Happy June Solstice! It’s the longest daylight of the year for the Northern Hemisphere and shortest for the Southern, but wherever you live (except far north where the sky remains bright all night at this time of year), you can enjoy a great sight this week in the early morning skies: a rare “alignment” in which you can see the five visible planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — together in the sky, arranged in their order of distance from the Sun. If you miss it, your next chance to see this won’t come until 2040! Here’s what it will look like early Friday morning (June 24), when you’ll also see a crescent moon, as viewed from northern mid-latitudes.
To see what it will look like from other latitudes, including the Southern Hemisphere, you can use this article from TimeandDate.com, which includes a link to see your own local sky. Note that, aside from the Moon, you can already see this planetary alignment if you go out before dawn, and it will remain visible for the next couple weeks. In fact, Uranus and Neptune are also along the line, though you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to see those.
Also note that, if you stay out until sunrise on June 24, then in a short time period you will have seen all 7 “planets” known in ancient times. The word planet comes from the Greek for “wanderer” and originally referred to the visible objects that “wander” among the fixed stars of the constellations in the sky. This means that in addition to the 5 visible planets in the sky (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), the Sun and Moon also counted as “planets,” since they also appear to move through the constellations as viewed from Earth. And it means that Earth was notconsidered a planet, since we live on it and therefore it isn’t wandering through our sky.
The fact that these 7 “planets” were considered to be special also explains why we have 7 days in a week, each named for one of those objects as shown in the following table (from my textbook, The Cosmic Perspective). As you can see, Sunday, Monday, and Saturday are pretty obvious in English — as is “Thor’s day” (Thursday) if you remember that Thor is the Nordic equivalent of Jupiter — while Tuesday (Mars day), Wednesday (Mercury day), and Friday (Venus day) are much easier to see in French or Spanish.
So get out early and enjoy the sight. If anyone gets a really great photo, please send it to me, and perhaps we’ll be able to find a place for it in the next edition of The Cosmic Perspective.
That’s all for today, but below are a few other items of interest from a prior email.
Best,
Jeff
Get Ready for the 2023 and 2024 USA Solar Eclipses!
Most of you will remember the 2017 total solar eclipse, and it’s time to start thinking about two more great solar eclipses coming to the USA:
October 14, 2023: An annular solar eclipse. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is relatively far from Earth in its orbit, so that it doesn’t quite cover the Sun during its maximum. We therefore will see a ring (or “annulus”) of sunlight surrounding the eclipsed Sun. This means it won’t get completely dark, and you’ll need to wear eclipse glasses throughout the event, but it is still well worth seeing.
April 8, 2024: Total solar eclipse! With more than 4 minutes of totality in some places on the center line. Maps for both eclipses (courtesy of Micheal Zeiler at Great American Eclipse):
Note: You should try to get to the paths of annularity/totality if at all possible, but the rest of the contiguous US (and Canada, Mexico, and more) will have a partial solar eclipse in both cases.
Also: Between now and these events, there will also be a total solar eclipse visible in the western Pacific on April 20, 2023; use the free Totality app for maps and viewing details.
The best way to prepare and learn more about these upcoming eclipses is with the free app “Totality by Big Kid Science.” Download our latest version from your app store now. And…
Please watch for my new book, Totality! An Eclipse Guide in Rhyme and Science. Official publication date is Sept. 14, 2022 (exactly 13 months ahead of the 2023 annular eclipse), but for those who qualify for review copies, I have advance copies available now. More info about the book posted here.
Teachers/Educators: Jeff’s School Visits to Resume
Now that Covid restrictions have eased, I am resuming my visit program for schools, universities, and the public. In particular:
Colorado Elementary Schools: Contact me about scheduling a free school visit for the coming academic year, especially if you are in the Boulder/Denver area.
Nationwide schools, universities, science centers: I will also be resuming my “free visit program,” in which I will travel to your location at my own expense if you can put together a busy program of events for me. More information here(though note that I’ll be updating details to put more focus on the upcoming eclipses).
New Editions of Life in the Universe, Using and Understanding Mathematics
