Mon May 25, 2026 THE VENERABLE BEDE FEAST DAY
On May 25th in the year AD 735 – that’s almost 1300 years ago - the Venerable Bede, died. He was an English monk who was the first person we know of to have written scholarly works in the English language. He also wrote De Natura Rerum, which was a collection of works on geography and astronomy, much of it preserved knowledge from Greek civilization, but also knowledge gained by observation and deduction. He was aware that the earth was round, and that the solar year is not exactly 365 and a quarter days long, but roughly 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes, so that the Julian calendar (one leap year every four years) would need to be adjusted in order to keep the months in step with the seasons. And he was the first to use the B.C. – A.D. designations in our modern calendar.
Tue May 26, 2026 MT EVEREST ANNIVERSARY/ASTRONOMY CLUB MEET
On May 28, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, became the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth. This great peak is almost five and a half miles up. And yet that height is a mere trifle to an even larger mountain found on Mars. Mount Olympus is a giant dead volcano over fifteen miles high, about three times taller than Mount Everest! If you’re an explorer like Hillary and Norgay, but aren’t necessarily interested in climbing mountains, then perhaps you should consider exploring the stars from wherever you are. Tonight the Treasure Coast Astronomical Society will meet at 7:30 pm in the Brown Center on the Fort Pierce campus of Indian River State College. Come on out and explore the heavens!
Wed May 27, 2026 THALES’ SOLAR ECLIPSE/A FORTUNE IN OLIVES
There was a solar eclipse on May 28th, back in the year 585 B.C. which was noteworthy in that its occurrence ended a war! As the historian Herodotus tells us: “Just as the battle was growing warm, day was suddenly changed into night. When the Lydians and the Medes observed the change, they ceased their fighting and were anxious to conclude peace.” And with that, a six-year war came to an end! Now this eclipse had been predicted by Thales of Miletus, the father of Greek astronomy. Thales was also knowledgeable on the subject of meteorology. When some folks told him that science would never make him rich, he went and figured out that upcoming fair weather would bring a good harvest of olives. So he bought up all the olive presses, and made a fortune in the olive oil market!
Thu May 28, 2026 MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day, once called Decoration Day, was originally on May 30th. It commemorates the end of the American Civil War. In 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that both “…private and general stand side by side. Unmarshalled save by their own deeds, the army of the dead sweep before us, "wearing their wounds like stars." Another eulogy reminds us that those who fought for our country are as the soft stars that shine at night. Legend says that George Washington made the first sketch of a starry flag. But Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, first urged the use of stars in our flag’s design. We invoke the stars as our beacons in the dark. They shine on us all, the astronomer, the poet, those who labor, and those who fight to keep us safe, both in the sunlit day and in the starlit night.
Fri May 29, 2026 FULL MOON, BLUE MOON
The moon will be full this weekend. When the moon is full it is on the opposite side of the sun, so that when the sun sets in the western sky at the end of the day, the full moon rises off the eastern horizon. Over the course of the night, the moon will continue to climb up into the sky, thanks to the earth’s rotation, so that by midnight it will be due south, and as we move toward dawn, the moon will set in the west – in other words, the moon is up all night long! Since we had a full moon on May 1st, and here we are with another full moon on May 31st, this moon is often called a blue moon. The moon won’t actually be blue in color, but since this only happens on average once every 2.7 years, it’s kind of rare – once in a blue moon, you might say.
