Lunistices Though the sky is filled with immeasurable objects – galaxies, stars, asteroids, Uranus – two of them dominate our perspectives: the Sun and the Moon. Most celestial bodies feature tangible but often imperceptible cycles, thanks to Earth’s rotation, but our star and our satellite grace us with significant patterns. Our definitions of time and […]
The Anatomy of a Lunar Eclipse One of the English language’s most sublime words is syzygy. A syzygy occurs when at least three celestial bodies align in a plane. Note: the following images are not to scale! When we think of syzygies, we often think of the Earth, Sun, and Moon, but any three bodies could
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Schrödinger’s Grand Canyons of the Moon Erwin Schrödinger is best known to the modern layperson for his eponymous, feline thought experiment. Schrödinger’s cat was designed during a conversation he had with Albert Einstein, about potential paradoxes that arise with certain interpretations of quantum mechanics. Inside a box is a kitty, a vial of poison, a radioactive
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Super Blue Moon Earlier this year, we investigated the many flavors of the moon. Despite the fact that we only see one face of our satellite, we are treated to a plethora of different visuals. We have all the phases, with their crescents, humps (“gibbous moon”), fulls, and quarters. Every once in a while, we’re treated
The Many Flavors of the Moon The dominant body of our solar system is, of course, the life-giving sun. And, though we can observe other stars and planets in the night sky, the second-most prominent entity is easily the moon. Today, we denote a year by the time it takes to orbit our star, but
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