What's up in space? MOON HALO ALERT & more...
ENDEAVOUR HAS LEFT THE PLANET: The space shuttle lifted off this morning at 8:56 am EDT on a two week mission to the International Space Station. There it will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer--a $1.5 billion cosmic ray detector that could reveal the nature of dark matter and find whole galaxies made of antimatter. This is Endeavour's final flight as the shuttle program winds down. During the mission, Endeavour will make numerous passes over North America, Australia, and other places. Would you like to see it one last time? Turn your cell phone into a field-tested shuttle tracker.
MOON HALO ALERT: According to folklore, tonight's waxing full Moon is the "Flower Moon." It gets its name from northern spring flowers, which bloom in abundance during the month of May. Watch the Moon rise in the east at sunset and you might notice something else in bloom--an icy moon halo. Peter Rosén sends this example from Stockholm, Sweden:
"The sky was very dramatic when this halo appeared on May 14th," says Rosén. He was so inspired that he took ten pictures and stitched them together into a beautiful panorama.
Moon haloes appear when moonlight shines through cirrus clouds filled with ice crystals even more abundant than spring flowers. The brighter the Moon, the brighter the halo, so any haloes around tonight's full Moon could be impressive indeed. Be alert
Provided by Space Weather News
