Tag Archives: explore

Planets

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Half Moon

Half Moon

I loaded a program on my iPod called “Planets.”  I entered my longitude and latitude and now it shows me the position of planets in the sky.  It also shows the moon. It provides rise and set times for them, as well as the sun. It has been pretty handy.  I check it in the morning when I head out for a run.  It is dark at that time and I get to see what is still out.  I also check it in the evening.  Even if it is cloudy I tend to look to find out what I am missing.

Lately at night, just before bed, my son has been keen to see it.  He wants to see what planets are out there.  That is great itself, but the thing I love is that he wants to really see them. This little electronic gizmo is just a tool.  He wants to try to find the planets.  He wants to see the moon.  Tonight he ran to the window and pointed.  “I see it,” he shouted.  “I see Jupiter!” He was excited.  He was pretty fired up last night as well.  He has been loving exploring the night sky. That makes me happy, as a parent and as a human being. If he can learn to love the world around him, especially at night, both he and the world will be better off.

Lately, Jupiter has been the planet to spot.  Mornings, I can see Mars and Venus, but my boy isn’t typically up when they show themselves.  He can see the moon, however, and he has been enjoying watching it grow these past few nights.  “A half moon!” he spouted when he saw it tonight.  Good stuff.

Pics From Space and a Cool Beetle

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New images were just released from the Hubble telescope, the first since the spring, when some repairs were made.  You can read a New York Times article here to learn more.  Here is one of the images:

Abell 370 Galaxy Cluster

Abell 370 Galaxy Cluster

Look up into the night sky (if you live in a place that isn’t so flooded with light that you can’t see the night sky) and you can see more stars than you can count.  On a clear night, even here so close to so many lights, I can see the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon.  I get, well, starstruck sometimes.  But this photo isn’t of stars, it is of galaxies.  There are too many galaxies to count.  And each one of them contains countless stars.  And eac star is too big to truly comprehend.  It can make one dizzy.

Jupiter is just visible as I write this, rising in the east.  It has been hanging around our skies for many nights lately.  If I could see over the hill to the west I might have seen Saturn or even Mercury just after the sun set.  Dang hill.

The world itself, this planet Earth of ours, is too vast to grasp.  I can’t really fathom 6 1/2 billion people, or the depth of the ocean, or the dryness of the Gobi Desert, or camels.  And look at that picture.  How many worlds are there just within its frame?  How can there not be life out there somewhere? The odds are with us on that one.  It seems almost impossible that there wouldn’t be life beyond Earth.

I saw a beetle today I had never seen before–yellow and black and green with stripes.  Check it out:

Cool Beetle

Cool Beetle

Isn’t that amazing enough?  And the milkweed on which it sits–isn’t there discovery in the shape and color and structure of those leaves?  Countless immense galaxies and tiny new beetles to be gazed upon.  I’ve got more than enough wonder for many lifetimes.