March 2 – Moon at First Quarter – 19:58 UTC. The Moon will be prominent in the evening sky, setting around midnight. At this time in its monthly cycle of phases, it appears almost exactly half illuminated. Over the coming days, the Moon will set later each day,…
A brilliant fireball streaked across the skies of Arizona at 12:32 UTC (05:32 LT) on Wednesday, February 26, 2020, and was also spotted in several southwest U.S. states. The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 64 reports about the meteor. In a rare event, another…
A massive sandstorm with winds up to 120 km/h (75 mph) hit the Canary Islands over the weekend and continued into Monday, February 24, 2020. The storm caused severe disruptions and exacerbated wildfires which forced about 2 000 residents to evacuate. The regional…
Crew aboard an aircraft used for hunting hurricanes captured a rare, spectacular weather phenomenon called St. Elmo's Fire while flying over the North Atlantic on February 15, 2020. The phenomenon was captured by the NOAA42 Kermit crew as they flew across the…
The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) is warning residents and tourists to temporarily stop exploring caves in the Eldvörp area on the Reykjanes Peninsula due to deadly gasses measured in a cave close to a parking lot. In their warning issued at 10:59 UTC on February…
Ecuadorian Tungurahua volcano, one of South America's most prominent volcanoes, is showing early warning signs of potential flank collapse, a new research paper published in Science Direct suggests. A previous eruption of Tungurahua, around 3 000 years ago,…
Solar wind parameters in 24 hours ending 12:30 UTC today were indicative of a slightly enhanced and disturbed interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) due to weak coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) influences. Total IMF strength was variable, but steadily increased…
Specialists from the World Health Organization (WHO) have started meetings with their Chinese counterparts on dealing with the coronavirus disease– now officially called COVID-19– which has so far officially killed 1 776 people. The number of infected with the…
The arctic sea ice has reached its largest early February ice extent in 11 years, surpassing the average size from 2001 to 2010. The recovery is a result of a strong polar vortex. Sea ice analysis indicated that during this rather mild winter in the middle…
Satellite imagery taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on February 3, 2020, showed a moderate thermal signature at Tanzania's Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano, indicating that natrocarbonatite lava erupted a few days ago. This is the only volcano in the world…
