How Illuminating

Two sources of light

sun risen in its brightness

moon as yet unset

Professor Julius Sumner Miller had a captive TV audience many years ago as he talked us through all manner of scientific conundrums with his signature “Why is it so?” To me, it feels wrong somehow that the sun and moon can both be visible in the sky at the same time. It’s either day or night, so for all intents and purposes we should have one or the other, and my natural inclination reverts to “Why is it so?”

I understand basically how it all works on an intellectual level, with revolutions and rotations and orbits around the sun and seasonal changes in the angle of the tilt of the earth etc etc, but when you get up just as the sun is emerging over the horizon, then find the moon still high in the western sky and obviously not going to be below the horizon of the Western Tiers for another few hours, it seems odd. Well, to me it does, but then I never have been particularly knowledgeable when it comes to the fine detail of such phenomena. So off I went to Mr Google to enlighten me and spent the next hour or so perusing charts of sunrise and sunset times, moon phases and rising and setting times, sounds boring but actually it was quite fascinating.

We’re in the waning gibbous phase of the moon at the moment, I knew it was waning but gibbous was a new one on me, and I was intrigued to discover that by the time the next new moon is scheduled on March 18^th, not only will the sun rise around 7.30am and set at 8pm, the moon will be rising and setting at roughly the same time. Now how weird is that. Of course, we won’t be able to see the moon at that stage, but it’s there all the same, and the next day it will move into the waxing phase where it once more begins to gradually appear in the night sky on its way to being a Blue Moon on March 31^st, being the second full moon of the month.

The sun and moon have long been used as metaphors and imagery in songs, poems and literature. Our moods and physical well-being can be affected by them, the werewolves need them so they know the right time to go on the rampage, festivals are scheduled to coincide with them, and enthusiasts and scientists worldwide watch their every move to further understand their fascinating properties and anomalies.

And last but not least, our very planet depends on them, for without them we’d not only be in the dark, but along with every other living organism on earth we’d fade away and curl up our toes quick smart.