This is your global invitation to go exploring at home

The LA County Natural History Museum wants the entire world to go outside and have a good look around this weekend. They’d like us all to take a close gander at the biosphere in our neighborhoods. And they want us record what we find from now through Monday, April 29, 2024.

The annual event isn’t just a great opportunity to experience wildlife at home. It’s also a chance to provide critical scientific data about our ever-changing biosphere. From the City Nature Challenge website:

The City Nature Challenge is an international effort to document nature in cities, taking place from April 26 to April 29, 2024. The global event calls on current and aspiring community scientists, nature and science fans, and people of all ages and backgrounds to get outside and observe and submit pictures of wild plants, animals, and fungi during the Challenge dates in order to help scientists track real-time changes in our planet’s biodiversity and better understand wildlife conservation.

Give back to astronomy with a donation to EarthSky.org! Your gift will support educational resources that teach people of all ages about space exploration and the fascinating facts about our universe.

Wildlife only, please!

We’re sure your lawn and landscaping are no doubt lovely, but this event is about observing and recording the wild things that call the world immediately around you their home.

Here’s what the folks at the museum would like to know:

• What can you find in your house?
• What can you see through your windows?
• What are the wild plants growing in your backyard? (weeds count!)
• What insects or other creatures are using the cultivated plants in your backyard as a habitat or a food source?
• What observations can you make along the sidewalk in front of your house or apartment complex? (Always be mindful of traffic and safety.)

While you don’t even have to go outside to participate, the museum suggests going for a walk, getting into the weeds and making a visit to the local park. And remember to look up in the trees, underneath everything, and get low to see what’s creeping and crawling down there.

Pics or it didn’t happen!

Recording your adventures in pictures and sharing them is the most important part of the challenge. Thankfully, iNaturalist.org makes that really simple.

Here’s how to join in from the challenge website:

Step 1: Find wildlife anywhere in LA County (or your local area).

Step 2: Take photos of WILD** plants and animals.

Step 3: Share your observations in the iNaturalist app. If it’s planted or taken care of by people it is not WILD. Mark it captive/cultivated!

Step 4: Learn more as your finds get identified.

**Wild means not captive or cultivated. Try not to take pictures of captive animals in zoos or aquaria and cultivated plants in your garden or at a nursery.

Download the iNaturalist app from the Apple Store or Google Play. If you’d like more hints on how to find wildlife and some detailed instructions on using the iNat app, check out this advice from the California Academy of Sciences.

By the way, we’d love to see and share your images of nature too. Check out EarthSky Community Photos to find out more.

Bottom line: This weekend, April 26-29, 2024, join the global City Nature Challenge and record the biosphere in your neighborhood to help track real-time change.

Via Los Angeles County Natural History Museum City Nature Challenge

The post Join the worldwide 2024 City Nature Challenge this weekend! first appeared on EarthSky.

The very first Earth Day

The first Earth Day – April 22, 1970 – is sometimes said to have marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement.

It predates the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example. It may be hard to imagine it now, but the first Earth Day was a revelation to many. It was a way not only of raising consciousness about environmental issues, but also of bringing together different groups that had been fighting separately against issues including oil spills, pollution from factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, the loss of wilderness, air pollution and more. At the first Earth Day in 1970, an estimated 20 million Americans participated. They took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy environment and to participate in teach-ins.

Please help EarthSky keep going! Our annual crowd-funder is going on now. PLEASE DONATE today to continue enjoying updates on your cosmos and world.

The April 22 date was selected in part because it fell between colleges’ spring break and final exams. And it was also when Arbor Day was observed, a day when people are encouraged to plant trees, which began in Nebraska in 1872.

Since 1970, many important environmental events have happened on Earth Day, including the signing of the Paris Agreement on April 22, 2016.

EarthDay.org is actively hosting its Earth Week Live digital event, this year’s theme is Planet vs. Plastics. You can participate in a series of Earth Day livestreams or see if there is an in-person event taking place near you. 

Rooted in Arbor Day

J. Sterling Morton was a Nebraska pioneer, a writer and editor for Nebraska’s first newspaper, and later secretary of the Nebraska Territory. He advocated planting trees in what was then a dusty and treeless prairie. At a State Board of Agriculture meeting in January 1872, Morton proposed that Nebraska citizens set aside April 10 as a day to plant trees. He suggested offering prizes as incentives for communities and organizations that planted the most trees. It’s said that Nebraskans planted about 1 million trees on that first Arbor Day in 1872. Planting trees remains a common practice in celebrating Earth Day today.

Ten years later, in 1882, Nebraska declared Arbor Day a legal holiday and the date was changed to Morton’s birthday, April 22. Arbor Day became a national observance, and it seemed natural to schedule April 22, 1970 – Arbor Day – as the first Earth Day.

Uniting for environmental change

Kathleen Rogers is a former environmental attorney who has led the Earth Day Network since 2001. She frequently comments on environmental issues in the media (CNN, Fox News, NPR, Time, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times). She wrote of Earth Day:

Earth Day is now a global event each year, and we believe that more than 1 billion people in 192 countries now take part in what is the largest civic-focused day of action in the world.

It is a day of political action and civic participation. People march, sign petitions, meet with their elected officials, plant trees, clean up their towns and roads. Corporations and governments use it to make pledges and announce sustainability measures. Faith leaders, including Pope Francis, connect Earth Day with protecting God’s greatest creations, humans, biodiversity, and the planet that we all live on.

Want to participate? Sign up to join the Earth Day Movement.

Bottom line: Why do we celebrate Earth Day on April 22? The date stems from an earlier observance, Arbor Day. This year’s focus is “Planet vs. Plastics.”

Read more: Earth images from space: Our top 10

The post Why do we celebrate Earth Day on April 22? first appeared on EarthSky.

Here’s the 2024 Atlantic hurricane outlook

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season officially starts June 1 and extends through November 30. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center will release their hurricane season outlook for this year in late May. Meanwhile, Colorado State University (CSU) also puts out a hurricane outlook, which it issued on April 4. According to CSU, it will be a busy hurricane season in the Atlantic! CSU is predicting 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes and five major hurricanes with winds 111 mph (179 km/h) or higher. To compare, an average hurricane season sees 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. So if CSU is right, we’ll blow through the 21 names on this year’s list.

Why is CSU predicting an “extremely active” year? According to its press release:

The team cites record warm tropical and eastern subtropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures as a primary factor. … A very warm Atlantic favors an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water.

A developing La Niña also plays a part in this season being:

… the highest prediction for hurricanes that CSU has ever issued with their April outlook.

The team plans to update their outlook again on June 11, July 9 and August 6.

Will NOAA’s outlook for the 2024 season agree? We’ll find out in late May!

Join us in our mission to educate and inspire people about the universe. Your donation can make a difference in astronomy and contribute to our growth and sustainability.

La Niña vs. El Niño

Before 2024, we had three La Niña years in a row. But now, El Niño is weakening, with the expectation that La Niña will return either by late summer or fall.

So, La Niña could provide a boost to hurricanes in the Atlantic. According to Climate.gov:

El Niño favors stronger hurricane activity in the central and eastern Pacific basins, and suppresses it in the Atlantic basin. Conversely, La Niña suppresses hurricane activity in the central and eastern Pacific basins, and enhances it in the Atlantic basin.

If you live near the Atlantic basin, you should keep up-to-date with forecasts from the National Hurricane Center.

Learn more about how to prepare for hurricane season.

Where do hurricane names come from?

Meteorologists long ago learned that naming tropical storms and hurricanes helps people remember the storms, communicate about them more effectively, and consequently stay safer if and when a particular storm strikes a coast.

These experts assign names to tropical storms according to an approved list before the start of each hurricane season. The U.S. National Hurricane Center started this practice in the early 1950s. Now, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) generates and maintains the list of hurricane names.

Here are the hurricane names for 2024

Atlantic hurricane names (season runs from June 1 to November 30) are: Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Francine, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Milton, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sara, Tony, Valerie and William.

Eastern North Pacific hurricane names (season runs from May 15 to November 30) are: Aletta, Bud, Carlotta, Daniel, Emilia, Fabio, Gilma, Hector, Ileana, John, Kristy, Lane, Miriam, Norman, Olivia, Paul, Rosa, Sergio, Tara, Vicente, Willa, Xavier, Yolanda and Zeke.

If you’re interested, you can view those names, and names for upcoming years, at the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

How and why did hurricanes first begin receiving names?

While people have been naming major storms for hundreds of years, most hurricanes originally had a designation using a system of latitude-longitude numbers. This was useful to meteorologists trying to track these storms. Unfortunately, this system confused people living on coasts seeking hurricane information.

In the early 1950s, the U.S. National Hurricane Center first developed a formal practice for storm naming for the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, storms got their names according to a phonetic alphabet (e.g., Able, Baker, Charlie) and the names used were the same for each hurricane season. In other words, the first hurricane of a season was always named “Able,” the second “Baker,” and so on.

In 1953, to avoid the repetitive use of names, the National Weather Service revised the system to give storms female names. By doing this, the National Weather Service was mimicking the habit of naval meteorologists, who named the storms after women, much as ships at sea traditionally had female names.

In 1978–1979, they revised the system again to include both female and male hurricane names.

See the complete history of naming hurricanes, including retired names, from NOAA.

When does a storm receive a name?

Tropical storms get a name when they display a rotating circulation pattern and wind speeds reach 39 miles per hour (63 kilometers per hour). A tropical storm develops into a hurricane when wind speeds go above 74 mph (119 km/h).

Experts have developed lists of hurricane names for many of the major ocean basins around the world. Today, there are six lists of hurricane names in use for Atlantic Ocean and Eastern North Pacific storms. These lists rotate, one each year. So that means the list of this year’s hurricane names for each basin will come up again six years from now.

However, there’s an exception to this practice. The World Meteorological Organization retires the names of extremely damaging hurricanes for legal, cultural sensitivity and historical reasons. For example, they retired the name Katrina in 2005 following the devastating impact that Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans. In 2022, the World Meteorological Organization Hurricane Committee retired the names Fiona and Ian.

Bottom line: Colorado State University has released its Atlantic hurricane outlook for the upcoming season. Read more here and get the list of 2024’s hurricane names.

Read more: What is a hurricane storm surge?

The post 2024 Atlantic hurricane outlook and list of names first appeared on EarthSky.

Kelly Kizer Whitt recommends The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (And What We Can Do About Them), a book by world-known earthquake scientist Lucy Jones. What many of us think of as disasters – earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanoes – are natural events. The resulting disaster isn’t inevitable. Jones discusses some of the “big ones” that changed our world and how we can work to prevent the disaster.

The Big Ones

Lucy Jones was a seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey for more than three decades. As a native of Los Angeles, she’s done a lot to work with the local government to make the city safer. Since a seismic network was installed in Southern California in the 1990s, the region has never gone more than 12 hours without an earthquake. The majority of these earthquakes are small and not even felt by locals. They are not “Big Ones”. But the Big One, Jones says, is coming.

Jones explains how the faults in Southern California work, and that the San Andreas fault has been worn so smooth that when the next earthquake hits there, there’s nothing to keep it from growing to a magnitude 7 or 8. It’s been 330 years since the last earthquake on this particular part of the San Andreas fault, about twice the average time between its previous quakes. So, Jones says:

Someday, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a decade, probably in the lifetimes of many people reading this book, some point on the fault will lose its frictional grip and start to move. Once it does, the weak fault, with all that stored energy, will have no way of holding it back.

She expects the resulting earthquake could reach up to a magnitude 8.2.

Join us in our mission to educate and inspire people about the universe. Your donation can make a difference in astronomy and contribute to our growth and sustainability.

Natural hazards versus disasters

Natural hazards are inevitable; the disaster is not.

This is a common refrain in emergency management circles. We can’t stop earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes from happening. But those won’t necessarily create a disaster. Disasters happen to communities that are vulnerable. Preparedness, resilience, and a swift response can prevent the destruction and suffering that creates the disaster.

California’s worst natural disaster in its history was not an earthquake. Nor was it a wildfire. It was a flood in the winter of 1861-62. A 300-mile-long (480 km) flood in the Central Valley covered farmland up to 30 feet (9 m) deep. Central Valley simply became The Lake.

This brings up a hurdle to compelling people to plan for future hazards. Our memories are short, and if it did not happen to us personally, we are more likely to discount it and may not even know about it. And, Jones says, hidden dangers provoke more fear than ones we’re familiar with. Earthquakes trigger more fear than the rain that brings a flood.

Big Ones around the world

Jones also ventures far from her native California in this book. You’ll learn about earthquakes in Portugal and China. She recounts the tsunamis of the Indian Ocean in 2004 and Japan in 2011, along with some women in Japan who found ways to help the many victims. You’ll learn more about the volcanic eruption in Pompeii and about one in Iceland in the 1700s that became the deadliest natural disaster in human history. The Laki volcanic eruption lasted for eight months and led to devastation around the globe, killing millions.

Jones sums up her book with some tips for all of us. Some of the advice she has includes:

Don’t assume government has you covered.
Work with your community.
Remember that disasters are more than the moment at which they happen.
Educate yourself.

And one way to begin to educate yourself is to read this book.

Bottom line: The Big Ones by Lucy Jones looks at some of the most destructive natural events in history, how they changed our world and how we can prepare for and recover from them.

