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Supermoon will be big, bright, and full on June 23

Supermoons can tend to get doomsdayers revved up.

Besides being a remarkable sight to behold, the massive moon also comes with the mythical stigma of causing a handful of natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, floods, typhoons, and cyclones.

And, this year's supermoon is quickly upon us. It will be shining its light next weekend on June 23. On that day, the moon will appear bigger and brighter, and be closer to Earth than it's been all year -- a total of 221,824 miles away, which is roughly 30,000 miles closer than when it's at … Read more

NASA to blastoff solar satellite to gather images of the sun

Despite Earthlings depending on the sun for survival, there's a lot that scientists still don't know about our solar system's star. NASA is looking to change this.

The U.S. space agency is launching a solar satellite called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) on June 26 to get a closer look at the sun's lower atmosphere. This part of the atmosphere is important because it is where most of the sun's ultraviolet emissions are generated, which are known to impact Earth's climate and the near-Earth space environment, according to NASA.

"IRIS data … Read more

Intel and McAfee join forces, the Counting Crows talk apps, and Firefox revs to v21

Every week, we compile the best new reviews, products, and features from the Download.com software catalog and blog, package them up in a tidy little newsletter, and e-mail it out to all of our lovely subscribers.

If you are a registered CNET member, you can sign up for the newsletter yourself (it's listed as "CNET Download.com Software Dispatch" under "Software News and Reviews"), or check back every Tuesday to read our latest roundup.

Top Download News and Features

Mozilla Firefox updates to version 21 with a new Health Report and additional Do Not … Read more

Review: Track Web sites and pages for changes with SunFlower for Mac

Keeping track of the latest updates on all of your favorite Web sites can be a daunting task. Sunflower for Mac tries to simplify this for you. It is a free application that takes snapshots of specific Web pages over time and compares them to a registry of stored images to allow for easy tracking of any updates or changes that occur on these pages.

SunFlower for Mac is easy to install and set up. It offers many features that allow for customization of how the application takes and stores the snapshots it analyzes. A split pane window shows Web … Read more

Marvel at NASA's mesmerizing 3-years-of-sun-shots video

We've always been told not to stare at the sun, but NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been doing just that for the last three years. Since it started operations, the SDO has taken a shot of the sun using its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly every 12 seconds on 10 different wavelengths, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the shifting moods and surface of our nearest star.

NASA put together a 3-minute video of the sun's last three years and set it to lovely music. The result is a yellow, fluctuating, spinning globe, spitting out flares over time. It's nearly hypnotizing.… Read more

Biggest solar flare of the year knocks out radio transmissions

Early this morning the sun erupted, sending billions of solar particles into space at over 600 miles per second, raising the prospect of solar radiation storms above the Earth, according to NASA. A spokesman said the resulting emissions sparked a short-lived radio communications blackout on Earth. The radio disruption has since subsided. The appearance of the strongest solar storm of 2013 is part of an increasingly common sight as astronomers say this is connected to the sun's 11-year activity cycle. More intense solar eruptions are expected later in the year.

What's up with the sun? Plenty

We're currently in the midst of what scientists say is the sun's 11-year solar weather cycle, and it's making for quite the show. Over the last few months, NASA and the European Space Agency have been recording solar flares as they erupt, tracking solar storms that send charged particles in Earth's direction at roughly 1.8 million miles per hour. In case you were tempted to do the math, radiation from solar flares make it to Earth within eight minutes.

What's more, the frequency of the storms is expected to increase and reach its peak … Read more

Earth cozies up super close to the sun today

Looking out my window, it's a beautiful sunny day. Perhaps it's even a bit sunnier than usual here in New Mexico. Turns out, there may be a reason for that. The Earth is as close to the sun today as it will be for the whole year of 2013.

How close is close? The Earth is a mere 91,402,560 miles away from the sun today. Usually, we're right around 93 million miles. The phenomenon of getting all cuddly with our closest star is called perihelion. "Peri" means near and "Helios" was the Greek god of the sun. … Read more

Oracle turns in a mixed bag in 2nd-quarter results

Oracle today reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings, revenue that was lighter than estimates, and hardware system product sales that fell 23 percent from a year ago.

In other words, Oracle's quarter was a mixed bag (preview).

Oracle reported second-quarter earnings of $2.6 billion, or 53 cents a share, on revenue of $9.1 billion, up 3 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 64 cents a share.

Wall Street was expecting Oracle to report second-quarter earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $9.02 billion.

New license and cloud revenue was up 17 percent in the … Read more