Mon Feb 9, 2026 NAME THAT PLANET
Let’s play “name that planet.” I’ll give you the names of some or all of the moons that orbit each planet, and you have to figure out which planet it is. For example, if I said, “luna” or “moon,” you would respond with “Earth.” All right, let’s start. “Phobos” and “Deimos,” which mean “fear” and “panic?” These are the two moons of Mars. Now try “Nix,” “Styx,” “Hydra,” “Kerberos,” and “Charon.” These are the five moons of Pluto. How about, “Juliet,” “Ariel,” “Umbriel,” “Titania,” and “Miranda?” Those are some of the moons of Uranus. “Metis,” “Amalthea,” “Callisto,” “Ganymede,” “Europa,” and “Io?” Those belong to Jupiter. Now try, “Rhea,” “Enceladus,” “Atlas,” “Dione,” “Pandora,” “Prometheus,” and “Titan?” Those moons orbit Saturn. That leaves us with just Mercury and Venus, but they don’t have any moons!
Tue Feb 10, 2026 SMOKING STAR: THE ORION NEBULA
Over in the south this evening is the constellation Orion the Hunter. Below the three stars that outline his belt there are a few faint stars which form the Hunter's sword.If skies are dark enough, you can see that the star near the bottom of the sword looks fuzzy - a little out-of-focus.To the Sik’si’ka or Blackfoot Indians this was "smoking star," named for a hero who saved his parents from injustice and rid the world of monsters. When you look at “smoking star” with binoculars, you will see it as a fuzzy object. Use a telescope with a little more magnification, and you can see the outlines of a large cloud, trillions of miles across. It is the Great Orion Nebula, which is lit up by bright stars within the cloud, making it glow in the darkness of outer space.
Wed Feb 11, 2026 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.
Thu Feb 12, 2026 SPAGHETTIFICATION AND BLACK HOLES
If you ever jumped into a black hole, you’d find that the hole’s gravity would pull on your feet a lot harder than your head, which would stretch your body out as thin as a piece of spaghetti, which of course is not a natural state for the human body to be in, so you would disintegrate, and eventually all of your atoms would spiral into the black hole - so stay out of black holes! The nearest known black hole in the winter evening sky is V616 Monocerotis, in the faint constellation Monoceros the Unicorn, which is in the southeastern sky this evening and just to the east of Orion the Hunter. It’s 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!
Fri Feb 13, 2026 GALILEO’S BIRTHDAY
The astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was born on February 15 in the year 1564. Galileo did not invent the telescope, but when he heard of its invention, he built his own, and like other astronomers of the 17th century, Galileo aimed his telescope at the sky and made some amazing discoveries. He saw the moon’s mountains and craters, which suggested that it was another world in space. He discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter, named the Galilean satellites in his honor. Using safe projection methods, he observed the sun and saw dark spots on its face – sunspots. He saw that the planet Venus went through phases like the moon, which showed that it orbited the sun and not the earth. And he saw the myriad stars of the Milky Way - more stars than could be seen with the unaided eye alone.
