Just a quick note about a celestial event I remember purposefully calculating back in high school. Next Sunday morning, about forty-five minutes before sunrise, three planets, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, will be "converging" within a one-degree circle. This happens to be occurring in the constellation of Scorpius, which due to my birth date, holds some significance.
- How tight is a one-degree circle? Generally with one's arm stretched full length, a closed fist will represent approximately ten-degrees of arc. The tip of your index finger will represent one-degree of arc.
- How frequently do planets converge in a tight formation like this? As far as planets that you can see with your naked eye, the next time will be in 2053.
- Where can you see it? Scorpius is a southern constellation, and the event will be occurring right on the horizon for me during my visit to New Orleans this weekend. Hopefully I will be able to catch it to the East-Southeast.
Astronomy has always been a source of awe, and with awe comes a healthy dose of humility. Look up the next night you find yourself in a low-light-pollution environment.
In an attempt to grasp the infinite, I studied astronomy, volunteered at an Observatory, and followed in early man's path of relating myself to some aspect of the heavens. Although astrology is hokey, one can not argue that understanding such an abstract environment is not a noble undertaking. Our reaction to being nothing in space is our attempt to control, i.e. to calculate and to predict. Control is one way to boost our intellectual ego.
The culmination of engineering and mathematics is exhibited in a device called the Antikythera Mechanism. It was constructed two thousand years ago.
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