Sunday, September 21, 2014

Happy Fall Equinox on Monday and Other Sky Events


Monday morning (Sept. 22) is the "autumnal" or fall equinox for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. On that day, the length of the day and the night are roughly the same ("equinox" means equal night). We are moving from the summer, when the days were longer, toward the winter when our nights are longer -- and our parts of the planet have fewer hours to heat up from sunlight.

The equinox is sometimes called the official start of fall and throughout history there have been festivals and beginnings celebrated at the time. It so happens that Foothill College, where I teach, starts its fall quarter on the equinox this year, so I will be welcoming several hundred new students to my classes with a happy equinox greeting (and many who don't know the term will be looking at me as if I were a crazy person!)

The fall quarter will bring many interesting events to fans of astronomy. Tonight, Sunday, the MAVEN spacecraft will be inserted into orbit around Mars, so it can begin to study how little Mars, with its lower gravity, lost its atmosphere over the millennia, and how its remaining air layers interact with the radiation and wind from the Sun.

October 8th, we will have a total eclipse of the Moon (these are much more common than total eclipses of the Sun.) Alas, for those of us in North America, this will be a middle of the night eclipse! The full Moon will go dark as the Earth's shadow falls on it, but most of us will be in bed, deeply asleep, when it happens. For example, in San Francisco, the eclipse happens from about 2:30 am to 5:30 am, so only dedicated night owls will be watching it. (If you miss it, don't worry, there will be two lunar eclipses visible in 2015.)

On October 19th, a newly discovered comet will come closer to the planet Mars than any known comet has come to Earth, and so our robot "representatives" around Mars will be keeping their cameras out for that pass.

On October 23rd, in the afternoon, much of North America will witness a partial eclipse of the Sun in the afternoon. Many astronomy organizations will be planning eclipse parties, with safe viewing options. I will do a full post about the eclipse when we get closer to the time.

And, down on Earth, October 25th, the opening day of the 2014 Bay Area Science Festival, I will be giving a free public talk on Mt. Tamalpais about the "Top Tourist Sights of the Solar System: Where Bill Gates' Great-Granddaughter will go for Her Honeymoon." See: http://wonderfest.org/top-tourist-signs-of-the-solar-system/

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