No comments.
Astronomers Predict an Amazing Sunset Tonight
posted: April 27th, 2009 01:32 am |
0No Comments
For those of us who like to wind down the weekend by watching the sun slowly into the ocean, astronomers at SpaceWeather.com said that Sunday’s sunset will be a “must-see event” involving a three-way conjunction of the crescent moon, Mercury and the Pleiades star cluster.
“The show begins before the sky fades to black,” the website says. “The moon pops out of the twilight first, an exquisitely slender 5% crescent surrounded by cobalt blue. The horns of the crescent cradle a softly-glowing image of the full moon. That is Earthshine—dark lunar terrain illuminated by sunlight reflected from Earth. If the show ended then and there, you’d be satisfied.”
But the show will have just begun. After the moon appears, Mercury will begin to materialize below it. To the naked eye, Mercury will look like a pink star because of the dust in Earth’s atmosphere. Then, as twilight deepens, the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades will appear.
Corona del Mar Today will publish the best of photographs of this event, so please email us your best shots.
