The Great Conjunction

Astronomers describe the meeting of planets and other cosmic objects on our sky’s dome as “conjunction”. The term “great conjunction” is reserved for close optical alignment of Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn takes roughly 30 years to complete one orbit of the Sun. Jupiter, approximately 12 years. Every twentyish years they meet for a great conjunction. Why? In a nutshell, each year Saturn completes 12 degrees of orbit, Jupiter 30 orbital degrees. As such, in one year Jupiter closes the gap between itself and Saturn by 18 degrees. (30-12=18). Therefore, over 20 years Jupiter gains 360 degrees on Saturn ( 18×20=360 ). When Jupiter laps Saturn a great conjunction is born.

On December 21, 2020, winter solstice arrives with the closest great conjunction since 1226, a mere 0.1 degrees separates Saturn and Jupiter. Degree of separation so rare that in a thousand years between 1600 and 2599, only six great conjunctions have separation of less than 0.2 degrees. The last in 1683, next on March 15, 2080.

Saturn and Jupiter Great Conjunction 2020 (timeanddate.com)

Next week’s great conjunction is exceedingly rare. Saturn and Jupiter appearing so close to the eye, they meld into a single bright object. So bright it’s being called the Christmas Star or Star of Bethlehem. Biblical mythology aside, this once in a lifetime spectacle is worth a gander. Weather permitting, if clouds cooperate, look low to the southwestern horizon on December 21st 30 minutes to an hour after sunset. The great conjunction deserves an audience.

Finding Polaris – Embrace the North Star

Ah Polaris, commonly known as the North Star – humanities guide since the dawn of time. Located directly above the north celestial pole, northern hemisphere skies rotate around this near constant pole star. Knowing where to find Polaris means you’ll always know which direction to travel. Face Polaris, stretch your arms out sideways – the right hand points due east, the left due west. About face and you’re pointed south.

Ken Christison captured these glorious star trails around Polaris, the North Star. He wrote, “For the most common and often the most spectacular star trails, you want to locate Polaris and compose the image so it is centered horizontally and hopefully you can have a bit of foreground for reference.”

To find Polaris locate the Big Dipper, focus on Dubhe and Merak, two stars forming the outermost edge of Big Dipper’s bowl. In your mind’s eye draw a straight line to the tip of Little Dipper’s handle – voila, that’s Polaris the North Star.

Think of northern hemisphere skies as a clock with Polaris at the centre, the line from Dubhe and Merak to Polaris as the hour hand. The Big Dipper rotates once around Polaris every 23 hours, 56 minutes. A few minutes short of a day, equivalent to 361 degrees in 24 hours. As such the North Star moves ever so slightly with each passing day. What never falters is the hour hand from the outermost bowl of Big Dipper to Polaris. Find the Big Dipper, you’ll locate the North Star. Do that and you’ll never be lost in the woods.

If you’re in the northern U.S., Canada or at a similar latitude, the Big Dipper is circumpolar for you, always above the horizon. Image via burro.astr.cwru.edu.

Worm Of Life

Meet ikaria wariootia, ancient wormish creature roughly the size of a grain of rice. New research dubs it 1st ancestor on the tree of life for most animals including humans. Geologists unearthed fossilized remains of ikaria wariootia in Nilpena, South Australia. A 555 million year old common ancestor from the Ediacaran Period now considered the worm of life by California/Riverside scientists Scott Evans and Mary Droser.

Their research was published on March 23, 2020 in the peer reviewed journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences. What makes this worm special? Two words – bilateral symmetry. Earliest evidence of an organism with distinct front and back, two symmetrical sides, an opening at either end connected by a gut – mandatory blueprint specifications for all lifeforms to come. An organized bilateral body plan by which all dinosaurs, insects, animals and humans rely on. Take a moment to read the link below.

Meanwhile, ponder a tiny worm lending substance to the story of evolution. Primordial ooze set evolution in motion, today the worm of life defines a solid marker in evolution. Delight in knowing the first ancestor in the tree of life was a worm. Outstanding in my books.

Was this the ancestor of all animals?

 

Open Contest To Name 20 New Moons Of Saturn

Today, Scott Sheppard of Carnegie Institution for Science launched a contest to name 20 newly discovered moons of Saturn. For those keeping score,  Saturn (now with 82 moons) leapfrogged past Jupiter (79 moons) to claim satellite supremacy.

