“One by one in the moonligh there, / Neighing far off on the haunted air, / The unicorns come down to the sea.” Conrad Aiken from Evening Song
Even if a unicorn were to pass by on this cold night, most people might not even see it; they would be looking in the wrong direction. They would be looking up at the last full lunar eclipse until 2010.
As it said in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac: “The moon enters Earth’s umbral shadow at 8:43 p.m. EST, and the eclipse becomes total at 10:01 p.m. EST. Totality ends at 10:52 p.m. EST, and the umbral phase ends at 12:09 a.m. EST on February 21.”
There are a few eclipse parties being held in Toronto tonight. One of them is at the Ontario Science Centre. It began at 8:00 p.m. We see eclipses on a fairly regular basis but this one is even more unique. There are a couple of other events occurring simultaneously. On one side of the moon is the planet Saturn, and on the other is the star Regulus. I’ve heard it said that if you look through a pair of binoculars when the eclipse is underway, you might even be able to see the rings of Saturn.
In my radio show tonight, there is an interesting connection between Saturn and the Arthur C. Clarke Sci-Fi Classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel, 2010.
The U.S. Navy was also trying to get into the act today by creating their own fireworks. As if the eclipse wasn’t enough, they were trying to shoot down a defective spy satelite that is soon to be heading back to Earth. High seas in the northern Pacific Ocean have so far prevented them from launching a missile to try to break it up in orbit before re-entry. Their window of opportunity lasts through to the end of the month. Had it taken place tonight, we would possibly have had another celestial event worth noting….
According to The Book of General Ignorance, and the Social Studies column of the Friday, May 18th 2007 issue of the Globe and Mail, “Astronauts who have walked on the moon and traipsed lunar dust into their living quarters, report that the dust feels like snow, smells like gunpowder and doesn’t taste too bad.”
Most newscasts today were mentioning tonight’s eclipse. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that these other heavenly bodies are also visible. I hope you will be inspired tonight to budle up and head outdoors to witness something our ancestors feared. We no longer need to fear. It’s natural to want to understand.
Karen Wright from Discover, and featured in the Poins to Ponder column of the January 2003 Reader’s Digest, wrote: “We are made of stardust. It’s not just a poetic sentiment; it’s a fact. In a young universe built mostly from hydrogen and helium, the self-immolation of stars in supernovas forged almost all other chemical elements and spewed them into space. Over time they congealed into other stars and solar systems and, eventually, into life itself. So, in a sense, the urge to understand stars is woven into the fabric of our existence.”
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Don Jackson
