Spring Just Has to Come Sometime

Yes, that’s correct. Soon it will be officially Spring.

At 01.48 EDT, the sun will appear to be directly above the equator, heralding the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere of our little planet. Astronomers like to call it the “Vernal Equinox.” At this time we have (for the most part) equal parts day and night, as the sun rises due east and sets due west in the evening (both of these times causes headaches for those persons driving on east-west roads).

The sun is slowly climbing in our sky, bringing with it the promise of warmer weather, the growing season, and more daylight, culminating in the summer solstice in June.

This is “astronomical spring” as opposed to “meteorological spring” which started on march 1st. While the weather people tend to think of the seasons as it pertains to the calendar, and weather averages over time, astronomers choose something less arbitrary: the position of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun.

Now to dispel a rumor that has been going around for years - that on the Vernal Equinox it is the only time you can stand an egg on end. That’s incorrect. You can do this any day of the year, and at any time of day (the author once stood 15 eggs on end in the middle of August, because he had nothing better to do, and also to debunk this rumor).

But instead of going into detail about why this egg-standing rumor is false, I am going to point you to Dr. Phil Plait, who owns the badastronomy.com website. He has an excellent page about the egg myth, and just recently posted a video on how to do it.

Standing an egg on end on the Spring Equinox

How to stand an egg on end

Once you’ve figured out the secret, tell your friends. And after you have perused the rest of Dr. Plait’s site, come back here for some more information later on about this month’s full moon, and why Easter is so early this year.

Have an eggs-citing first day of Spring!

Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008

A sad note came across the news wires earlier today, as the announcement of the passing of Sir Arthur C. Clarke was made public. He was 90 years old.

Perhaps best known to the world as the author of the book 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke was also an accomplished scientist and explorer.

Clarke was born in Minehead England in late 1917, and while with the Royal Air Force in World War II was instrumental in developing radar. He actually wrote a paper in 1945 outlining a world-wide network of communication satellites in a fixed orbit - what are now geostationary satellites. In fact, these orbits are commonly referred to as “Clarke Orbits.” He never patented the idea, and in 1965 wrote an essay that was subtitled “How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time.”

But it was his writing that he was known for the most. Apart from 2001, he penned such classics as Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, The City and the Stars, and A Fall of Moondust. In fact, 2001 grew out of two of his short stories, The Sentinel and Encounters in the Dawn.

The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation was created in 1983 to recognize those individuals whose insights range most broadly in our comprehension of the universe we live in, the way we live in it, and the responsibility we have to improve our world.

Clarke also formulated three laws of prediction, or what are now called “Clarke’s Laws.” As to the number of his “laws” Clarke commented “As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there.”

A great man… a visionary… a critical thinker… has left us. He will be missed.

The Universe (Colonizing Space)

The next episode of the amazing series The Universe continues tonight. The new episode is called “Colonizing Space.” Here’s a preview…

Space colonization is no longer the fodder of science fiction, it is becoming a reality. Examine the efforts underway to establish a human colony on Mars, including how they plan to grow food, recycle wastewater and introduce greenhouse gases to revive the red planet and make it more habitable for humans. Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on Mars, and to imagine what kind of life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.

Check local listings for the time of the show.