This year’s harvest moon will be this Wednesday and I felt it necessary to explain why it’s called a Harvest Moon. I’ve always known why, because of the Little House on Rocky Ridge (the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter Rose). But I’ve found not many people know the real reason.

You can read the astronomical reason why this happens at space.com, but the full moon in the fall is very bright. It’s bright enough that it allow(ed) farmers to continue their harvesting well into the night. Thus Harvest Moon.
And yes, this would be the Farm part of urbanfarmgirl.

This summer we have suffered two great astronomical losses.  First, James Van Allen passed away.  I never met Van Allen, although I did take a few astronomy classes.  Prof. Spangler gave me a great appreciation for Van Allen though.  Van Allen was a great man and helped pave the way for the United States space program.  Even the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy website is mourning the loss of Van Allen (it’s usually white).

The other loss is Pluto.  Pluto is no longer considered a planet.  I can recall discussing this with Karla and Prof. Spangler in class once.  Someone asked if it would ever happen and (if I recall correctly) it was doubted to happen this soon.  While this is somewhat serious because every 10 year old is going to be VERY confused, part of me is also laughing because it’s no longer mvemjsnup, now it’s just mvemjsnu (yes this is a Saved by the Bell reference).  You can now proceed to groan at me for being a dork.

My friend Karla and I have been taking astronomy the past two semesters to meet our science requirements for our computer science majors. We recently requested images of M87. In class Monday, our teacher showed one of our images that he worked on to show the black hole. Once you see the black hole, you can see the jet stream coming out of it.

Back before the semester started, I wrote about the paper model of Cassini Spacecraft. After four long weeks, mostly filled of homework and class, I am proud to announce that I have completed the model. It now resides on my desk at work and I proudly show it to all that I think would enjoy it.
I will try to take a picture of it soon to show to you all.

Well, I have my weekend planned out for me. I was thinking I was going to finish my book on the Gospel of Thomas. Something wholesome and good for me. But then Dan found this paper model of the Cassini Spacecraft that is at Saturn currently. First we found the three page model and I decided I would make it. Then he found the Challenging Model. Six pages of parts and fourteen pages of instructions. I didn’t even bother printing the directions, at least not for now. But I am so making these models this weekend. And they’re going to be beautiful!