If you enjoy reading this column in the Friday paper, today is a milestone of sorts. My column first ran in the Grand Haven Tribune on Friday Oct. 13, 2006, two years ago last week. This present column is the first of a third year running, and the 105th installment overall.
At my day job, it’s midterm exam time. As though the University community is collectively having a midlife crisis, students and professors are struggling through the give and take of exams and coming to grips with the reality of what each class is going to turn out to be.
Since I’m in an exam frame of mind, I’ve put together this week a midterm exam for my readers. So perk up, put a fine point on your favorite pencil, and get to work. Here are ten true or false questions covering the past two years of reading:
- The full moon always rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.
- Interstellar space — the space between the stars in our Milky Way galaxy — is almost perfectly transparent.
- Red stars like Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion are hotter than blue stars like Rigel, which also happens to be in Orion.
- It is sometimes possible to see the planet Venus high overhead in the middle of the night.
- At solar noon on the first day of summer in Grand Haven, a flagpole doesn’t cast a shadow because the sun is directly overhead.
- The North Star, or Polaris, is a special star because it is always nearly directly overhead.
- When the moon looks like a thin crescent early in a lunar month — when it looks like a cookie with a large bite chomped out of it — it appears this way because it is just slipping out from earth’s shadow.
- In early October, let’s say on the 10th, the sun sets exactly between the pier heads of the Grand River channel if you watch the sunset while sitting on the bench on the boardwalk across from Butch’s. If you go back to the same spot to watch the sun set a week or so later you will see the sun set a bit south of the south pier head.
- On a clear, dark night you can see with your naked eye almost a million stars.
- A ray of light does not travel from the sun to earth almost instantaneously — it takes about 8 minutes.
Wipe the sweat from your brow. It’s over. How did you do? I think I went easy on you. But I think that about almost every exam I give. Look for the answer key in next week’s column.
With that behind us, we can get back to what’s fun. This week the sky is dark both at night and in the early morning because the moon is edging toward new. It’s prime stargazing time, so get out and see what you can.
And thanks for reading. I’ve enjoyed writing these columns and look forward to getting your mind off the material world, at least briefly, in the weeks, months and years ahead.
This column originally appeared in the Grand Haven Tribune on 17 October 2008.
