Partial Solar Eclipse over Argentina

What has happened to the Sun? Parts of South America were treated to a partial solar eclipse two days ago. The sun setting over Argentina was shown in the featured image as it was partially obscured by clouds. Earth is in the right position in the tilted image. The Moon moved between Earth and the Sun during the eclipse. Although a visually impressive sight, the slight dimming of surroundings during this partial eclipse was less noticeable than the dimming created by a thick cloud. A total lunar eclipse will take place in South America and parts of North America in about two weeks. A total solar eclipse will cross North America in about two years.

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Explanation: That's no comet. Below the Pleiades star cluster is actually a planet: Mercury. Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun. Sunlight also liberates these molecules from Mercury's surface and pushes them away. The yellow glow from sodium, in particular, is relatively bright. Pictured, Mercury and its sodium tail are visible in a deep image taken last week from La Palma, Spain through a filter that primarily transmits yellow light emitted by sodium. First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015. Tails, of course, are usually associated with comets.