Read more reviews in Media we love

The post Media we love: The Big Ones, a book review first appeared on EarthSky.

• Total solar eclipses stunned the ancients, spurring them to invent stories to explain the sun’s disappearance.
• Gods and goddesses and hungry creatures were some of the top explanations for total solar eclipses in the past.
• But the ancients also began to understand our worlds in space so they could predict when the “dragon” would devour the sun.

Give back to astronomy with a donation to EarthSky.org! Your gift will support educational resources that teach people of all ages about space exploration and the fascinating facts about our universe.

How the ancients explained eclipses

By Roger Culver, Colorado State University

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will cross parts of the U.S. As the Earth and moon sweep through space and around the sun, the three bodies align in such a way that the Earth passes into the shadow of the moon. Observers then witness a sun that is gradually covered and uncovered by the moon’s disk … a spectacular celestial event.

But until astronomers were able to explain this phenomenon, a solar eclipse could be a terrifying event. In many cultures throughout human history, the sun was an entity of supreme importance, crucial to their very existence. People regularly worshipped it as a god or goddess. For example, it was the god Amun-Ra to the Egyptians and Helios to the Greeks. And it was the goddess Amaterasu for the Japanese and Saule for many Baltic cultures.

One reason the sun served as a god or goddess in so many cultures was its awesome power: Looking directly at it would severely damage the eyes, a sign of the sun deity’s wrath.

So the idea that a total solar eclipse could temporarily extinguish the sun deity inspired a number of imaginative explanations. Most involve some sort of evil entity trying to devour the sun. Such myths undoubtedly arose from the fact that during the early stages of a solar eclipse, the sun appears to have a bite taken out of it.

Eclipse myths

Various hungry creatures were enlisted to explain eclipses. These include the Vikings’ sky wolves Skoll and Hati, a Chinese dragon, a Vietnamese frog and assorted Roman demons. In many cultures, they believed such creatures could be driven off by creating as much loud noise as possible. So, for example, people would yell, ring bells, and bang pots and pans.

Perhaps the most creative version of this strand of mythologies comes from certain branches of Hindu culture. In that version, the mortal Rahu supposedly attempted to attain immortality. The sun and moon told the god Visnu of Rahu’s transgression. As punishment, Visnu decapitated Rahu.

Ever since, Rahu has sought to exact vengeance on the sun and the moon. Rahu pursues them across the sky, trying to eat them. Once in a while – at the time of an eclipse – Rahu catches the sun or the moon. In the case of a solar eclipse, Rahu slowly devours the sun. Then it gradually disappears into Rahu’s throat … only to reappear from his severed neck.

Other sun eaters

In other branches of Hindu culture, the “sun eater” took the more traditional form of a dragon. To fight this beast, certain Hindu sects in India immersed themselves up to the neck in water. It was an act of worship, as they believed the adulation would aid the sun in fighting off the dragon.

Other cultures had equally ingenious explanations for – and defenses against – a total solar eclipse. Eskimos thought an eclipse meant the sun and moon had become temporarily diseased. In response, they’d cover up everything of importance – themselves included – lest the “diseased” rays of the eclipsed sun infect them.

For the Ojibwe tribe of the Great Lakes, the onset of total eclipse represented an extinguished sun. To prevent permanent darkness, they proceeded to fire flaming arrows at the darkened sun in an attempt to rekindkle it.

How ancients explained eclipses: with a glimmer of science

Amidst the plethora of the myths and legends and interpretations of this strange event, there are seeds of understanding about their true nature.

For example, the famed total solar eclipse of May 28, 585 B.C., occurred in the middle of a battle between the Medes and the Lydians in what is now the northeast region of modern-day Turkey. The eclipse ended the conflict on the spot, with both sides interpreting the event as a sign of the displeasure from the gods. But based on the writings of the ancient Greek historian Heroditus, the great Greek philosopher-mathematician Thales of Miletus may have, coincidentally, predicted its occurrence.

Chinese, Alexandrian and Babylonian astronomers were not only sophisticated enough to understand the true nature of solar eclipses, but also to roughly predict when the “dragon” would devour the sun. (As with much knowledge back then, however, astronomical and astrological findings were relayed only to the ruling elites, while myths and legends continued to percolate among the general population.)

Advances in modern astronomy have given us detailed explanations for solar eclipses. So much so that their time and location can be predicted centuries into the future and reconstructed from centuries ago.

Of course, mythologies surrounding total solar eclipses still exist today. Some conspiracy theorists were convinced that a 2017 eclipse would spell the end of the world. It’s perhaps a testament to the endurance of the superstitious side of the human psyche.

