HOME |
RSS | 
The sun has reached its northernmost peak, as of 1:17EDT, so we are officially into summer now. It you live in the southern hemisphere, you’ve just passed the winter solstice. In honor of the occasion, Josh Cohen put together this short and sweet greeting. Link -Thanks, Josh!
The only total lunar eclipse of 2010 will be visible from all of North America on Monday night/Tuesday morning. That won’t happen again until 2014.
The entire 72 minutes of the total lunar eclipse will be visible from all of North and South America, the northern and western part of Europe, and a small part of northeast Asia including Korea and much of Japan. Totality will also be visible in its entirety from the North Island of New Zealand and Hawaii.
In all, an estimated 1.5 billion people will have an opportunity to enjoy the best part of this lunar show.
In other parts of the world, either only the partial stages of the eclipse will be visible or the eclipse will occur when it’s daytime and the moon is not above their local horizon.
The moon might take on some odd colors during the eclipse. This is the first lunar eclipse during the winter solstice in almost 500 years. Link -via reddit
Photo: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times
Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the instant where the Sun is at its southernmost point. It is also the shortest day (or longest night, depending how you look at it) of the year. Ancient astronomers knew the significance of this event, and constructed the tomb of Newgrange to mark the arrival of winter solstice. APOD has the story:
Newgrange dates to 5,000 years ago, much older than Stonehenge, but also with accurate alignments to the solstice Sun. In this view from within the burial mound’s inner chamber, the first rays of the solstice sunrise are passing through a box constructed above the entrance and shine down an 18 meter long tunnel to illuminate the floor at the foot of a decorated stone. The actual stone itself would have been directly illuminated by the solstice Sun 5,000 years ago. The long time exposure also captures the ghostly figure of a more modern astronomer in motion.
Link | You can watch a webcast of the solstice sunrise from Newgrange here
Previously on Neatorama: 10 Most Fascinating Tombs in the World
