Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side.
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Exploring the Universe
with Andrew Fraknoi
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is to many astronomers the space observatory of the next decade. I am happy to report that the James Webb Space Telescope, our giant heat-seeking eye in space, launched successfully, on Dec. 24 or 25, depending on which continent your clock was in. It is now on its way to its stable position, about a million miles from Earth. If you want to follow …
December 28, 2021
1. What Is Happening? On Thursday evening Nov. 18 and Friday morning Nov. 19, an almost total eclipse of the Moon will be visible from throughout the U.S. (and North and South America). In a lunar eclipse, the Moon & the Sun are exactly opposite each other in our sky, and the Earth gets between them. This means the Earth’s shadow falls on the Moon, darkening it. It’s …
October 27, 2021
Explore the Universe in a Fun, Non-credit Class On-line for People Over 50 Come explore such cosmic sights as: NASA’s new helicopter drone on MarsThe moon of Saturn’s that has an underground ocean“The pillars of creation” where astronomers see new star systems being born right nowThe monster black hole in the center of the Milky Way that got two California astronomers the 2020 Nobel prizeThe undeniable traces of the …
September 14, 2021
This Wednesday evening and Thursday morning (Aug. 11-12), there will be one of the better meteor showers of the year for you and your family to watch – the Perseids. The Moon is a skinny crescent and sets by 10 pm, so it shouldn’t interfere too much with viewing. While the best night is the evening of Aug. 11th and morning of Aug. 12th, there could be significantly more …
August 6, 2021
I am happy to report that “Flash Fiction” magazine in England today published my very short, astrobiology-theme story “I Swallowed a Martian”: https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2021/07/23/i-swallowed-a-martian/ They feature a new story each day, and today it was mine. Any resonance you might find in the story with the pandemic times we are living through is unlikely to be coincidental.
July 24, 2021
There will be a nice and conveniently timed total lunar eclipse (where the Moon goes dark) during the evening of Sunday, January 20, 2019, the night before Martin Luther King Day. This means many children will not have school the next day, and can stay up to enjoy the celestial show with their families. (The eclipse is perfectly safe to look at. In a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s …
January 3, 2019
NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has sent back its first “selfie” — a great mosaic of 11 images, taken by the color camera on the “elbow” of its robotic arm. You can clearly see the round solar panels (7 feet wide) which collect power for the lander, and, between them, the instrument deck for measuring weather, marsquakes, and other conditions on Mars. Eventually, the instrument package nicknamed the mole …
December 20, 2018
On Wednesday morning, January 31, residents of North America (and particularly those on the west coast) will experience a rare triple event: * The full moon will enter the Earth’s shadow and show a total eclipse (turning the full moon into a dark reddish disk) * This will be the second full moon in the same month – something we call a blue moon * And it will be a …
January 26, 2018
By a cosmic coincidence, the first day of 2018 will have a nice full Moon in the evening. And the full Moon occurs just when the Moon is closest to the Earth in its monthly orbit, so it will look a little bigger to us in the sky. Since 2011, the media have followed a suggestion by an astrologer (!) and started calling these slightly …
December 30, 2017
Astronomers around the world have been observing a small but fast object that gives every indication of coming from some other star system. It’s the first such “interstellar” visitor we have ever observed. And it’s characteristics are quite unexpected. Most astronomers expected the first such deep-space visitor to be a comet — a chunk of icy material (which our solar system has in great abundance outside the orbits of the …
December 6, 2017
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