On July 12, Earth will cross the sun's face, seen from Pluto. Doing so requires a near-perfect alignment that hasn't happened since 1931, around the time of Pluto's discovery. Earthly astronomers are ready!
The planet is located at about the distance of Uranus - our solar system's 7th planet - from the dwarf star PDS 70. Its atmosphere appears to be cloudy, these astronomers said.
Draw a line through the Big Dipper pointer stars to find Polaris, Earth's pole star. If your sky is dark, also look for a former pole star, Thuban, in the Tail of Draco the Dragon.
This past weekend, a massive dust cloud from Africa's Sahara Desert swept across the Atlantic and caused hazy skies across Texas, Mexico and parts of Central America.
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The Earth, sun and Pluto are aligned at Pluto's July 12 opposition, because Pluto is near the line of nodes, the intersection between the orbital plane of Pluto (purple) and that of Earth (white). These node crossings are rare and occur in 87- and 161-year intervals. Image via Anne Verbiscer.
One Earth, one sky. The map above shows dust crossing the Atlantic on June 28, 2018, as represented by the GEOS-5 satellite. Image via NASA Earth Observatory.
