Friday, March 30, 2012

Lookin' Up

Remember our old friend AR1429, the active sunspot region that kicked out a series of M-Class solar flares, or Coronal Mass Ejections in early March?

Well the view from NASA's SDO satellite shows the region is still kicking up it's heels on the farside of the Sun. AR1429 which will come around the Sun's limb after two weeks traversing the farside, has kicked out a couple of C-Class flares showing the region's ongoing activity.

I'm still trying to see the Northern Lights for the first time. Perhaps AR1429 will deliver.

The night skies have been busy over the past couple of weeks, but the show has been obscured by this year's Miracle March cloudy regime. Jupiter, the Moon, and Venus aligned this week above the clouds...

Later this spring there's two big deal astronomical events that truly are events of a lifetime.

On May 20, 2012 there's an Annular Eclipse who's path of totality comes right over Truckee! Then on June 6th, Venus will transit the Sun in a six hour event which can be seen across North America, and won't be seen again until 2117!

Looking ahead only five years to August 21st, 2017, the United States will be blessed with the Real Deal, a genuine Total Solar Eclipse!  This time the path of totality favors friends of CorduroyPlanet, BajaBabe and KirkVallus

Seeing any of these events is like hitting the lottery which reminds me of another factoid from today's background static...

The big Mega-Millions lotto jackpot for Friday night's drawing is over a half a billion dollars...that's $640 Million bucks. This Mega-Millions Game is the redheaded stepchild to PowerBall, the other multi-state game of chance. California threw in with Mega-Millions, while neighboring Nevada doesn't have any lotteries...they have plenty of gambling to tax already.

The lure of millions has caused a traffic "situation" west of Reno, NV on Interstate 80. The Reno paper has the deets. I don't normally play Mega-Millions, but a buck buys a ticket and more than a dollar's worth of fantasy when we're talking real money, so I'll pick up a ticket before Friday's draw...

1 comment:

  1. Pick one up for me while your at it! Woo Hoo. Wouldn't that be a fun way to sum up one's life?

    ReplyDelete