Mon Feb 19, 2024 THE DISCOVERY OF PLANET X
On February 18, 1930, Planet X was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. Tombaugh was a talented amateur astronomer who was hired to make and search photographic plates of the sky, looking for anything that might shift its position from one night to the next, as seen when comparing one photo to another picture of the same part of the sky taken a few nights later. It was painstaking work but rewarding; Planet X was discovered out in the direction of the constellation Gemini, which is well up in the eastern sky after sunset tonight. But Planet X isn’t there anymore. This distant world is now six constellations over to the east, in Sagittarius. Oh, and it’s not called Planet X anymore; shortly after its discovery it was renamed Pluto.
Tue Feb 20, 2024 NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, born on February 19th, 1473, advocated the heliocentric theory, which placed the sun in the center of the solar system, with the earth and other planets revolving about it. Copernicus received praise and encouragement from the Bishop of Kulm and the Archbishop of Capua and some scholars, but his ideas were also ridiculed by others including Martin Luther, who once said, “This fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside down!”. Until the mid 1600’s, the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle were considered the final word on science, and Copernicus’ predictions weren’t any more accurate than the old earth-centered model. But this Copernican model was a simpler way to explain the motions of the planets.
Wed Feb 21, 2024 JOCELYN FINDS A RADIO STAR
In 1967, Jocelyn Bell, then a graduate student at England’s Cambridge University, made an incredible discovery: while going over the data from a radio telescope she’d help build, Bell found a rapidly recurring signal, which spiked every 1.3 seconds. Bell had found the very first pulsar, although the source of the signals was not known at the time (Bell and her advisor dubbed them “L.G.M.”s, light-heartedly suggesting they could be signals from an alien civilization consisting of “Little Green Men.”) Pulsars are the rapidly spinning cores of exploded stars. Her discovery was announced on February 24, 1968 and her advisor was soon awarded a Nobel prize (Wait, what?) But in 2018 Bell finally received her Nobel, in the category of Fundamental Physics.
Thu Feb 22, 2024 WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY
George Washington was born on February 11th in 1731. He was also born over a year later, on February 22nd, 1732. If there were a calendar over Washington’s cradle it would have said the date was February 11th, 1731. But that was the old Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. In 1582, Pope Gregory replaced it with the Gregorian calendar, because after fifteen hundred years of reckoning time, the Julian calendar had slipped by ten days. But the English colony of Virginia was Protestant, and they didn’t change over until 1752, when everything was off by eleven days. So they cut those days out of the calendar and also changed the new year’s beginning from March 25th to January 1st, thus shifting Washington’s birthday to February 22nd, which was fine with him. And now, Congress says it’s the third Monday in February. OK.
Fri Feb 23, 2024 FEBRUARY FULL MOON
The moon will be full this weekend. If you look for it this evening, you’ll find it, weather permitting, low in the east at sunset. It will appear pretty full to the unaided eye, but look closely and you’ll notice that it’s slightly out of round. View it through a pair of binoculars and you’ll see some shading along the moon’s eastern limb. The Celts called the full moon of February the “Moon of Ice,” well-named I’d say. To the Algonquin Indians of North America, this is the Hunger Moon; it appeared at a time of year when, deep in the cold of winter, food was scarce. The Kutenai Indians’ named it the Black Bear Moon, the Sioux Indians say it is the Raccoon Moon. To the Winnebago tribes it’s the Fish-Running Moon. The Tewa Pueblos knew this as the Moon of Cedar Dust Wind, but the San Juan Indians call this, Moon When the Coyotes are Frightened.
