Astronomy Items
Now that we are in the month of March, for most of us in the northern hemisphere the worst of the winter is over, and it is only a few days until 21 March, the first day of spring. There is a commonly held view that March 21 is the spring equinox and that the equinoxes are the two… Continue reading The equinox March 20 2017
Anybody who has looked up into the western sky after sunset in the past month will have noticed a brilliant white object - the planet Venus, sometimes called the Evening Star. It is brighter than any other planet and ten times brighter than the brightest star Sirius. The "Evening Star" Venus next to the Moon… Continue reading The Evening Star-Venus.
Merry Christmas to all my readers and followers and I wish you all a happy New Year. The majority of people who celebrate Christmas Day, whether for religious or cultural reasons or both, do so on 25 December. However, followers of the Orthodox churches generally celebrate Christmas Day thirteen days later, on January 7. The reasons… Continue reading Christmas Day – December 25th or January 7th?
On New Year's Eve an extra second will be added to the end of the day. This extra second is called a leap second. As I'll explain later, leap seconds need to be added periodically to bring the time we measure with accurate atomic clocks in line with the natural time which results from the rotation of the… Continue reading December 31 2016 Leap Second
Revised 12 December 2025 Now that Christmas is nearly upon us, if you've not done so already why not treat yourself to an e-book from Explaining Science. If you'd like to know more about popular astronomy , I've written three e-books which are available in the Amazon Kindle store at a nominal cost. By… Continue reading An idea for Christmas from Explaining Science
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