MARTIAN MARATHON: More than 8 years after landing on the Red Planet, Mars rover Opportunity is still running. Indeed, mission planners say the tireless robot is poised to complete a full marathon--the first ever long-distance race on an alien planet. [full story] [video]

ALMOST X-FLARE : Sunspot complex AR1520-1521 erupted again on July 19th, this time producing an M7-class solar flare that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash:

The explosion produced a bright coronal mass ejection: movie. The cloud should miss Earth.

ELECTRIC AURORAS: Earth's magnetic field is still reverberating from the CME strike of July 14th. This morning, July 17th, at 1:00 am CDT, Shawn Malone witnessed one of the aftershocks over Lake Superior:

"My dog hates lightning and awoke me at 1am," says Malone. "I caught a double light show: an isolated thunderstorm moving across Lake Superior plus the bright glow of the Northern Lights above the clouds, awesome!"

Volcano activity of July 15, 2012 – Karymsky, Katla, Popocatepetl, Fuego, Santa Maria, Pacaya, El Hierro, Cumbal, Galeras and Sotara

July 15, 2012 at 6:01  By Richard Wilson and Armand Vervaeck

his (almost) daily post intends to follow up the activity changes of volcanoes all over the world. 
This post is written by geologist Richard Wilson who specializes in Volcano seismicity and Armand Vervaeck. Please feel free to tell us about new or changed activity if we haven’t written about it. -

July 15, 2012 volcano activity

Interesting volcanic activity all over the place today!

In the Atlantic: Jon Frimann (Iceland Earthquake and Volcanoes Blog) reports a glacial outburst flood from Myrdalsjokull (the glacier covering Katla volcano). Katla has been experiencing its usual summer spat of seismic activity (an earthquake swarm occurred at the volcano just one week ago today), believed to be caused by hydraulic changes (glacial unloading and cold water input due to summer melting) within the underlying hydrothermal system. The outburst flood suggests some hot water has reached the surface beneath the icecap.

El Hierro (Spain) continues to wind-down from the past month’s seismic crisis, although a magnitude M3.0 event occurred there late yesterday.

STILL WAITING FOR THE CME: The CME launched toward Earth by the July 12th X-flare has not yet arrived. However, we are still within the forecast window set by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab. The cloud should hit at 09:17 UT plus or minus 7 hours on Saturday, July 14th. Weekend auroras are likely. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

SUNDAY MORNING SKY SHOW: Set your alarm for dawn on Sunday morning, July 15th. Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon are gathering for a bright three-way conjunction in the eastern sky before sunrise. Must-see! [video] [photos]

HOT COMET: Periodic comet 96P/Maccholz is passing by the sun today deep inside the orbit of Mercury. At closest approach, the icy visitor from the outer solar system will be less than 12 million miles (0.13 AU) from the solar surface. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are monitoring the encounter:

CALM BEFORE THE STORM? Big sunspot AR1520 has been relatively quiet for the past 48 hours, but this could be the calm before the storm. The sunspot has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: This morning a vast bank of electric-blue noctilucent clouds rippled across northern Europe. "It was like water in the sky," says Barbara Grudzinska, who photographed the display from Warsaw, Poland:

"These are the first noctilucent clouds this year so clearly visible at our latitude in Warsaw (52 N)," says Grudzinska.