* Astronomy

On May 22nd, Dutch amateur astronomer Quintus Oostendorp watched a flare through his backyard telescope. A movie he recorded using his Canon 1000D shows what happened: The bright flash is sunlight glinting off the station's enormous solar arrays. Earlier this year, on March 20th, astronauts unfurled a new pair of arrays on the space station's starboard side, adding 8000 sq. feet of light-catching surface area to the station's profile. The extra area increases both the chances and the luminosity of flares. No one knows when they will happen or how bright they will be. That's what makes the hunt for "space station flares" so much fun.