Illustration is courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Saturn image is courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Starry background courtesy of Paolo Sartorio/Shutterstock.

Dust off history books, brush up on Norse, Gallic and Inuit mythology – between now and December 6, 2019 the contest is open to anyone who follows IAU rules. Follow link below to enter contest.

From Wikipedia –

In 1847 the seven then known moons of Saturn were named by John Herschel. Herschel named Saturn’s two innermost moons (Mimas and Enceladus) after the mythological Greek Giants, and the outer five after the Titans (Titan, Iapetus) and Titanesses (Tethys, Dione, Rhea) of the same mythology. Until then, Titan was known as the “Huygenian (or Huyghenian) satellite of Saturn” and the other moons had Roman numeral designations in order of their distance from Saturn. Subsequent discoverers of Saturnian moons followed Herschel’s scheme: Hyperion was discovered soon after in 1848, and the ninth moon, Phoebe, was named by its discoverer in 1899 soon after its discovery; they were named for a Titan and a Titaness respectively. The name of Janus was suggested by its discoverer, Audouin Dollfus.

Current IAU practice for newly discovered inner moons is to continue with Herschel’s system, naming them after Titans or their descendants. However, the increasing number of moons that were being discovered in the 21st century caused the IAU to draw up a new scheme for the outer moons. At the IAU General Assembly in July 2004, the WGPSN allowed satellites of Saturn to have names of giants and monsters in mythologies other than the Greco-Roman. Since the outer moons fall naturally into three groups, one group is named after Norse giants, one after Gallic giants, and one after Inuit giants. The only moon that fails to fit this scheme is the Greek-named Phoebe, which is in the Norse group.

• Two of the newly discovered prograde moons fit into a group of outer moons with inclinations of about 46 degrees called the Inuit group. All name submissions for this group must be giants from Inuit mythology.
• Seventeen of the newly discovered moons are retrograde moons in the Norse group. All name submissions for this group must be giants from Norse mythology.
• One of the newly discovered moons orbits in the prograde direction and has an inclination near 36 degrees, which is similar to those in the Gallic group, although it is much farther away from Saturn than any other prograde moons. It must e named after a giant from Gallic mythology.

https://carnegiescience.edu/NameSaturnsMoons

Night Skies And Petroglyphs

From Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan at https://vimeo.com/357143587 – Ancestral Nights. Filmed for Skyglow Project, a crowdfunded endeavor illustrating effects of light pollution on dark skies. Lose yourself in night skies and petroglyphs….

Carvings, structures and petroglyphs captured in this video represent ancient observance of night skies by Native Hawaiians, Paiute people of California and Puebloans of the Southwest.

“These petroglyphs and structures reflect the long standing interest in ancient astronomy which grew stronger as many of the tribes went from the hunter-gatherer to the agrarian societal orders. From references to the sun carved in the rock, and interest in using the sun to predict seasons (entire buildings built to serve as sundials and calendars, a critical element in the farming communities) to those of 13 moons (lunar annual calendar), to carvings of stars and constellations, interest in celestial bodies is ever present across the indigenous communities of the United States.” – Harun Mehmedinovic

Beware The Ides of March

William Shakespeare wrote “beware the ides of March” in his play Julius Caesar. A soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the Ides, two acts later Caesar is assassinated. In the play and reality, Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, March 15 in the year 44 BC.

Ides derives from a Latin word, meaning “to divide”. In the ancient Roman calendar every month had an ides. In March, May, July and October Ides fell on the 15th, the 13th of every other month marked the Ides. Ancient Rome meant for Ides to mark full moons within calendar months, a concept which soon ran afoul of unapologetic differences in  lengths of calendar and lunar months. In Rome the Ides of March resembled our modem day deadline to file income tax, Romans considered March 15 a annual deadline for settling debt.

By penning caution to Caesar in the play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare immortalized the Ides of March 15. Fear not, Julius Caesar’s coincidental demise on the Ides of March is nothing more than a historical footnote. Superstition has nothing to worry about.

https://www.history.com/news/beware-the-ides-of-march-but-why

Ponder Saharan Night Skies

Take a moment to ponder timelapse perfection by Lucie Debelkova – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClDKSZTXcuOz4lC_Zv183Ng Lucie travelled along ancient trade routes from the Atlas mountains, across the Sahara to Marrakech during darkest Moon phases to capture night skies without light pollution. Dark skies reveal the Milky Way of our ancestors – mesmerizing, irrefutable and bristling with thought provoking imagination.

