Skywatch for the week of May 26, 2025
By Jon U. Bell
May 26, 2025 at 12:00 AM EDT
Skywatch Monday 5-26-2025.mp3
Mon May 26, 2025 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.
Skywatch Tuesday 5-27-2025.mp3
Tue May 27, 2025 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 the Hallstrom Planetarium on Indian River State College’s Fort Pierce campus at 7:30 pm. Come on out and explore the heavens!
Skywatch Wednesday 5-28-2025.mp3
Wed May 28, 2025 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!
Skywatch Thursday 5-29-2025.mp3
Thu May 29, 2025 GREAT GALAXY!
In the evening in the summer, or in the fall, or the winter, when the sky is clear and dark, the Milky Way can be seen as a faint band of cloudy light that stretches across the heavens. But in the springtime evening, the Milky Way hugs the horizon in all directions, completely encircling it, and it can be lost in the glow of streetlights. The Milky Way is our home galaxy, and we are inside it. But which is bigger – the Milky Way galaxy or our solar system? Solar systems are billions of miles in diameter, but the disc of our Milky Way is roughly 600 thousand trillion miles across – much bigger, and what’s more, it contains hundreds of billions of solar systems. All of the stars you see up there are part of our Milky Way – great galaxy!
Skywatch Friday 5-30-2025.mp3
Fri May 30, 2025 MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day, originally 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.
Mon May 26, 2025 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.
Skywatch Tuesday 5-27-2025.mp3
Tue May 27, 2025 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 the Hallstrom Planetarium on Indian River State College’s Fort Pierce campus at 7:30 pm. Come on out and explore the heavens!
Skywatch Wednesday 5-28-2025.mp3
Wed May 28, 2025 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!
Skywatch Thursday 5-29-2025.mp3
Thu May 29, 2025 GREAT GALAXY!
In the evening in the summer, or in the fall, or the winter, when the sky is clear and dark, the Milky Way can be seen as a faint band of cloudy light that stretches across the heavens. But in the springtime evening, the Milky Way hugs the horizon in all directions, completely encircling it, and it can be lost in the glow of streetlights. The Milky Way is our home galaxy, and we are inside it. But which is bigger – the Milky Way galaxy or our solar system? Solar systems are billions of miles in diameter, but the disc of our Milky Way is roughly 600 thousand trillion miles across – much bigger, and what’s more, it contains hundreds of billions of solar systems. All of the stars you see up there are part of our Milky Way – great galaxy!
Skywatch Friday 5-30-2025.mp3
Fri May 30, 2025 MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day, originally 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.