Category Archives: daily events

Into the real world

Posted on by

NASA’s chief climate scientist James E. Hansen built his career studying Earth’s atmosphere and modeling humans’ potential impacts on climate. Then he realized that laboratory work wasn’t enough. Hansen never thought his decision to study atmospheric models would lead to his arrest. But there he was in handcuffs this summer, protesting at the White House against a pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.

It wasn’t the first arrest, either. Hansen, who has directed NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 31 years, earned the sobriquet “father of global warming” after testifying before Congress in 1988 on the dangers of global warming. He appeared again in 1989. Then he quietly returned to his work, turning aside television and media requests for the next 15 years because, as he said, “you have no time to do the science if you’re talking to the media.” … (Universe Today)

Huzzah!

Posted on by

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. 51 years ago it was the first day of my life. It was  a Monday also.

To continue a tradition I always look up the evening sky at the moment I was born. Mars and the Moon were high in the sky, in first quarter (51% to be precise). Now Jupiter is high in the sky and the Moon is new (actually 11 hours and 46 minutes after new Moon).

Below you can see both vistas. Click on them to see a larger version.

Up to the next birthday.

Monday, January 23, 20.15 (in 1961)

Monday, January 23, 20.15 (today)

A ‘selenelion’

Posted on by

This year’s second total lunar eclipse on Saturday (Dec. 10) will offer a rare chance to see a strange celestial sight traditionally thought impossible.

Ringside seats for the lunar eclipse can be found in Alaska, Hawaii, northwestern Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and central and eastern Asia. Over the contiguous United States and Canada, the eastern zones will see either only the initial penumbral stages before moonset, or nothing at all.

Over the central regions of the United States, the moon will set as it becomes progressively immersed in the Earth’s umbral shadow. The Rocky Mountain states and the prairie provinces will see the moon set in total eclipse, while out west the moon will start to emerge from the shadow as it sets.

The moon passes through the southern part of the Earth’s shadow, with totality beginning at 6:06 a.m. PST and lasting 51 minutes. [Total Eclipse of the Moon (Infographic)]

For most places in the United States and Canada, there will be a chance to observe an unusual effect, one that celestial geometry seems to dictate can’t happen. The little-used name for this effect is a “selenelion” (or “selenehelion”) and occurs when both the sun and the eclipsed moon can be seen at the same time. … (SPACE.com)

Perseids raining down

Posted on by

At this moment something else is raining down here, at my location. Sadly it’s part of the clouds and it’s called rain. Not meteors. But maybe at your location the sun is shining and all is well without clouds. In that case, go outside late at night and early in the morning and observe the Perseids.

In the northern hemisphere, you can find the constellation Perseus, where the center of the action is, high in the north east. Remember that the radiant of the Perseids is in Perseus, but meteors can show up quite a distance from the constellation itself. But if you see one or more of them and trace back their origin, you’ll always end up in the constellation Perseus.

Dates, today

Posted on by

What day is it today?

It’s not only August 10, 2011, but Wednesday, the 222nd day of the year, in week 32 of the year. Since the beginning of this year we’ve covered 7 months, 9 days, 19 hours and 53 minutes giving the above time.

That’s 5322 hours, the same as 319,373 minutes or 19,162,380 seconds.

More important for a lot of people is: “it’s Wednesday, almost Thursday, and that means it’s almost weekend.” Or “in six weeks it’s autumn.

Choose your own date. Our calendar leaves you with so many options there’s always an alternative to choose.