The meteor shower that is in progress tonight Continue reading “Quadrant’s kids”
Blog
Closer to the bonfire
Earth will tonight be at its nearest to the Sun, can you believe it! Continue reading “Closer to the bonfire”
Yetelgeuse
Yes, the red monster star Betelgeuse. We joke as to whether it should sound like “beetle-juice.” Continue reading “Yetelgeuse”
Cross-Year Comet
Beetroot Juice (Part 2) must be postponed because we really have to say something about Comet Lovejoy.
It was discovered Continue reading “Cross-Year Comet”
Beetroot juice
All stars are mere points, we say. All but the Sun are so far away Continue reading “Beetroot juice”
Pelvis constellation
It was a pleasant surprise to find that David Dickinson had tweeted:
Forbidden Island: http://universalworkshop.com/guysblog/2014/12/17/forbidden-island/ A wonderful constellation-based riddle courtesy of @guyottewell #Space #Astronomy
and this somehow got into Astronomy News on Reddit.com and was “favorited.” I’m not sure I have that terminology right – I don’t yet speak Socialmedian.
Anyway it encourages me to serve up another riddle. What is this constellation? Its traditional name is from something it doesn’t much look like, and it has been likened to something else, and those two things (the one it slightly looks like and the one it’s supposed to be) rhyme.
The pelvis is my own, viewed from the front.
Fifteen days after my fall into a rocky river, the slight pain that prevents me from walking without crutches was not receding and they took me back for a second x-ray. The doctor showed me this image. Where there is one fine white line defining the concave upper edge of the long bone (called the pubis) on one side, there are on the other side two parallel lines close together (arrowed by me). This shows a crack, which will heal itself (unless I do anything else stupid) in about six weeks (less, I hope). He took a photo of his computer screen for me with my iPad.
All this care, under the British health service, has cost me nothing, except for one car journey to the hospital town thirty miles away.
You guessed the constellation easily, I expect: the one that is supposed to be a goat but looks more like a boat. The Sun is in it now, according to astrology, having entered it at midwinter, though in the real sky the Sun won’t move into it till January 20.
“We have seen his star in the east.”
At least seven explanations of what the wise men saw Continue reading ““We have seen his star in the east.””
Last comet of the year?
You may not have been enough of a bear Continue reading “Last comet of the year?”
Through the smokehole
Winter shower par excellence: Continue reading “Through the smokehole”
Tipping-point
Our planet’s north pole leans its farthest away from the Sun. Continue reading “Tipping-point”