Roger Culver, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Learn how some of the ancients explained eclipses, from gods and goddesses to hungry animals to the glimmers of early science.

The post How the ancients explained eclipses: gods, dragons and more first appeared on EarthSky.

New Jersey earthquake struck at 4.8 magnitude yesterday

A rare 4.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the U.S. Northeast on Friday, April 5, 2024. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it happened at 10:23 a.m. EDT and was centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, about 45 miles (70 km) west of New York City and 50 miles (80 km) north of Philadelphia. Residents in New Jersey and Pennsylvania also reported being rattled by the quake. USGS reported that, altogether, more than 42 million people might have felt the quake. And all of them must have been surprised, since earthquakes of that magnitude are rare in the U.S. Northeast. And, as the day passed yesterday, wacky theories – some connected to Monday’s total solar eclipse – emerged on the internet. Read more about that below.

In the meantime, no injuries or major infrastructure damages due to this earthquake have been reported along the U.S. East Coast.

EarthSky’s Michael Maimone lives in New Jersey and was there when the quake happened. He said he was 62 miles (100 km) from the epicenter. He said:
.

All the pictures on my wall rattled like crazy. It took me a minute to realize what was going on until the house started to sway and the shaking got more intense.

Wow! A M4.8 struck in New Jersey this morning around 10:30 am local time. Shaking was widely felt from Maine to Washington D.C. Did you feel this earthquake? Share your experience here: https://t.co/xdohQbzpcq https://t.co/ADcDLsTp8b pic.twitter.com/bAjEbSgvwc

— USGS Earthquakes (@USGS_Quakes) April 5, 2024

Is the earthquake related to the eclipse?

The proximity in time between the April 5 earthquake in the U.S. Northeast – and the total solar eclipse of April 8 – has conspiracy theorists’ heads spinning. Because, you know, it was a 4.8-magnitude earthquake. And the eclipse is on 4-8 (April 8). Do these folks think any natural events are random?

The eclipse and the earthquake are, however, unrelated. More in the tweet below and in the following section.

So we had a very interesting geological day in the region. The Earthquake and aftershocks are due to pressure being released by the Ramapo Fault line. This fault line is active and has produced numerous earthquakes in New Jersey over the past 500 years ( that we have recorded… pic.twitter.com/YWb0YohSBV

— NY NJ PA Weather (@nynjpaweather) April 5, 2024

How rare are earthquakes in this region?

USGS explained:

Since colonial times people in the New York-Philadelphia-Wilmington urban corridor have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from infrequent larger ones. New York City was damaged in 1737 and 1884. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike somewhere in the urban corridor roughly twice a century, and smaller earthquakes are felt roughly every 2-3 years.

Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as 10 times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).

The New Jersey earthquake from around the web

Earthquake in Lebanon NJ!!! House was shaking @CNN @NBCNews @ABC7 @News12NJ @nytimes pic.twitter.com/pJRNQOv5ty

— Mel (@mncasasnovas) April 5, 2024

Can’t believe I got it on camera lol ? #earthquake pic.twitter.com/OevQ5q30ZF

— jared (@jareddemel) April 5, 2024

I AM FINE

— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) April 5, 2024

Bottom line: Conspiracy theorists are having a field day imagining a connection between yesterday’s 4.8-magnitude New Jersey earthquake in the U.S., and Monday’s solar eclipse. The quake and the craziness here. 

The post Is the rare New Jersey earthquake related to the eclipse? first appeared on EarthSky.

By Nikhil Arora, Queen’s University and Mark Richardson, Queen’s University

Total solar eclipse ties with science, culture and history

On April 8, 2024, there will be a total solar eclipse across North America. This is an opportunity to experience, learn from, and participate in the excitement and wonder. And rather than hiding inside, researchers have been communicating how people can safely enjoy this unique opportunity.

Roughly every 18 months, the sun, moon and Earth come into perfect alignment. And so, somewhere on Earth experiences a solar eclipse. During this phenomenon, the moon casts a roughly 155-mile-wide (250-km-wide) shadow onto Earth.

This ephemeral daytime darkness can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. On average, any one spot on the globe experiences a total solar eclipse every 375 years.

Our interpretation of, and response to, total solar eclipses has advanced enormously. People once considered eclipses as cosmic omens that predicted dying kings, good harvests or the need for new territorial treaties. Today, they provide a unique opportunity to consider the physical nature of the universe. And we feel a cosmic privilege of witnessing the alignment of the moon and sun.

