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NEW ENGLAND METEOR: New Englanders saw a bright fireball and maybe a whole meteor shower last night (Sunday, April 24th) according to the Associated Press. The origin of the display is still a mystery. Was it late Lyrid activity? Or a piece of decaying space junk? If you witnessed the event, please tell us about it.

SUNSPOT WATCH: Just yesterday the sun was blank, no sunspots, which is a sign that solar minimum is coming. Even during the lowest ebb of the solar cycle, however, spotless periods tend to be brief and, indeed, a new sunspot is already emerging over the sun's eastern limb. It's big (bigger than Earth, at least) but does not pose a threat for very strong solar flares.

LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Sunday morning, April 24th, the full Moon glided through the outer fringes of Earth's shadow, resulting in a "penumbral eclipse." This is what it looked like:

Image credit: Matt Wastell of Brisbane, Australia.

The shadowy darkening across the top of the Moon was, at best, subtle. Onlookers who didn't know an eclipse was in progress might not have noticed. The view from the Moon, on the other hand, was much more dramatic.

STRANGE RAINBOW: That's not an aurora! But it sure did look like one, says Mila Zinkova, who took this picture on April 3rd from the Big Island of Hawaii:

"Mila's telephoto shot has caught a rainbow fragment lighting a distant rain shower scudding over the ocean," explains atmospheric optics Les Cowley. "The 'bow curves low over the water because the sun was fairly high. When the sun is low rainbows are high and they sink lower as the sun climbs. Rainbows do not rise above the horizon when the sun is more than 42 degrees high and so in summer you must catch them within an hour or two of sunrise or sunset."