- 1715 - Stargazers - Looking back in Time?. The seven brightest stars in the sky and how far away they are. Star viewing the month of January, 2015. Happy New Year.
-
-
----------------- 1715 - Stargazers - Looking back in Time.?
-
- Looking backwards in time is a difficult concept to wrap our head around. Even the sunlight is 8 minutes old when it reaches your eyes. That is how long it took to reach you since it left the Sun.
-
- One of the brightest stars in the southern night sky is Sirius, in the Constellation Canis Major. It light is 8.6 years old.
-
- So, the concept is to measure distance with age. 8.6 lightyears is how far Sirius is away form us. One light year is ho far light can travel over one year. Light is traveling 670,633,500 miles per hour and over one years time it travels: 5,880,000,000,000 miles. A light minute is 671,000,000 miles. A light second is 186,000 miles. One nanosecond is 1 foot.
-
- Each of the bright stars is farther away. Sirius is the closest Then comes Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Rigel.
-
- The 8.6 lightyears to Sirius is the same as traveling 50,600,000,000,000 miles ( one way). What were you doing 8.6 years ago when the light first left the star? I just retired. Well that. I left full employment the same time the light left the surface of the star.
-
- Procyon is 11.4 lightyears away. Procyon is in the Constellation Canis Minor. Most of your entire elementary and high school education transpired while light was traveling form Procyon to Earth.
-
- Pollux is 34 lightyears away. Pollux is the twin Constellation of Gemini. That light left in 1981 the same time the Space Shuttle Columbia was first flown. Ronald Reagan was President.
-
- Capella is the Constellation Auriga is 42 lightyears away. It left in 1973. That was the first year we lived in Santa Rosa. We were living in the Hillside Motel on Highway 12. One room with two kids. Debbie was 7 years old and Doug was 4. And the light from Capella left 42 years ago.
-
- Aldebaran is 65 lightyears away. It’s light left in 1950. that light took a hourney of a lifetime. On January 1. 2015 Aldegaran will e next to a full moon. It will happen again on January 29.
-
- Betelgeuse is in the Constellation Orion. It is 640 lightyears away. Those are old photons entering the retina of your eye. If you could see back that far on Earth you would be witnessing the European Renaissance in history.
-
- Rigel also is in the Constellation Orion. It is 860 lightyears distance. It is the 7th brightest star in the sky, and, that far away. Now we are talking about a lookback time to the Crusades in Earth history.
-
- On January 8, Nathan’s birthday, the Moon will be next to Jupiter. It is the farthest distance in its orbit around the Earth, 251,909 miles ( the apogee ).
-
- On January 16 the Moon passes by Saturn.
-
- On January 21 the Moon is at its closest to Earth, 223,473 miles. ( the perigee ), and, it pass by Venus ( 6 degrees ). 10 arc degrees is a closed fist at arms length.
-
- On January 22 the Moon passes by Mars ( 4 degrees ).
-
- On January 23 Europa, Callisto, and Io , moons orbiting Jupiter have their shadows transit the surface of the planet.
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
--- Some reviews are at: -------------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
---- email request for copies to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ---------
---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/ , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com ---
---- www.twitter.com , --- 707-536-3272 ---- Thursday, January 1, 2015 ---
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment