Mon Apr 3, 2023 FALLING INTO THE NEAREST BLACK HOLE
What happens if you fall into a black hole? Well, it would be bad: if you jumped in, your feet would be pulled with a lot more force than your head. You would be stretched out as thin as a piece of spaghetti, which of course is not a natural state for the human body to be in, and you would disintegrate, your atoms eventually spiraling into the black hole. Are you likely to fall into a black hole? The nearest known black hole we know of is just to the east of Orion the Hunter, in our western sky this evening, in a constellation known as Monoceros the Unicorn. It is here where we find V616 Monocerotis. This black hole is about 3,000 light years away, or 18,000 trillion miles. So even the nearest black hole is so far away that nobody is in any danger of falling in!
Tue Apr 4, 2023 HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT
If you want to lose weight, move to the equator. Here’s why: The rotating Earth creates centrifugal force - not really a force, just inertia at work. The Earth’s spin hurls us out into space, but gravity holds us back. Earth’s rotational speed is zero at the poles, but almost a thousand miles an hour at the equator. And the Earth is a little fatter around the equator than from pole to pole. So at the equator we’re 12 miles farther away from Earth’s center, and there’s slightly less gravity. This reduces our weight by about two-tenths of one percent from our position here in Florida. So if you weigh 150 pounds and you move to Ecuador, you’ll weigh about a third of a pound less.
Wed Apr 5, 2023 APRIL FULL MOON
The moon is full tonight. It’s the first full moon since the beginning of spring, which, by an old formula, means that Easter will be this Sunday. The Seneca Indians recognize the full moon of April as the time of the strawberry dance, while the Mohawk know it as “Onerahtokha,” the budding time, which is similar to the Kiowa’s Leaf Moon, as this is the month when new leaves form on trees. The Cheyenne Indians speak of it as the Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs. To the Mandan Indians of North Dakota, it is simply the Planter’s Moon; it was under the light of this full moon that many people planted tobacco, potato, and the Three Sisters - the seeds of corn, squash and bean. Other tribes call this the grass moon. And to the Cherokee it is “kawohni,” the flower moon.
Thu Apr 6, 2023 STARING AT THE SUN
The sun is too bright to look at, even with sunglasses. Thousands of years ago sunwatchers observed and described large sunspots, at least 40,000 miles across, that sometimes appeared on its face. They did this by looking at the sun only during sunrise or sunset when it was dim and red. And on a misty day in the year 1612 in Bavaria, the Jesuit astronomer Father Scheiner first observed sunspots directly through a telescope. As you may have guessed, these methods are definitely NOT safe: even though the amount of visible light is cut down by the thick column of air at the horizon, the sun can still blind you. So never stare at the sun, even when it’s cloudy, not even at sunrise or sunset.
Fri Apr 7, 2023 MAGNIFYING POWER
“What power is that telescope?" is a question that asks how much can the telescope magnify whatever it is you're looking at. But a telescope has a whole assortment of magnifying powers - all you have to do is change the eyepiece. The eyepiece does the magnifying. Most small telescopes should never be taken over 100 to 200 power - the image gets too dim and fuzzy. The telescope’s big lens or mirror has a different purpose. It is collecting as much light as possible. The wider the ‘scope’s mirror or lens, the more light it can gather, which yields a brighter image which can then be magnified more. A lens or mirror that’s four inches across works up to about 200 power, while a 6 inch ‘scope can be pushed to 300 power under good seeing conditions.