Total solar eclipse and myth

Due to their sudden darkness, many have perceived solar eclipses through history as catastrophic events. Many societies developed stories to explain these unusual events, often filled with fear and violence.

Indian myths tell of an immortal demon seeking revenge on Vishnu by trying to eat the sun and moon. The Pomo, Indigenous people of Northern California, describe a huge angry bear trying to eat the sun. In other mythologies, eclipses were thought to be heavenly forces removing our source of warmth and life.

Science and total solar eclipses

Beliefs about eclipses motivated ancient Greek astronomers to create the antikythera mechanism, a complex analog computer that predicted the timing of future eclipses with a precision of 30 minutes. These predictions were critical for Greek society. In ancient Greece, a solar eclipse could mean an upcoming death of the king, requiring the appointment of a pseudo-emperor to be killed instead.

Our reactions to eclipses have evolved, driving us to better understand the solar system and the universe at large.

During the eclipse on August 18, 1868, astronomers Norman Lockyer and Pierre Janssen each studied the light from the solar corona to discover a new chemical element. This chemical element was helium, named for the Greek word for the sun.

On May 29, 1919, Frank Watson Dyson and Arthur Stanley Eddington studied the bent path of starlight during a total solar eclipse. It was the first experimental triumph of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Total solar eclipse experiences

A total solar eclipse is unlike many other cosmic events, such as meteor showers or comets, which require expensive telescopes or dark sky places. Eclipses are a barrier-free celestial event. You don’t need anything to see a total solar eclipse. And to safely enjoy the partial phases of an eclipse, you simply need eclipse viewing glasses or simple materials to build a viewer.

For example, many universities across Canada are using the opportunity of the total solar eclipse to engage with people to safely experience this astronomical phenomenon. Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, is making 120,000 eclipse glasses available to make safe eclipse viewing possible for anyone.

In the spirit of education, hundreds of eclipse ambassadors are heading to schools to engage with students about having a profound and safe experience during the eclipse. These ambassadors lead workshops on building inexpensive pinhole cameras to project the sun during the eclipse. They explain unique features that can be seen during eclipses, such as Baily’s beads and the diamond ring effect. And they help everyone appreciate the vastness of the solar system.

These efforts demonstrate the universal value of science, and promote science engagement beyond classrooms and institutions.

Advancing scientific knowledge

The upcoming eclipse is an opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists. But it’s also an opportunity for the advancement of scientific knowledge. Unlike the experiments of Dyson, Eddington and Lockyer that were limited to the academy, today’s institutions are mobilizing the public to conduct citizen science experiments.

Initiated by NASA, the Eclipse Megamovie project will use photos taken during totality to study the solar corona. In 2017, photos collected during the total eclipse helped researchers identify a plasma plume in the solar corona. The 2024 eclipse will help researchers study this plume in greater detail.

Anyone with a DSLR camera and a tripod can submit a picture of the total solar eclipse to the Eclipse Megamovie project. The public data collected for the 2024 eclipse will far exceed what could be accomplished by any one experiment or location.

A chance to get people excited about science

April’s total solar eclipse, and others to come, will remind people that science is exciting and inspiring, and that scientific expertise is of profound universal value. Such a celestial coincidence is an opportunity to engage with local communities and discuss the origin and mechanics of our solar system, all while including the public in scientific discovery through crowd-sourcing images of their experience.

All that’s left is to hope for clear skies and marvel once more at the cosmos.

Nikhil Arora, Postdoctoral fellow, Physics, Engineering Physics & Astronomy, Queen’s University, Ontario and Mark Richardson, Manager for Education and Public Outreach, Adjunct Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Ontario

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: A total solar eclipse touches on several disciplines of knowledge. Not only science, but also how different cultures have interpreted and dealt with eclipses throughout history. Universities use the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse to engage with the general public via these topics.

Read more: Total solar eclipse eye protection: How and when?

Read more: Fake eclipse glasses polluting marketplace, astronomers warn

Watch EarthSky’s eclipse countdown here

Via The Conversation

The post A total solar eclipse provides engagement opportunities first appeared on EarthSky.

White House calls for international moon time standard

An exclusive report from the British news agency Reuters reveals the White House has directed NASA to create a new unified time standard for the moon and other celestial bodies. The article, published Tuesday (April 2, 2024), says the US hopes to create an international standard as more nations and private companies engage in a new Space Race:

The head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), according to a memo seen by Reuters, instructed the space agency to work with other parts of the U.S. government to devise a plan by the end of 2026 for setting what it called a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC).

