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Jupiter To Be Visible
KillerBluj writes "CNN says "The largest planet in the solar system will be directly overhead at midnight on New Year's Eve, according to astronomer Jack Horkheimer. The ringed planet Saturn also will be visible, and both will be joined in the sky by the almost full moon. When the sun sets on Monday, Jupiter will rise in the northeast and will slowly climb in the sky until it reaches its highest point at midnight. The almost full moon will trail Jupiter to the east, "bathing the landscape in brilliant cosmic light," Horkheimer said. "--- This should be really interesting to see both planets and the full moon. Wonder what's going to happen tonight?!"
... he asks. Time for a new Slashdot topic: Astrology and other nonsense.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Isn't jupiter noramlly visible? AS is saturn and the moon. Whats the big deal?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
The gravitational pull from having Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon overhead like that is going to suck the blood into everyones heads meaking them go crazy at midnight.
Scary stuff!! hehe.. I wonder which cult group will be commiting suicide tonight... (astronomy can do some funny things to people.. remember the comets a few years back..?..) Miss Cleo will be busy.
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That's funny, the article didn't say anything about Uranus!
UFO reports triple as people look up and see "..bright white light and two dimmer lights beside them, spinning around in circles." then they will wake up the next morning, laying on the ground in the forest and blame aliens.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
One thing I'm always grateful for is a clear sky on a dark night and the humbling power of the billions and billions of stars that are visible to my eye. A few months ago, there was an article on light pollution, along with links to nighttime shots of earth to illustrate the intensity of light pollution. Along with that article was the revelation that there are a growing number of people who have never seen a starry night. Sounds trivial to you, but such a simple thing is very important because it forces the alert human to put things into perspective and to see that there are greater things than man can create.
Light pollution isn't the only threat to our ability to witness astronomically significant events: space billboards will probably debut as soon as the economy goes back into upswing. Laugh if you must, but don't be surprised if future articles warn you "you'll have to squint to see Jupiter tonight, because the Coca-Cola® billboard will be about 3 to the east..." or similar.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
When will we get a good view of Uranus?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
At midnight, ok. But which timezone?
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
http://www.altpeter.de/pub/fortune/futurama
I find that my hairline receeds more rapidly on brisk winter nights on New Years eve under the
combined elmental adjacencies of moon,saturn and
jupiter.
Just a personal note for those interested.
Their civil-rights reported had some free time, and he's just taking up the controversial field of amatur astronomy to keep himself busy..
The only thing i saw last night was the curb..
I'm posting this 2 days late, and I can't believe someone didn't call you on this lame post.
First, you can't see billions of stars with the naked eye. If memory serves, it's a few thousand.
Jeez, was I the only one that didn't fall asleep in astronomy class?! Zen, take your own advice and start being *alert*.
As for the rest of this, the next time that map of light pollution appears in front of you, figure out just how far you have to drive from ANYWHERE to get to a completely black 50-mile circle. More than 90% of the earth is that way. Hell, 70% of the earth isn't going to tolerate much construction of billboards, cities, or powerlines. Put another way, even under extraordinary growth in energy consumption (which doesn't even ask HOW we'll generate the energy), we're going to be serious wormfood lo-ong before we're even capable of turning on a 6e7 square mile nightlight (quick calculation, slipped digits may occur: 4/3 pi * 4000 ^2 miles).
Take an orbital billboard out to a nice geosynchronous 22k miles and that sphere-of-ambient-light equation goes absolutely ballistic. Stick non-geosynch and any coke billboard will move rapidly compared to the cosmos, be much smaller (improving feasibility), be visible across a sizeable chunk of the earth (clue: think polar orbit to maximize coverage), and could potentially even improve odds of being approved by being designed to burn up after a few years. As for it blotting out the stars, the moon doesn't eliminate the starfield even at peak brightness. No matter how one tries to slice this down, I'm just not able to get worried about this like I do about species extinction, the expansion of corporate rights at my personal expense and the likes.
Zen, keep smokin' yer reefers and dreaming about the cosmos, and get the heck out of the way of people that actually are worrying about and working on real problems. Can I suggest going back a few weeks and rereading Larry Lessig's interview...
In fact, let me recap: THIS IS NOT THE PROBLEM WE NEED TO FOCUS ON! AND WE *DO* NEED TO FOCUS!!!
What, did I interrupt your Campus NOW meeting or something? The point I was trying to make is that the nighttime view of the cosmos is beautiful and that my soul is refreshed when I take the time to gaze at the skies (I can't spend all day working on real problems). I don't want my view blighted by a Coke billboard--that's a far cry from asserting that a space billboard would eliminate the heavens. While I admire your fiesty nature, I believe you should troll on another forum.
--ZMtest