SPACE PLANE X-37B: The US Air Force's X-37B space plane is making a series of passes over North America this weekend. It shines about as brightly as the stars of the Big Dipper as it glides across the night sky. You can find the X-37B on your iPhone or check our Simple Satellite Tracker for flyby times.

X-37B images: from Dan Bush of Albany, Missouri; from Farrell Germann of Jefferson City, Missouri; from Val Germann of Jefferson City, Missouri; from Gary of Fort Davis, Texas; from Jason Czech of Brimfield, Massachusetts;

J. Dana Hrubes, who is wintering over at the pole as science leader of the Amundsen Scott Station, took the picture on May 20th. "It shows green and violet auroras swirling over the IceCube Neutrino Observatory," says Hrubes. When fully constructed, the NSF-sponsored observatory will use a cubic kilometer of south polar ice to catch and detect elusive neutrinos from distant black holes, supernovas and gamma-ray bursts. For now it makes nice foreground scenery for the Southern Lights.

SECRET SPACE PLANE: NASA's space shuttle program may be winding down, but the US Air Force's is just getting started. On April 22nd, the USAF launched an unmanned mini-shuttle from Cape Canaveral on a secret mission widely thought to involve reconnaissance. The X-37B can now be seen gliding through the night sky shining about as brightly as the stars of the Big Dipper. On Sunday night, Gary O. photographed it streaking over the treetops of his home in Fort Davis, Texas:

The Norway spiral comes to mind when TheWeatherSpace.com received photographs and even an amazing video of the event. An object swooped down from the sky and then returned in a brilliant display on Friday night across the Western Canada areas.

http://www.greatdreams.com/crop/yates/yates_field_spiral.htm

Three different photographers have given their photos to TheWeatherSpace.com in what looks like something out of a science fiction movie. We cannot see what would cause this one Earth. The Norway spiral was said to be caused by a missile launch in the Russian territory. But what is this?

The only known areas to launch on the Western coast are the Vandenberg Air Force Base and Alaskan areas. Vandenberg confirms no launches and Kodiak Island has to be ruled out due to the direction of travel (from the west).

The photographs show a very similar shape and mysterious object off the coast of Canada. The object is not a missile as one photograph from the beach has the trajectory curving up! What is it?

A video was sent to TheWeatherSpace.com and the web team has added it to the video server on YouTube.com. The video shows the entire sequence of this object as filmed by Steven Murray.

"I have four sky cameras to catch meteors on and number three caught it", Murray said. "I saw it from my office while doing work. The object was on the monitor. By the time I rushed outside the object was gone but the loudest boom I ever heard from a distance struck shortly after."

May 20, 2010: In a development that has transformed the appearance of the solar system's largest planet, one of Jupiter's two main cloud belts has completely disappeared.

"This is a big event," says planetary scientist Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. "We're monitoring the situation closely and do not yet fully understand what's going on."

Known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), the brown cloudy band is twice as wide as Earth and more than twenty times as long. The loss of such an enormous "stripe" can be seen with ease halfway across the solar system.

"In any size telescope, or even in large binoculars, Jupiter's signature appearance has always included two broad equatorial belts," says amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley of Australia. "I remember as a child seeing them through my small backyard refractor and it was unmistakable. Anyone who turns their telescope on Jupiter at the moment, however, will see a planet with only one belt--a very strange sight."

Wesley is a veteran observer of Jupiter, famous for his discovery of a comet hitting the planet in 2009. Like many other astronomers, he noticed the belt fading late last year, "but I certainly didn't expect to see it completely disappear," he says. "Jupiter continues to surprise."

Orton thinks the belt is not actually gone, but may be just hiding underneath some higher clouds.

 

Without the SEB present, Jupiter's Great Red Spot is surrounded by almost uninterrupted white. Anthony Wesley took this picture on May 18, 2010. [larger image]

Jupiter beckons to amateur astronomers from the pre-dawn sky. Lyle Anderson of Duluth, Minnesota, took this picture on May 19, 2010. [larger image] [sky map]

"We can look forward to a spectacular outburst of storms and vortices when the 'SEB Revival' begins," says Rogers. "It always begins at a single point, and a disturbance spreads out rapidly around the planet from there, often becoming spectacular even for amateurs eyeballing the planet through medium-sized telescopes. However we can't predict when or where it will start. On historical precedent it could be any time in the next 2 years. We hope it will be in the next few months so that everyone can get a good view.

"I'll be watching every chance I get," says Wesley. "The revival will likely be sudden and dramatic, with planet-circling groups of storms appearing over the space of just a week or so."

Indeed, says Orton, "anyone could be the first to spot the return of the SEB."

Jupiter shines in the eastern sky before dawn: sky map. Point your optics at the "morning star" and … is that really Jupiter? Happy hunting!

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

LUNAR OCCULTATION: Yesterday, sky watchers in parts of Africa, the Middle East, India and southeast Asia witnessed a spectacular lunar occultation of Venus. "People were awestruck and 'frozen to their feet' at the park where we watched the event," reports Armando Lee of San Miguel by the Bay, the Philippines. He took this picture using a Canon 350D at the prime focus of a 5-inch Orion telescope:

Venus disappeared for more than 40 minutes behind the lunar disk, but the long absence wasn't the attraction. It was the transitions into and out of eclipse that really impressed onlookers. "Ingress looked like a diamond ring - Tiffany style - while egress looked like an eruption on the crescent Moon!" says Lee.

IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE: On May 5th, a pair of solar flares bathed Earth's upper atmosphere in X-rays and caused a double-wave of ionization to sweep over the Americas. This improved the propagation of low-frequency radio signals, which use the ionosphere as a reflector to skip over the horizon. Rogerio Marcon of Campinas SP Brasil was monitoring a 24 kHz aviation beacon when the flares occurred, and he recorded a double-surge in the beacon's signal strength:

Each of the spikes is called a "SID," short for sudden ionospheric disturbance. One was produced by a C9-class flare at 11:52 UT; the other by a slightly stronger M1-class flare at 17:19 UT. The two SIDs ride atop a slower undulation in radio signals caused by the daily rising and setting of the sun. In terms of radio propagation, the two flares were as significant as the sunrise itself!

With solar activity on the rise, sudden ionospheric disturbances will become more common. Interested? Stanford University tells you how to build your own SID monitor.

BIG TWISTER: On May 1st, a magnetic filament on the sun wound itself into a twist and erupted. NASA's STEREO Ahead spacecraft was in the perfect position to observe the blast. Click on the image to set the scene in motion:

The time-lapse spans three days, April 30th to May 2nd, and shows not only the big twister, but also many smaller filaments that twist and swirl without erupting. Such activity occurs every day and is part of the dynamism of the ever-changing sun.