How do you define noon? There are two ways. 12:00 p.m. on the clock when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, directly south in the northern hemisphere; this is solar noon. In Lynchburg, Virginia on December…
Category: Sky Phenomena
How Far Away Is That Star?
Quick! What’s the nearest star to Earth? Not counting the Sun, because this is not a trick question. If you answered Proxima Centauri, you can count yourself among the astronomically knowledgeable. Its distance of 4.25 light years means it is…
Tagged with: Stellar Parallax
THE GEMINIDS
I was really happy that so many of my Lynchburg area friends were able to experience clear skies for the Geminid meteor shower. I dressed warmly, put my chair in the shadow of our car to block our neighborhood’s brightest…
Not 100% True
The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, but a little observation of the sky can demonstrate that common sayings such as this may be only partially true. In the Northern Hemisphere, at least if we…
Finding Your Way In Space
Does anyone still know how to read a paper map in the era of GPS? I will confess that although I could use such a map for travel, I seldom do so. I love maps, and my home office has…
The Great Conjunction
Our night sky appears to us like an overarching dome sprinkled with bright points of light. Some of those points of light appear to be very close to each other, and indeed the ancients envisioned the stars as all being…
WHY DO WE HAVE A LEAP YEAR?
Short answer: Because there is not an exact number of solar days in one solar year. Longer answer below. All of our measures of time relate to astronomical phenomena. A year measures the time it takes for the Earth to…
Easter and the Calendar
The modern-day scientist is motivated by any number of human emotions. Chief among those is curiosity, an unquenchable desire to know how the world works. In the words of Einstein, “I want to know God’s thoughts.” These words from one…
Upcoming Events
Far Encounter Remember the New Horizons spacecraft and its flyby of Pluto in July 2015? That previously little-known world presented us with what should now be expected—the unexpected, and new puzzles to solve. The spacecraft is still operating, sending back…
The Christmas Star
Often in the Christmas season, anyone with a reputation for knowing something about astronomy is asked about the Christmas star described in the Gospel of Matthew. What was it? Is there an astronomical explanation for it? What do YOU think…
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