LTC is needed for smooth operations on and around the moon. Using more than one time standard could lead to communication and data transfer problems between future lunar bases and Earth. It would ease coordination of spacecraft and satellites, and cut confusion for people living and working in space. An unnamed OSTP official interviewed by Reuters said being out of sync could also lead to mapping errors and disorientation on the lunar surface. Reuters quoted the official as saying:

Imagine if the world wasn’t syncing their clocks to the same time – how disruptive that might be and how challenging everyday things become.

With your donation, you can make a difference in astronomy by helping EarthSky to keep going. Please help!

Special relativity means moon time changes every Earth-day

As established in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, perception of time depends on the viewer’s frame of reference. How much gravity an observer is experiencing is one of the factors influencing how quickly time appears to move. On the moon – where gravity is 1/6 as strong as on Earth – clocks tick faster than they do down here. Reuters reported:

OSTP chief Arati Prabhakar‘s memo said that for a person on the moon, an Earth-based clock would appear to lose on average 58.7 microseconds per Earth-day and come with other periodic variations that would further drift moon time from Earth time.

Adoption of Coordinated Lunar Time would require international agreement among spacefaring nations. Similar diplomacy led to the establishment of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) here on Earth. Creating an LTC could be accomplished the same way, Reuters explained:

Coordinated Universal Time might influence how Coordinated Lunar Time is implemented, the OSTP official said. The U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union defines Coordinated Universal Time as an international standard.

Maintaining an accurate LTC could require a series of missions to plant atomic clocks on the moon.

US hopes to keep its lead in the Space Race

For now, NASA is still at the forefront of the return to the moon, with plans to put astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of this decade. But competition is hard on its heels, with China aiming for its own crewed lunar mission by 2030, and Japan is shooting for a lunar presence by 2050.

Establishing the standards humanity uses as we expand throughout the solar system may help maintain American influence beyond the atmosphere, Reuters said, further reporting that:

‘U.S. leadership in defining a suitable standard – one that achieves the accuracy and resilience required for operating in the challenging lunar environment – will benefit all spacefaring nations,’ the OSTP memo stated.

And there’s a lot of money to be made in space.

The official also said that as commercial activities expand to the moon, a unified time standard would be essential for coordinating operations, ensuring the reliability of transactions and managing the logistics of lunar commerce.

Bottom line: NASA is establishing a unified standard time for the moon and other celestial bodies to set international norms as the human presence in space grows.

Via Reuters

The post US wants a standard moon time, for new Space Race first appeared on EarthSky.

• International Dark Sky Week is a worldwide celebration of the dark and natural night.
• Light pollution is the human-made alteration of outdoor light levels.
• Discover the night is the 2024 theme.

According to the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) – founded in 1988 and based in Tucson, Arizona – light pollution is increasing at a rate twice that of human population growth. And 80% of people around the world live under a light-polluted sky. That’s why IDA has established an International Dark Sky Week, which in 2024 falls on April 2 to 8. The goal for the week is to discover the night. According to the IDA:

The most important thing you can do to protect the night is to learn about it!

Please help EarthSky keep going! Our annual crowd-funder is going on now. PLEASE DONATE today to continue enjoying updates on your cosmos and world.

The group also hopes you’ll learn the stars and constellations, and teach them to others.

Also, the IDA hopes you’ll join the global dark sky movement to protect and celebrate our shared heritage of dark night skies. DarkSky International promotes solutions that allow people to appreciate dark, star-filled skies while enjoying the benefits of responsible outdoor lighting.

According to the IDA:

For this International Dark Sky Week we encourage you to get outside at night! Whether going out for a night hike in a nearby International Dark Sky Park, or simply sitting on the back porch with friends with the lights out, take time to get to know your community and environment at night.

Ways to celebrate International Dark Sky Week

Looking for ways to celebrate International Dark Sky Week? Find International Dark Sky Week events all over the world, organized by astronomy clubs, schools, universities, communities and more.

Visit EarthSky’s night sky guide to see what you can view in the sky this week. A highlight for early morning risers is a slender crescent moon pairing up with Mars and Saturn in the morning twilight on April 5 and 6.

Visit EarthSky’s Best Places to Stargaze page to find a good dark-sky observing site close to home. Share your night sky photos at EarthSky Community Photos.

Paul Bogard has written extensively on the importance of darkness. His book is titled The End of Night. His TEDx Talk focuses on why we need darkness. You’ll find his TEDx Talk here.

