Some of us are old enough to remember the excitement and wonder of the launching of the two Voyager spacecrafts in 1977. Those two have traveled and entered into interstellar space. If you wonder how their equipment is functioning, a back-up system of thrusters on Voyager 2 kicked on in 1994 after 17 years of waiting to be needed. There are still signals reaching earth from them. And those are low-bid products. The engineers and scientists who dreamed them into reality really did an amazing job.
When you are out taking that stroll around the neighborhood or jogging along one of the walking trails of your town, make time to look up. About two hours after dark you will be able to see Jupiter and Saturn in the east-southeast among the stars of the constellation Pisces. Above will be the Great Square of Pegasus, or the baseball diamond where the Little and Pony Leaguers wound up their stellar seasons recently.
Pegasus is an ancient constellation and its lower left corner points directly toward Jupiter now. Continuing from that line would point towards the “celestial sea” that includes the constellations of Cetus, the whale; Pisces, the two fish that in myths were Aphrodite (Venus) and her son Eros (Cupid) who were trying to escape to safety; Aquarius, the water-bearer; Capricornus, the sea-goat; and Eridanus, the river, that still flows into the Persian Gulf.
These constellations date back to Mesopotamia (Iran) and Eridanus is the Euphrates River, which is before the Greeks or Romans even were city-states themselves. Astronomy is the oldest science of all. It is the basis of geometry as well. Ponder that as your student complains about history, geometry, or science homework. Remind them it is ancient history and also as current as our space programs out on Boca Chica beach.
It is a shame we have so much light pollution now that these constellations can seldom be seen, much less recognized. When we talk about energy saving, fewer lights almost everywhere would be a big saving.
If you are fortunate to have a dark sky view, then you might use a decent telescope to scan the region of the tail of Cygnus to locate the North America nebula. Yes, the nebula does resemble our continent but mainly the U.S. part. As sky-watchers have always done, the objects discovered are given names of familiar places or things. What wonders will be discovered with the new James Webb Space Telescope remain to be seen. Millions, perhaps billions of previously unseen galaxies are emerging from the images JWST has already shared. And it has been a month in use. Hubble opened our eyes to billions of galaxies; JWST will do even more.
The moon is waxing now, with more of its surface which is reflecting sunlight facing Earth as the two revolve around the sun in their constant dance. Full moon is 14 days after the new moon. The new moon is lost in the glare of the sun, while the full moon is directly opposite the sun. Since our moon’s orbit is tilted five degrees off from Earth’s orbital path, we don’t have eclipses every month. Hooray for geometry.
Since the moon’s appearance changes daily, as does its location in the sky, this might be a good time to begin keeping a chart of how the moon appears from night to night-or from day to day. Yes, it can be seen in the daytime, but when? Try to figure out the pattern and use it for a unique science fair project. I know school just started, but longer-term projects are more interesting to judges. And this one would be easily done.
Until next week, KLU.
