The thing we have to keep telling ourselves at this time of year is ‘the worst is over’. The shortest day is behind us, the nights are opening up, the light is coming back. The worst is over. The worst is over. It doesn’t feel like it – it feels like winter is still tightly closing around us, the event horizon of a looming black hole (Sorry Professor Hawking, I didn’t get past chapter 3). But it is an astronomical fact that the shortest day falls on what we humans call December 21st. We must cling to astronomical facts.
In fact this is the perfect time of year to while away a few hours helping making some astronomical facts. There’s this wonderful site called Galaxyzoo http://www.galaxyzoo.org/ where you can sit and categorise galaxies. The data is all pooled into a giant information resource about the stars all around us. So the project is no less than a crowd sourced classification of the universe, wee humans tapping away, sorting millions of galaxies squillions of lightyears away into different boxes. How fabulous is that? It’s the perfect winter project.
Not only that, but the worst is over. You see? You’d forgotten already.
Thanks for the reminder! I always breathe a sigh of relief come January 2. And even here in Virginia, where we’re also battling the (unusual) cold, I notice a little more light at the end of the afternoon. It’s a hopeful sign. Buon anno a tutti!
To Cathy and family. I absolutely depend on the days getting longer after December 21st. Strangely, they seem to take longer to lengthen than to shorten and then in the summer, I don’t think about it for several months.
- an amateur Astronomer at the 40th N. parallel