Closest Moon of the year
The media will call it a Supermoon, astronomers will call it lunar perigee, and Hudson River tides will be stronger than usual.
All posts by Bob Berman
What’s in a name?
We caught a lucky break with the clouds, and were able to see the total lunar eclipse the other week.
The body electric
We all know that brains and muscles operate electrically. But almost no one seems aware that our body’s electricity has very quirky, variable characteristics.
Favorite numbers
Why does each cell in our body have 90 trillion atoms, roughly the same as the number of stars in our home galaxy cluster?
Pattern recognition: 2019 brings forth cycles of nature
In 2019, our region gets one fabulous total lunar eclipse – in just a few weeks, on January 20.
2019 will begin with an eye-catching celestial alignment
Tuesday, Jan. 1: Look in the direction of sunrise at 6:45 a.m. Face into the brightening dawn.
The worst time for clouds
On Saturday and Sunday nights, Dec. 15 and 16, Bob expects Comet Wirtanen to achieve naked-eye visibility – the first comet in years to do so.
Comet over the Hudson Valley and other cool stuff for December
Comet Wirtanen will soon pay Earth its closest-ever visit. It should be large and blobby-looking, appearing as a fuzzy glob the size of the full Moon.
Going to Mars…or at least gazing at it
The Martian surface air is 30 times thinner than the air atop Mount Everest. And if that weren’t bad enough, all that thin, barely-there gas is carbon dioxide: no oxygen. You can’t breathe there.
Nature-lover’s tip: Look opposite the Sun
By day the antisolar point is marked by the shadow of your head. At night it’s the most happening place in the heavens.