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The first full moon of 2010 will appear tonight, Jan. 29, 2010, but it will also be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. Some even call it a "supermoon."
Anyone with clear skies will be able to easily identify the moon tonight and get a spectacular view of its features, says Space.com.
The full moon tonight will be 2010's biggest and brightest since the moon is closer in orbit than usual at this time of year.
How much bigger and brighter? Spaceweather.com reports it will be 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than normal.
While full moons can be breathtaking to sky-gazers, they can be irritating to astronomers. The full moon is the No. 1 cause of natural light pollution, and its bright lighting — especially tonight — will dim stars and nebulae, making them quite difficult to see.
The first full moon of 2010 will appear tonight, Jan. 29, 2010, but it will also be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. Some even call it a "supermoon."
Anyone with clear skies will be able to easily identify the moon tonight and get a spectacular view of its features, says Space.com.
The full moon tonight will be 2010's biggest and brightest since the moon is closer in orbit than usual at this time of year.
How much bigger and brighter? Spaceweather.com reports it will be 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than normal.
While full moons can be breathtaking to sky-gazers, they can be irritating to astronomers. The full moon is the No. 1 cause of natural light pollution, and its bright lighting — especially tonight — will dim stars and nebulae, making them quite difficult to see.
A instrumental piece used for a tv-programme on the evening of the first moonlanding July 20, 1969. The programme was a used by the BBC in between the coverage of the actual moonlanding -and was called 'But what if it's made of green cheese'. The theme was the first verse and the coda, with various actors reading quotes and poetry about the moon over. The rest of the programme was information, discussions and sketches. Later in the show, Moonhead was performed uninterrupted.
The music can be heard on the bootlegs 'With/Without' and 'Wavelenghts'. The song has also been known as 'Trip On Mars'.
That's funny! What's really funny, though, is the fact that I had no trouble believing that the SF Examiner was actually that weird. Color me clueless yet one more time.
That's not the San Francisco Examiner (at least not the one most people think of when they hear that name) - this is the San Francisco Examiner's site. The one you linked to appears to be the "(your city) Examiner", which apparently solicits articles from whoever feels compelled to have a semi-fraudulent byline. Hence the crazy talk.
That's funny! What's really funny, though, is the fact that I had no trouble believing that the SF Examiner was actually that weird. Color me clueless yet one more time.
July 20, 2009: One one-thousand, 2 one-thousand, 3 one-thousand, 4 one-thousand...
Continue counting and don't stop until you reach 399 one-thousand.
Did that feel like a long time? Six minutes and 39 seconds to be exact. That's the duration of this week's total solar eclipse—the longest of the 21st century.
The event begins at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, July 22nd, in the Gulf of Khambhat just east of India. Morning fishermen will experience a sunrise like nothing they've ever seen before. Rising out of the waves in place of the usual sun will be an inky-black hole surrounded by pale streamers splayed across the sky. Sea birds will stop squawking, unsure if the day is beginning or not, as a strange shadow pushes back the dawn and stirs up a breeze of unaccustomed chill.
Most solar eclipses produce this sort of surreal experience for a few minutes at most. The eclipse of July 22, 2009, however, will last as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some places, not far short of the 7 and a half minute theoretical maximum. It won't be surpassed in duration until the eclipse of June 13, 2132.
From the Gulf of Khambhat, the Moon's shadow will race east across India, China, and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. Click on the image to launch an animated map:
The path of totality cuts across many large cities. The shadow will linger over Shanghai, the largest city in China, for six full minutes, giving 20 million residents a lengthy and stunning view of the sun's ghostly corona. Other large cities in the path of totality include Surat, Vadodara, Bhopal, Varanasi, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hefei, Hangzhou. The population of each numbers in the millions, making this possibly the best-observed solar eclipse in human history.
The eclipse is extra-long because of a lucky coincidence, made possible by the elliptical shape of planetary orbits. On July 22nd, Earth happens to be near its farthest point from the sun. A small sun means the Moon can cover it longer. At the same time, the Moon will be near its closest point to Earth. A large Moon covers the sun longer, lengthening the eclipse even more. The leisurely pace of the eclipse could have a transformative effect on witnesses. Total eclipses have been known to turn ordinary folk into life-long "eclipse-chasers" willing to spend thousands of dollars and travel tens of thousands of miles to feel the Moon's cool shadow and behold the sun's pale atmosphere just one more time. A few extra minutes of wonder will intensify this effect to an unknown degree.
Live webcasts of the eclipse—not the next best thing to being there, but the only substitute available to many readers—may be found at the website of the San Francisco Exploratorium.
