Mercury and Venus will be visible together in some parts of the country low on the western horizon for the first three weeks of this month, but are so close to the Sun that they may not be at all visible. The mountains out here generally obscure any otherwise early evening viewings in that direction… as the Sun is setting, anything closely visible ducks behind the peak before daylight dissipates.

Weather permitting, Jupiter will be easy to see all month. It reached opposition late last month but will still be nearly at its biggest and brightest of the year. The Moon will begin to appear in the eastern sky around 4PM tonight with Jupiter coming above the horizon a little to the North (left) as it starts to get dark, by 5:30 -6PM (UTC 01:30-02:00). It will be hard to miss, being the brightest object in that area. It will be up most of the night, appearing to trail the Moon’s path, and it will be highest in the sky around midnight. Jupiter will be large enough to show detail through even a small telescope with its banded surface and four easily visible moons so we’ should be out on the front porch with ours after dinner.

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The infamous Mars hoax that has widely circulated on the Internet since it first appeared in the Summer of 2004 has surfaced again. I know because I’ve recently received the email from well-intentioned individuals and it now even includes a full-blown PowerPoint presentation to provide a sense of authenticity.

The e-mail declares that tonight, the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in thousands of years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims that Mars will appear “as large as the full moon”.

The problem is that the “Aug. 27″ reference was for Aug. 27, 2003, the night when Mars made a historically close pass by Earth @ 34.6 million miles. Although the Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than a bright star, not at all like the full moon.

FWIW it is impossible from the Earth for Mars to ever appear as large at the moon, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing this email again in the future… maybe next time with a video.

Isn’t technology wonderful?

One of the most remarkable naked-eye celestial observances from the Earth is that the Moon and Sun have almost the same apparent size. Depending on its position in orbit and relative distance from the Earth, the Moon can appear either larger or smaller than the Sun, resulting in solar eclipses on Earth occurring in two varieties: total, when the Moon is close enough to appear larger than Sun and completely cover it, and annular, where a more distant Moon fails to completely cover the Sun, resulting in a “ring of fire”.

Relative to any fixed location on Earth, a total eclipse of the sun is a rare event. I remember watching the last one visible from the continental U.S. in 1979 from the sidewalk in the front yard of our Piscatway, NJ home – through a piece of green welder’s lens my Dad handed to me. I had no idea of the significance or rarity of the event at that time as that was his last one & the next one won’t happen for us here until 2017.

The longest solar eclipse our generation will see until 2032 will occur in part of the Western Hemisphere on July 21 and on July 22, 2009 in the Eastern Hemisphere. It will be only a singular occurrence with the difference in dates being caused by our International Date Line. Those of us in the United States will not experience this eclipse first hand, but in this Information Society, live coverage should be scheduled to be broadcast and relayed primarily from China and Japan. I’ve been checking CNN, but haven’t found anything yet.

More information about this eclipse is available at NASA’s Eclipse Web Site.

Venus, the second planet from our nearest star, has a sidereal rotation period of 243 days but it’s near circular orbit period is approximately 225 days. This makes a Venusian day longer than a Venusian year. (Reflect on that concept for a bit… Would you celebrate your birthday every day?)

As close as it is to the Sun, the surface never sees direct sunlight since thick clouds always cover the entire surface. It’s the reflection of Sunlight off of this cloud-base that is responsible making Venus not only the brightest natural object in our nighttime sky but also bright enough to be seen in the middle of the day.

When Venus is in position between the Earth and the Sun (inferior conjunction), it makes the closest approach to Earth of any planet. It reaches inferior conjunction, on average, every 584 Earth days (5 Venutian Solar days) with a recent occurrence on 29 Mar 2009 (± 2 days) ¹ It has since ”passed” the Earth in it’s orbit around the Sun and went from being visible after Sunset to now visible before Sunrise.

Like our Moon, Venus exhibits “phases” but only in telescopic view. This could only be possible if the planet orbited the Sun and this discovery in the 17th century by Galileo supported the unfathomable 16th century Copernican heliocentric, or Sun-centered, idea that we are not the center of the Universe (although I know a few who’d probably still argue that point to date ;) ).

A couple of Carl Sagan Astronomy Videos on YouTube:

1. Pale Blue Dot 
2. The Cosmic Calendar

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We generally think of space as emptiness and quite readily ignore it, jumping from sphere to cosmic sphere… but the space between the obvious objects in the universe is the same, exactly the same, as the space between our thoughts… or the space between the notes that makes the music (Claude Debussy)… or the space between our atomic structure.

We learned very early on, in English classes of all places, that Thoughts (ideas) are things. But it is being conscience of the space between them that differentiates us from the other mammals. If you say something negative to me, I can choose to be offended and react violently or I can choose relative indifference and accept your opinion as yours. My decision is “in the gap between the thoughts”, where other animals instinctively react.

If the above example seems to “airy” or “pseudo-scientific” for you, let’s take something solid in our observable surroundings, say a block of lead. We’ll all agree that although it “looks” solid, it is been repeatedly shown through the Scientific Method to be a mass of moving molecules with space between them. Continue Reading »