A lifelong sky watcher, I recently had the opportunity to watch the sky on the day of my birth, September 17, 1936, at the place of my birth, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Astronomy
Detail from “Road with Cypress and Star” by Vincent van Gogh
Budding scientists at play (Public Domain)
At play among the stars
Walking home from work, I passed a group a young boys playing ball in the street.
The Mars Pathfinder landing site on Mars • NASA (Public Domain)
Learning to love cosmic mediocrity
Someday, maybe a century from now, tourists will drive down Martian Highway 27 between high-rimmed craters called Wahoo, Yuty, Shawnee, and Bled to a well-marked historical site at the mouth of the Ares Vallis where Mars Pathfinder touched down.
The Hubble Deep Field photograph • R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA/ESA
Living happily in the giga-universe
What’s a billion?
Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 • E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria (CC BY-SA 3.0)
If Hale-Bopp had come a bit earlier
In June 1995, Sky & Telescope magazine published an article by Mark Gingrich that posed the question: When are we likely to get the next great comet?
Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash
The guiding lights
A colleague, a teacher of Spanish, asked about the origin of the word “septentrion,” which in both English and Spanish means “the north.”
The Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light • Photo by Luis Argerich (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Whirled away on a river of light
One recent evening, walking home in the pitch-dark Bahamian night from drinks at the local bar, we suddenly felt ourselves whirled into infinity. And it wasn’t the drink.
Photo by Ralph Katieb on Unsplash
Groundhog Day: All sun and games
Elsewhere in the news this morning you will read or hear about Punxsutawney Phil, the famous Pennsylvania groundhog that did or did not see its shadow when it emerged from its burrow yesterday.
Image by urikyo33 from Pixabay
But who’s worrying about those big rocks in the sky?
Doc, I’m telling you, my fear has become compulsive. I can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t work. I go around looking up at the sky.
Galileo under house arrest • Painting by Solomon Alexander Hart (1847)
Creationism’s prison
“In the city of Pisa, a little boy was born with stars in his eyes. His parents named him Galileo.”