As Of Today, December 13, 2020 — Evenings Are Getting Longer, Spring Is Around The Corner!

The ‘Shortest Day‘, i.,e, the ‘Winter Solstice‘, is still 9-days away, i.e., December 21, 2020.
As of December 13, 2020, as you can see from above chart, evenings for us, in New Hampshire, are getting longer.
But that doesn’t mean days will start getting longer. Alas, it doesn’t. That only happens as of the Solstice. 9-days away — my FAVORITE DAY of the year.
The reason the days are still getting shorter is that Sunrise continues to be later and later. You can also see that in the chart.
But, this is IT in terms of early Sunsets. It will never get any later.
In a week, December 15, we will have an ADDITIONAL MINUTE in the evenings.
Great news. Spring is around the corner. Rejoice!
Related Posts:
>>>> Search on ‘solstice’ & ‘equinox’ for lots of other posts with tons of pictures & diagrams —>>>
Claim That Mars Is Closer Than It Has Been In 60,000-Years Is BAD Science — Worthy Of Trump.
Look at the claim (above) for 2003 & then for 2018 & today.
I am more than willing to admit that We & Mars are rather close together today. I also have NO problems making claims about closeness as long as we don’t go BEYOND 400-years. That is it.
All bets are OFF for distances prior to that. We just don’t know. We don’t have any measurements. We are still trying to nail down orbital distances, shapes & periods.
60,000-years ago. WE HAVE NO CLUE.
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Check Category ‘astronomy’.
“Irony Of Ironies”: Donald Trump Disclosed That He Had COVID-19 On “World SMILE Day”! SMILE.
I am NOT making this up. Look it up.
Hope some of YOU already knew that yesterday was indeed “World Smile Day“. It was. SMILE.
What were the chances?
Dear Trump admitting he has COVID-19 on a day that people are supposed to SMILE.
Life is rich. Life is good. There could be a God.
SMILE.
SMILE.
SMILE.
Related posts:
Check Category ‘humor’ & search ‘Trump’ or ‘COVID’.
I Find This Claim Re. Universe Presumptuous & Possibly Poor Science.
I have NOT read the original paper, just the science media posts touting it.
I find it presumptuous. For a start we still insist that the Universe is continually expanding. If so, we don’t actually have a handle on how big it is. I also know that we, even with radio telescopes & Hubble, can only see a small part of the Universe. Then there is the claim that the Universe is infinite or close to it.
So, to make this claim based on the LITTLE bit of the Universe we know about seems irresponsible.
What irks me is the undue publicity these studies get, with the sensationalistic tabloid-headlines which do not give the average layman enough context.
I am willing to believe that Dark Matter & Dark Energy COULD account for a v. large part of the Universe. I am just uncomfortable when we try to get this precise based on what I consider to be a very small sampling of data.
Related posts:
Check Category ‘astronomy’.
2020 Autumnal (Fall) Equinox In New Hampshire Will Be On Tuesday, September 22, 9:30am (Eastern).
Click pictures to ENLARGE.
Attribution WILL be enforced.
Sunrise & Sunset Times for Concord, New Hampshire around the September Equinox.
(From Time-and-Date).
Note that daylight is NOT exactly 12 hours!
If anything we get closer to 12 hours 3 days later.
There is a reason for that. It is our latitude above the equator.
If we were closer to the equator it would have been closer to 12 hours.
See this explanation in Time-and-Date.
My equinox diagram.
Another ‘Time-and-Date‘ diagram annotated by I.
This is COOL. Created by Dr. James O’Donoghue.
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Search on ‘equinox’ for lots of other posts with tons of pictures & diagrams.
3 Comets, Supposedly Unrelated, All Rounded The Sun On August 5, 2020, Per NASA/ESA SOHO.
From my “Comets” book
(shown below).
Click to ENLARGE & read here.
We, as yet, know very little about these three, supposedly unrelated, comets that rounded the Sun fairly close together.
Given their proximity one would normally think that they were 3 fragments from the same parent comet. Current consensus, though only based on minimal study, is that they are NOT fragments. Basically unrelated. Strange, but can happen.
Very small. Went undetected until spotted, after the fact, on SOHO images.
Have NOT been given MPC designations as yet because we don’t have enough observational data.
Just a heads up.
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Check Category ‘astronomy’.
872 Comets Supposedly ‘Visible’ — All Telescopically; No Naked-Eye Anymore.
Click to ENLARGE.
The raw list from the MPC.
Click to ENLARGE.
I wanted a good handle on this. Yes, the MPC maintains a list, BUT it is hard to analyze. So, I used that data to create one of my SPECIAL Excel spreadsheets. Now I can slice & dice the data at my will.
The MPC list has 872 valid entries! That is a LOT.
C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was the brightest — albeit based on a July 13, 2020, reading. Well, that is now way obsolete. The brightness of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is NOW above ‘5’. It has to be ‘5’ or BELOW to be naked-eye visible. So, none of these 872 comets are naked-eye visible.
The next brightest, periodic, 2P/Encke, is at 10. That puts it even beyond binoculars.
So, a heads up. No point looking up. No naked-eye visible comets at present. SMILE.
That is why C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was so special.
Related posts:
Search ‘comets’.
Jupiter & Saturn Stand Out Proud, Though Now Abandoned By The Moon — Wednesday, August 5, 2020.
Click to ENLARGE.
By now, I KNOW you know which is which. SMILE. Hard to miss. Moon, though up, is no longer in the picture as it was earlier in the week.
It was low down, below the tree line — way, way, way to the left, (like ⇐⇐⇐⇐⇐⇐⇐⇐⇐).
Related posts:
Category ‘astronomy’.
Tonight’s Full-Moon With Jupiter & Saturn To The Side — Monday, August 3, 2020.
Click to ENLARGE.
By now YOU must know the drill. Jupiter, the brighter of the two, is to the RIGHT. So, to the left, fainter (& smaller) is Saturn.
Got it?
The Moon is the big round thing.
Enjoy. Cheers.
Related posts:
Category ‘astronomy’.