New sunspot 1078 is growing rapidly and crackling with low-level solar flares.

So far the relatively minor “crackles” have had no effect on Earth. If the active region continues to grow, however, the flares could become more intense, leading to waves of ionization in Earth’s upper atmosphere and disturbances in low-frequency radio propagation.

It’s brightening! S&T associate editor Tony Flanders viewed Comet C/2009 R1 (McNaught) at 3:30 this morning through 12×60 binoculars from Boston’s inner suburbs. The comet was well above the horizon before the sky got perceptibly lighter, and the thin crescent Moon provided no interference.

The comet was very easy to spot, forming an attractive tight triangle with the open cluster Messier 34 below and the star 14 Persei left of M34. All three were roughly equal in brightness. This puts the comet around magnitude 5.5, which means it should be visible naked-eye in a dark sky.

Photo by Michael Jaeger.

Close encounter on June 15th and 16th

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, has announced the approaching end of the seven year, two billion km odyssey, of Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft.

It is scheduled to return to Earth this Sunday (7 am PDT) carrying a piece of near-Earth asteroid Itokawa, and yesterday it completed its TCM-4 operation — see link.

The sample return capsule will blaze through the atmosphere over Australia and land via parachute in the remote Woomera Test Range, WPA.

The Hayabasa mothership will follow the capsule into Earth’s atmosphere, but will never make it to ground, disintegrating in a spectacular fireball. (I hope to provide photos asap.)

This artist's concept depicts the Hayabusa spacecraft (left) and sample return capsule (right) entering the atmosphere over South Australia. Image credit: NASA/JPL