The Autumnal Equinox takes place on Friday afternoon, Sept. 22, at 4:02 p.m. At that moment, Earth will angle perfectly sideways to the Sun. Neither pole will tip toward or away from that favorite star of ours. And therefore, as the media never tire of reminding us, days and nights should theoretically be equal. We’ve often pointed out that this is never true.
The radiation would start to arrive three to ten hours after the blast, and consist of fine dust particles. Breathing these could deliver fatal doses, with death expected in six to eight days.
Monday, August 21: For the first time in nearly four decades, a total solar eclipse sweeps a path across the mainland US. Most backyard astronomers have never seen one. No surprise; they’re rare. For any spot on Earth, totality happens once every 360 years on average. Some places, like Los Angeles, will wait more than a millennium. Even if you can’t make it to the path of totality, there will be an eclipse-viewing party at Red Hook’s Linden Avenue Middle School and another at Rhinebeck’s Starr Library. Don’t forget your goggles!
This Solstice conjunction will be the most spectacular meeting of planets in our lives.
Some are pure fun. They’re fun either because they sound intriguing, or else denote a little-known phenomenon that deserves wider recognition.
Special relativity was evolutionary and isn’t that hard to understand. But general relativity theory seemingly came from outer space; it had very little precedent and was truly an act of genius.
Finding glycine among the raven clouds of night, amidst the Milky Way that spreads across the heavens these very nights, is stunning.
Let’s be honest: You don’t want to fiddle with charts, and you’d like your astronomy fun and easy. Well, here it is.
A good aurora is the second-best spectacle the human eye can ever see. But what constitutes a major display?
To the public, exoplanets are exciting if they’re similar to Earth. And finding life somewhere out there would be the coolest possible thing. I see it differently.