Science Fun

The Leonid Meteor Shower is in progress and the peak of the show could yield 20 to 30 meteors per hour between the hours of 2100 and 2200 UT, today, November 17th. Folks in Asia could witness up to 200 or more per hour according to some forecasters.Right now, the Earth is passing through a zone of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, and this is the cause for the annual Leonid shower. The show this evening will be enhanced in the fact that the moon will be new and NASA scientists say this could be one of the best showers in years.

Not able to view the Leonid meteor shower? Tune into Spaceweather radio and listen to the live audio feed from the Air Force Space Surveillance Radar. When you hear a ping, it indicates a meteor streaked across the sky above the Air Force facility. Visit here to listen. http://spaceweatherradio.com/

Visit www.spaceweather.com and http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/10nov_leonids2009.htm for further information on the Leonid Meteor Shower.

On this day in 1894, it was Election Day, and it was also a day of a major winter storm in Connecticut. This storm dumped up 12 inches of heavy wet snow and had winds gusting to 60 mph. There was damage to trees and telegraph wires.

Another snow event occurred on this day in 1988 when powerful low pressure system produced high winds from the Great Plains to New England and produced heavy snow in northern Wisconsin and Michigan. Winds gusted to 64 mph in Knoxville, TN and the winds reached 80 mph at Pleasant Valley, VT. Historical weather data from the National Weather Service archives.

Our word for the week is Mutual Induction - in physics, the production of an electromagnetic force (emf) or voltage in an electric circuit caused by a changeing magnetic flux in a neighboring circuit. The two circuits are often coils of wire, as in a transformer, and the size of the induced emf depends largely on the number of turns of wire in each of the coils.

Word for the week is chosen by random finger pointing at whatever page opens in my Big Book of Science Terms.

Fall is here, the leaves are changing and we are having an abundance of sunny days and cool nights as we transition through from summer to fall and then soon to winter. We have averaged upper 50s for the highs this week and the mid to upper 40s for the nights.

Monday we had a high of 59F and the low was 50F, Tuesday was identical to Monday, except the night time temperature dipped down to 45F – both days had plenty of sun. Wednesday presented us with a good dose of rain with 0.82 inches for the day, even with the cloud cover, Wednesday’s high reached 58F and the low was 48F. It was very windy that day and the peak gust was 20MPH.

Thursday was another sunny day with the temperature reaching 56F for the high and the low was47F. Friday was mostly sunny with the clouds on the increase through the day and by 5:00 PM, a light rain / mist was falling, we had 0.05 inches of rain. Friday’s high was 55F and the low was 45F. Saturday was a windy day and it was overcast for most of the day with the sun peeping out occasionally. The high was 56F and the low was 38F, there was 0.07 inches of rain that fell in the hours just past midnight. How was the weather for you this week?

Astronomy happenings for the week include an astronomical gathering at the White House this evening. President Obama will host a ‘star party’ for middle school students on the South Lawn of the White House. Selected guest astronomers will be on hand to show the guests the moons of Jupiter and a bright Iridium flare, which is about all you can see the from light polluted skies of Washington D. C. It is hoped that these guests will be inspired to show and interest in astronomy and visit a dark sky observatory or study further in the field of Astronomy.

A planned lunar impact is coming up on this Friday when NASA will send its LCROSS spacecraft and its booster rocket crashing into the surface of the moon. Further details available on NASA at www.nasa.gov, and the event will be televised on NASA TV.

Boo! That is the name of this past week’s cache adventure and it was a fitting name for the cache was located on a trail adjacent to a cemetery in Concord, NH.

It was an easy find once we located the trail leading out of the cemetery – many wandering roads and due to poison ivy, it was not advised to go bushwacking your way through. Once the trail was located, it was short walk and then a quick find. The area had many old foundations and it looked like it might have been a ‘staging’ area for quarry workers in the nearby quarries.

Another significant thing about this area is this cemetery is where Christa McAuliffe, America’s Teacher in Space that lost her life in the tragic shuttle accident, is buried. She has a nice monument and even today, has many visitors that will stop by to read her memorial plaque and her statement of why she wanted to venture into space.