 pm EDT (Friday, 3:56 am UT). The moon rose in the east around midnight, and is said to have passed between winter constellations Gemini, to the left, and Orion, on its right.

At dawn on Saturday, September 28 the waning crescent Moon was only five degrees south of the beacon-like Jupiter. The two appeared particularly pretty with binoculars, and one could also spot the gas giant’s four biggest moons.

On Sunday, September 29, early bird sky watchers gazing towards the eastern sky would have noticed that the moon had sunk between bright Mars, near the eastern horizon, and Jupiter, more than halfway near the zenith, forming a diagonal alignment of the neighboring worlds.

For more amazing pictures, click here.

Powerful solar storm slams into earth

A powerful solar explosion slammed into Earth's magnetic field recently, ramping up the Northern Lights across parts of Canada and the United States.

The sun storm erupted Monday, sending a huge cloud of charged particles streaking into space at incredible speeds. That cloud — known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME — hit Earth's magnetic field at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, researchers said. NASA released a video of the sun eruption on Monday, before closing down for the current government shutdown.

Such storms can also cause the Northern Lights to be seen as far south as New York and Idaho. Flare-ups were indeed seen in North America as a result of the recent CME impact. The sun is in the peak year of its current 11-year activity cycle, which is known as Solar Cycle 24. The number of sunspots increases during a solar maximum, leading to more solar flares and CMEs, which erupt from these temporary dark patches on our star.

The sun has been quiet during its current cycle, and the peak has been lackluster so far as well. In fact, scientists say Solar Cycle 24's maximum is the weakest in 100 years.

You can read more about the impact here and watch the video here.