Science Fun

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The Old Farmer’s Almanac for 2009 was produced last year and released in October of 2008. It is amazing the forecast prediction for this time period for New England was fairly accurate with regards to the temperature; they were off in the rain department.

For the period June through August – it will be hotter than normal in Florida and from New Mexico northeastward through the Great Lakes. Temperatures elsewhere will be below normal, on average. Rainfall will be above normal in Florida, the coastal Southeast, from parts of Colorado to Wisconsin, in much of California, and from Nevada to the western Dakotas. Rainfall elsewhere will be below normal.

If you were to look at the weather maps for the past month, we were entrenched in a pattern that circulated water in from the ocean and pulled cooler air down from Canada, thus resulting in our below normal average temperature, however, this also brought us rain, which produced above average rain fall. For a publication that is produced many months in advance, they still do a good job at predicting weather patterns that have some accuracy to them. We will look at the August / September time frame to see how the Old Farmer’s Almanac forecasts compare to the statistics for the period.

On the evening of May 31st, an object struck the Earth’s atmosphere and caused a blinding light. It was reported that sky watchers in northern Poland were temporarily blinded by a sudden flash of bright light that was brighter than a full moon. The photo in this post was captured by an automated camera in the town of Gniewowo, Poland.

What caused this sudden flash of light? A meteoroid of an unknown origin struck the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded. “It was a huge fireball, probably brighter than magnitude -13, reports a resident of Gneiwowo. The explosion occurred at 20:48 UT and was observed by many casual witnesses. Nobody knows if any of the fragments reached the ground. Visit here for continued updates: www.pkim.org

Welcome to Science Fun on the Today.com platform. We hope you have been enjoying the variety of science fun stuff that we have posted in the past three months. This has been a fun adventure and we will continue to provide fun things with space, astronomy, geocaching. the weather, experiments and fun things to do,and a lot more to come. I love history and I have a growing number of folks who have been visiting my series on the History of Rockets, where we have recently begun a series on the history of the Apollo program. Fun with weather continues each week with my Saturday posting of the Weather Round-up for the Week (I skipped a week and I heard about it, so this weekly posting will continue) and an occasional historical weather event from the past. We are growing and I am having fun with Science – and I hope you are enjoying the site.

We are taking a vacation from our normal Science Fun articles today, as we wish to introduce you to some very important programs that have recently been announced by Today.com. Now, you have the opportunity to ADVERTISE and PROMOTE your website, blog, business, your products that you wish to sell, and services that you wish to offer to the readers of Science Fun, as well as to the readers of the thousands of blogs across the entire Today.com network when you Advertise on Today.com.

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We will resume our normally scheduled programming tomorrow!

Here is some spacefun for you on this New Year’s Eve.  Escape your parties and celebrations of the New Year and have a look toward the heavens to view a beautiful conjunction as Venus and the slender crescent Moon will gather together in the southwest sky for a few hours after sunset.  These two objects will be bright enough that you will be able to enjoy them, even through the city lights and fireworks (sorry, if it is snowing or cloudy in your area, like it is here in New England, you will have to resort to the internet to view them). 

Another convergence that will take place on the evening of December 31^st will be between Mercury and Jupiter.  This event will not be as easy to see, however, it will be rewarding for those who can see the two planets shining through the rosy glow of sunset.  Visit www.spaceweather.com for sky maps and photos of the converging planets.  Happy New Year and farewell to 2008!

Today’s History Lesson - On this day in 1873, the American Metrological Society is created to improve upon the U. S. system of weights, measures, and money.   

The blog post from yesterday presented the case of being sure that you use the correct units of measure or unintended events may happen.  Metrology is the science of measurement and has historical elements that go back to early civilization. 

Today, our systems of measurement have quality standards that must be met and are monitored by government and industry bodies that are charged with this responsibility.   In the United States, metrology is monitored by the National Institute of Science and Technology; however it does not enforce measurement accuracy.   

Here in the U.S., commercial measurements and accuracy of those measurements is regulated by the laws of each state.  These measurements deal with the way we buy goods and services such as electricity (measured by the wattmeter) and gasoline (measured by the meter in the gas pump). 

Learn more about Metrology with a visit to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrology and also visit http://www.callabmag.com/metrologylinks.html for links to additional resources on the science of Metrology.