SPACE.com 5/21 News Highlights

Satellite Spotting: See Dramatic Iridium Flares Now

A while back I received an inquiry from Craig Allen, a broadcast meteorologist in New York:

"I just thought you’d be interested in a rather unusual sky observation that I made recently from Nassau County (Long Island). I was walking my dog around 10 o’clock at night and was looking up, when I saw an ordinary-looking star that became incredibly bright.

Origins Revealed: Sun and Earth Born amid Chaos

A new twist on an emerging theory says the Sun was born amid massive, short-lived stars that sculpted our solar system with intense radiation and violent explosions that may have affected the origin of life.