The Great Conjunction If you’re a regular skywatcher you might already know the two biggest planets in our solar system – Jupiter and Saturn – have occupied the same portion of our cosmic ceiling for most of the year. In fact, in the preceding months, the two have crept closer and closer toward each […]
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Sylacauga In the last issue, we traveled to the strangely-named Benld, Illinois, to investigate a close encounter with a meteorite. In 1938, some humans had the closest recorded brush with a meteorite impact. Just 50 feet away, a space rock hit a garage, went through the ceiling of a car, its cushion, its floorboard, bounced off
The Autumnal Equinox Pumpkin spice permeates the air. Color creeps into the leaves. A favorite season for many people begins tomorrow – autumn. With all the fun of fall, unfortunately, comes the notion that, indeed, winter is coming. Daylight is slipping away. For those of us who loathe the lack of daytime in the winters, the autumnal
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Comet NEOWISE The astrophotography world has been abuzz in recent weeks thanks to the spectacular emergence of Comet NEOWISE, which is one of the brightest visible objects in the northern hemisphere since the famous 1997 edition of Comet Hale-Bopp. Before March of this year, we didn’t even know this comet existed. Astronomers picked up an
The Summer Solstice Tuesday, 21 June, marks 2023’s summer solstice. The word solstice comes from the Latin solstitium, which combines sol (sun) and stit (stopped or stationary). Technically defined, the summer solstice is the point when one of Earth’s poles is tilted maximally toward the sun. Broadly defined, it is the day on which the sun reaches the highest position
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Skywalker and Depthdiver The Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is a fairly common graduation gift and for some people it is prophetic. If the book, published in 1990, had been around in the 1960s you might have been a true Nostradamus had you given a copy to Kathryn Sullivan. A couple of weeks ago she
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The Vernal Equinox Open the windows, cue In Bloom, and rejoice at the end of winter! Spring is here again! Today is the first day of the new season! The 2023 vernal equinox transpires (transpired) at 5:24 PM EDT. From the Latin word aequinoctium, equinox means “equal night.” Occurring twice every year, equinoxes mark a change in astronomical season and happen when
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The Tilting of Uranus When I stumbled across the article with the title, “A New Approach to Tilting Uranus,” I knew immediately I had to include the topic in the newsletter. Uranus is one of those puns that everyone continues to love, despite “growing up.” I know some people who publicly claim to disdain this line
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The woman behind the math behind the space program.
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Hubble Deep Field In 1990 NASA launched a telescope named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. The Hubble Space Telescope was a giant leap for the “world” of astronomy. It was one of the largest ever created and designed to be upgradable and maintained by astronauts. Since the telescope is in orbit, it is not disrupted by light