Solar & Cosmic

NASA reports that the highly successful DAWN space mission to Vesta has shifted gears as of Sept. 4 - 5 as the craft has successfully escaped Vesta's gravitational field as it is re-routed to the largest asteroid Ceres, for an early 2015 visit. This will occur during the same year that the New Horizons NASA mission to Pluto and its several moons will be happening.

Update July 14, 2012: An X1.4-class Solar Flare erupted on July 12 (shortly before our redesign launch) and the CME plasma wave is striking our Earth's atmosphere as I write this. Our solar observing experts anticipate moderate affects over this weekend -- affecting GPS, radio communications and some power grids. Are you aware that we are nearing a Sunspot Maximum in the next 2 years? What about the significance of Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)? This article introduces you to the subject in a big, fiery and possibly alarming way.