Dark-sky photos from the EarthSky Community

Submit your photo to EarthSky here

Bottom line: Celebrate dark night skies and help limit light pollution by raising awareness through the annual International Dark Sky Week, April 2 to 8, 2024. Find links to global events here.

The post International Dark Sky Week is April 2 to 8 first appeared on EarthSky.

By Sarah Jelbert, University of Bristol and Bruce Hood, University of Bristol

Can we use science to make ourselves happier?

When you deliver a university course that makes students happier, everybody wants to know what the secret is. What are your tips? What are your top ten recommendations? These are the most asked questions, as if there is some quick, surefire path to happiness.

The problem is that there are no life-transforming discoveries, because most of what works has already been talked about. Social connection, mindfulness, gratitude letters, acts of kindness, going for a walk in nature, sleep hygiene, limiting social media use. These are some of the 80 or so psychological interventions which have been shown to work to improve our wellbeing (to a lesser or greater extent).

Please help EarthSky keep going! Our annual crowd-funder is going on now. PLEASE DONATE today to continue enjoying updates on your cosmos and world.

But if we already know so much about what works, then why are we still fielding requests for top happiness tips?

The data tells us that students and young people today are increasingly unhappy. National surveys find wellbeing is lowest among the young in the U.K. and the U.S. compared to other age groups.

It was for this reason we began teaching the science of happiness course at the University of Bristol in 2019, to counter some worrying downward trends. During the course, we teach lessons from positive psychology and create opportunities for students to put these lessons into practice.

Learning the science of happiness

We award credit based on engagement – an important component of not only education, but also getting the most out of life – rather than graded assessments. It would be ironic to talk about the problems of performance anxiety and student perfectionism only to then give our students a graded exam.

Course credit without examination? That must be a breeze, you might say. However, for many students, turning up on time to over 80% of lectures and tutorials, completing journal entries on a weekly basis and submitting a final group project turned out to be more of a challenge than they predicted.

Around 5% of students fail to meet the course demands each year and have to complete a reassessment in the summer. Creating consistent positive habits in the face of all of life’s other demands is not a trivial request.

Nevertheless, the science of happiness course is extraordinarily popular. It also appears to be effective. Every year we find increases of around 10 to 15% on measures of students’ mental wellbeing at the end of the course, compared to a waiting-list control group.

Life after the course

However, we recently published the findings from a study that followed up with students one to two years after they had taken the science of happiness course, before they graduated. When we looked at the overall trends, students’ initially elevated scores of happiness had largely returned to their original levels.

We were not dejected, though. One of the mechanisms we teach on the course is hedonic adaptation: we get used to both good and bad things. Humans have a brain wired to pay extra attention to problems. So it comes as no surprise that the initial wellbeing boost we created in the course disappeared as students returned to focusing on life’s hassles.

However, we observed that not all students followed this pattern. Approximately half the cohort reported that they continued to regularly practice some of the things they had learned many months or years after completing the course. Those included such things as gratitude or mindfulness.

Although the students who no longer practiced the activities returned to their happiness baselines, on average, those who did keep up with at least some of the recommended activities showed no such drop. They maintained their elevated levels of wellbeing up to two years later.

Use science for mental and physical health

In many ways, mental health is no different from physical health. Few people expect to see long-lasting muscle gains after one trip to the gym. For the most part, we are begrudgingly aware that there are no shortcuts if you want to remain fit and healthy. You have to stick with the program.

The same applies to our happiness. Unless we keep working at it, the improvements are temporary. Indeed, if we did have to focus on just one top tip it might be to learn how to harness lessons from psychology to build the better habits we need for lasting change. For example, aiming for small incremental changes rather than an unsustainable overhaul of your whole life.

Focusing on others

One thing we question is whether the self-care industry may be sending out the wrong message by telling people happiness is all about making yourself feel better. One of us – Bruce Hood – writes in his new book that becoming a happier person in the long term is less to do with focusing on ourselves, and much more to do with focusing on others.

Self-care may bring some short-term benefits, but enriching the lives of others can offer wellbeing effects that are less susceptible to adaptation over time.

Ultimately, whatever methods or activities we choose to improve our wellbeing, we would do well to remember that happiness is always a work in progress.

Sarah Jelbert, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Bristol, and Bruce Hood, Professor of Developmental Psychology in Society, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Mental wellness is much like physical fitness. If you want to see any consistent, positive change in your happiness level, you have to continue to “work out” by keeping up good happiness habits.

Read more: How astronauts to Mars can manage stress on the long journey

Read more: David Rand: Happiness and sadness are contagious

The post Can we use science to make ourselves happier? first appeared on EarthSky.