Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side.
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Exploring the Universe
with Andrew Fraknoi
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere. It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the Earth does. The sunshine any spot on those planets receives is pretty much the same all year round. Yet the shape …
December 19, 2024
For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and sensational UFO stories in the media, the current obsession with (and jumping to unwarranted conclusions about) mysterious drones seems all too familiar. As before, untrained observers, even government officials, are describing things in the sky without having much information or perspective about what they are seeing. But I have the antidote. Mick West, …
December 15, 2024
You think you ate too much? No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another celebratory meal), it’s nothing compared to Quasar J0529-4351, which astronomers observed earlier this year to be consuming the mass of our entire Sun EACH and every day! They called it “the fastest-eating object in the universe.” We now know that at the centers of most large galaxies, where material is very crowded, very large …
November 30, 2024
Recently, in social media posts, Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute discussed the intriguing caves on the side of the giant martian volcano called Arsia Mons as interesting places for future exploration and even human residences. As it happens, my very first published science-fiction story, “The Cave in Arsia Mons,” in a 2015 anthology was about one of those caves and a remarkable discovery that is made in it. …
November 23, 2024
A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies soon after sunset, if you have clear skies and a view low toward the west-southwest horizon. See our diagram from Sky & Telescope magazine, in which the yellow numbers show you the comet’s location in the evening sky for dates in October. Comet 2023 A3 (also known, after the two observatories that discovered it, as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is …
October 15, 2024
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30 pm via Zoom (Oct. 8 – Nov. 12, 2024) This non-technical, non-mathematical introduction to some of the most awe-inspiring ideas from the work of Albert Einstein is designed for people …
September 29, 2024
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer
July 27, 2024
Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web sites about storms on the Sun that are unleashing great outbursts of radiation and particles, some of them toward Earth. The fact that we are seeing such “space weather” now certainly makes sense, given that the Sun has an 11-year cycle of greater and lesser activity, with the current maximum …
May 10, 2024
This time I am posting something a bit personal. I am the lead author of a free book that is part of a nonprofit experiment to help students with the costs of college. Here is the news from our publisher: OpenStax, the open textbook publisher based at Rice University, is pleased to announce that its free, openly-licensed introductory textbook, Astronomy 2e, has now been used by more than 1.1 million students. …
May 4, 2024
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th.
March 23, 2024
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