 

Astronomy Of Ancient Cave Art

We’ve all seen images of prehistoric cave art. What if I told you primitive cave drawings represent far more than animals? Ponder the possibility they depict astronomical observations.

A paper published on November 2, 2018 by researchers at Edinburgh and Kent Universities in the Athens Journal of History suggest animal symbols represent constellations and document ancient comet strikes.

The Shaft Scene in the Lascaux Caves in France. It’s one of the world’s most famous examples of ancient cave art, featuring a dying man and several animals. Researchers now say artwork might commemorate a comet strike around 15,200 BC. Image via Alistair Coombs.

Researchers carbon dated ancient cave paint, compared their findings with historical star charts and concluded cave paintings up to 40,000 years old represent astronomical awareness.

Pillar 43, Enclosure D, also known as the Vulture Stone of Göbekli Tepe. Image via Martin B. Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis. From https://earthsky.org/human-world/prehistoric-cave-art-suggests-ancient-use-complex-astronomy?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=229dcdbf28-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-229dcdbf28-393970565 –

“The researchers reinterpreted earlier findings from a study of stone carvings at one of these sites – Göbekli Tepe in modern-day Turkey – which is interpreted as a memorial to a devastating comet strike around 11,000 B.C. This strike was thought to have initiated a mini ice-age known as the Younger Dryas period.”

Until publication of this paper, history credited the Greeks with astronomical recognition of the gradual shift of Earth’s rotational axis, a certainty we call precession of the equinoxes, ( motion of equinoxes along the plan of Earth’s orbit ). New research tells a cosmic tale of an ancient humanity far more sophisticated than we thought possible, ancients who understood the gradual shift of Earth’s rotational axis. People who used this knowledge to track seasons, illustrate astronomical events and navigate intricacies of human migration. That’s worth pondering.

 

Gavrinis And Core No. 7

Gavrinis and Core No. 7 have more in common than 4,000 BC archeological mysteries – after five years and over 1,300 posts, Core No. 7 and Gavrinis rank first and second in search terms generating Notes traffic.

Core No. 7 – In 1881 British archeologist Flinders Petrie picked up a smooth rock near the pyramids at Giza, a seemingly impossible plug of granite construction debris. Science doesn’t know how, but think they know where No. 7 came from. A plug of red granite drilled to form a door pivot – not chiseled, drilled with precision accuracy. Drills leave markings behind – a road map of rate and pressure. This is when 4000 year old granite cores get freaky – the markings on Core No. 7 are so perfectly spaced, engineers don’t believe a modern diamond tip mechanized drill could duplicate them.

Click to access 1503.0182v1.pdf

Gavrinis – Worlds away from mysteries of Egypt, a tiny rock off the coast of Brittany in France harbours the wonder of Gavrinis.In 1835 French archeologists poked about a sunken burial chamber entrance on uninhabited Gavrinis, full excavation took place in the 1930s. Waiting inside, over 50 stone slabs, more than half adorned with intricate carvings resembling fingerprints. Mathematicians believe it a code of sorts. Computer analysis dropped a bombshell – patterns represent the number of days in a year, references to solstice and equinoxes, an exact longitude and latitude of the island, and the “mathematical constant Pi”.

Gavrinis

Ponder Ancient Muslim Tolerance

Posted almost three years ago in reaction to anti Muslim sentiment, exasperation couldn’t begin to fathom where we find ourselves today. Religious intolerance will be the death of us all.

notestoponder

I doubt many could fathom a world of religious tolerance under Islam. Ancient history lends itself to images of holy war, crusades and religious oppression.

Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 – a crushing blow in favour of the Ottoman Empire – orchestrated by a 21 year old visionary. According to Sharia law, non-Muslims were guaranteed freedom and protection from persecution. Once Ottoman rule was established, it made little sense to squabble over religious differences.

The Arabic word for “nation” is millet. The Ottoman Empire allowed each “millet” or religious group to elect leaders and practice freely as a “nation” under Ottoman protection. Each “millet” was free to enforce their own rules – Islamic law did not apply to non-Muslim “nations”.Criminal acts within a “millet” were dealt with under religious laws of that nation. The only time Islamic law applied was when crimes involved people of two separate nations or was perpetrated…

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