Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset is 8:35 for 15 hours 12 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1885, Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was…
Space
Daily Bread, Science/Nature, Space
Daily Bread for 3.1.25: What Happens When You Send Unusual Objects to Space?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 5:44, for 11 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is established as the America’s first national park.
What Happens When You Send Flowers to Space?:
What’s Up: March 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA:
Daily Bread, Space
Daily Bread for 1.25.25: A Parade of Planets
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 4:59, for 9 hours, 43 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 17.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device,” the first ever electronic game:
U.S. patent 2,455,992, filed by Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann on January 25, 1947, describes the world’s first cathode ray tubebased game, the “Cathode-ray tube amusement device”. It was inspired by the radar displays used in World War II.[13] Goldsmith and Mann were granted their patent on December 14, 1948, making it the first ever patent for an electronic game. Entitled “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device“, the patent describes a game in which a player controls the CRT’s electron gun much like an Etch A Sketch. The beam from the gun is focused at a single point on the screen to form a dot representing a missile, and the player tries to control the dot to hit paper targets put on the screen, with all hits detected mechanically.[14] By connecting a cathode ray tube to an oscilloscope and devising knobs that controlled the angle and trajectory of the light traces displayed on the oscilloscope, they were able to invent a missile game that, when using screen overlays, created the effect of firing missiles at various targets.[14] To make the game more challenging, its circuits can alter the player’s ability to aim the dot. However, due to the equipment costs and various circumstances, the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device was never sold. Only handmade prototypes were ever created.[15]
Jan Wesner Childs writes Look Up For January’s ‘Parade Of Planets’:
Stargazers are in for a treat the next few weeks as a parade of planets marches across the night sky.
The January planetary alignment includes Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus all visible to the naked eye at the same time. Neptune and Uranus will be there, too, but they won’t be shining brightly like the others.
What To Know:
Planets, including Earth, orbit around the sun in a line called the ecliptic. But what we see in the night sky changes as we move through space. “These multi-planet viewing opportunities aren’t super rare, but they don’t happen every year, so it’s worth checking it out,” according to NASA’s January night sky notes.
The best viewing for January’s planetary parade is about 90 minutes after sunset, in as dark and clear a spot as you can find. Use binoculars or a telescope for an even better look.
The alignment will be visible into February.
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Why winter is a great time for stargazing:
The night sky changes with the seasons. In winter, cold air holds less moisture, which can make for clearer viewing.
See Jan Wesner Childs, Look Up For January’s ‘Parade Of Planets, Weather.com, January 24, 2025.
In Amsterdam, there’s an entire museum dedicated to cats:
Whitewater’s own version could go here:
Climate, Daily Bread, Space, Weather
Daily Bread for 12.21.24: Sure, It’s Winter Here, But It’s Springtime Only 103 Million Kilometers Away
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Winter begins this Saturday in Whitewater with partly sunny skies and a high of 19. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset is 4:24, for 9 hours, 1 minute of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 62.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.
Fall and Winter are may favorite seasons (in that order), but for those preferring warmer weather, there’s a place offering consolation. It’s winter here on Earth, but on springtime on Mars:
(The distance between Earth and Mars varies, but today — 12.21 — it’s a short 103 million kilometers away.)
Creating a Christmas Song from Scratch in Five Days:
America, Daily Bread, History, Space, Technology
Daily Bread for 7.20.24: Forever Impressive
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset 8:26 for 14h 50m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, during the Black Hawk War, Black Hawk leads approximately 700 Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo Indians through the juncture of the Yahara River and Lake Monona (then known as the Third Lake Passage) in present-day Madison. Black Hawk was fleeing the pursuing military.
On this day in 1969, Apollo 11‘s crew successfully made the first human landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Six and a half hours later, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.
When the lunar module landed at 4:17 p.m EDT, only 30 seconds of fuel remained. Armstrong radioed “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Mission control erupted in celebration as the tension breaks, and a controller tells the crew “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we’re breathing again.”
America, Daily Bread, Space, Technology
Daily Bread for 3.14.24: SpaceX’s Third Starship Launch
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday, Pi Day, in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 7:05 and sunset 7:01 for 11h 55m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge becomes the first national (federal) wildlife refuge in the U.S.:
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is a United StatesNational Wildlife Refuge (NWR), and part of the Everglades Headwaters NWR complex, located just off the western coast of North Hutchinson Island in the Indian River Lagoon east of Sebastian, Florida. The refuge consists of a 3-acre (12,000 m2) island that includes an additional 2.5 acres (10,000 m2) of surrounding water and is located off the east coast of Florida of the Indian River Lagoon. Established by an executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt on March 14, 1903, Pelican Island was the first National wildlife refuge in the United States.[3] It was created to protect egretsand other birds from extinction through plume hunting. The oldest government wildlife refuge of any kind in North America is the Lake Merritt Bird Refuge in Oakland, California. Oakland Mayor Samuel Merritt declared it a wildlife refuge for migrating birds in 1869. In 1870, the state of California designated Lake Merritt a state game refuge.
Today has begun as a gain for American technology, as SpaceX has conducted its third launch of Starship. Kenneth Chang and Michael Roston report Here is what to know about Thursday’s SpaceX launch:
SpaceX launched Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, on a journey part of the way around Earth. It was the rocket’s third test flight.
The nearly 400-foot-tall vehicle is being built to carry astronauts to the moon for NASA, and perhaps someday to send humans to Mars.
The vehicle flew twice last year from a SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Both flights ended within minutes, resulting in explosive events, providing useful data for SpaceX’s engineers as they aim to complete a full mission.
During this third trip, SpaceX is hoping to achieve a better performance for the rocket, reaching higher altitudes and perhaps even speeds that would be capable of carrying the vehicle to orbit.
Here’s what else you need to know about the flight:
- The launch began at 9:25 a.m. Eastern time, more than an hour into a 110-minute launch window that started at 8 a.m. Later starts during test flights are not uncommon. The company said it needed to clear boats from a safety zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and weather conditions did not prevent a liftoff.
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- The Starship system consists of two stages — the Super Heavy rocket booster and the upper-stage spacecraft, which is also called Starship. The company intends both to be fully reusable in the future.
The ship was likely lost well after launch, but for today, it was the launch and higher altitude that mattered (as they were the key hurdles of this phase of the project).
Tornado in northeast Kansas captured on video:
Dogs, Space
Record-Breaking Astronaut Reunited with Her Dog
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, City, Film, History, Science/Nature, Space
Apollo 11: NASA and Civilians Remember the Moon Landing
by JOHN ADAMS •
“It was a feeling that went throughout the world, almost like an electric bolt,” one woman remembers of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The lunar landing, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on July 20, is collectively remembered in the film by a handful of the 530 million people who watched the event live on national…
Science/Nature, Space
The Search for a Ninth Planet
by JOHN ADAMS •
Space, Technology
How Advanced Would Aliens Need to Be to Contact Earth?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Nature, Space
The Night’s Sky for October 2016
by JOHN ADAMS •
Science/Nature, Space
The End of Darkness
by JOHN ADAMS •
Science/Nature, Space
A Simulation of the Milky Way
by JOHN ADAMS •
At Caltech, they’ve published a video simulation of the Milky Way: Animation of our Milky Way galaxy based on a detailed supercomputer simulation. The movie zooms in and out of the galaxy, showing what it would look like in visible wavelengths. Blue regions are young star clusters which have blown away the gas and dust…