Spring Astronomy Day 2024 is on Friday, May 10, 2024: High level Astronomy help.?

Friday, May 10, 2024 is Spring Astronomy Day 2024. Zenfolio Every Spring AAS participates in Astronomy Day which is hosted by UMD.

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High level Astronomy help.?

Crazy question.

Because we are not given the relative masses of the 2 planets.

On earth, a "spring" tide is tied to the equinoxes, which we have because the earth's axis is tilted from the vertical.

We have no info on this planets axial tilt.

So this planet would not have spring tides.

We have 2 high tides each day the one on the side nearer the moon being 6% higher that the other.

That would happen on the planet in the question.

A higher tide would occur when both moons were aligned on the same of the planet.

Kepler's 3rd law :

The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit

Moon be would take 8 times as long to make an orbit = 256 days.

There would a spring tide on the day you arrive (2 new moons) and another 128 days later (2 full moons)

So the answer is 2.

I'm sure the answer your teacher wants is just 1.

But the high tides due to new moons are equal to the high tides due to a full moon.

Greek Astronomy influencing religion and culture?

Greek Astronomy influencing religion and culture?

In a sense yes, since they employed an astronomical calendar.

If you read Hesiod's Works and Days C8th B.C., you can see that ancient, illiterate farmers looked to the rising and setting of constellations to tell what time of the year it was and when to plough, plant and harvest the crops. Sailors also looked to the stars for navigation -- the Greeks used Ursa Major as a reference point.

The stars were also believed to be responsible for certain seasonal weather phenomena -- e.g. the rising of the Hyades was the harbringer of spring rain, the rising of the Altar brought winter storms.

In religious matter, the year was divided into lunar months, each month measured by the arrival of the new moon. Religious festivals were timed to these, e.g. the festival of Apollo on the 4th of the month, i.e. the 4th day after the new moon.

Certain festivals like the Olympic Games were held once every Great Year (=4 ordinary years). A Great Year was defined by the Greeks as the period where lunar months coincide with solar years (roughly at least), e.g. in a standard year its 12 and a fraction, but 50 lunar months = about 4 solar years.

Why is there a "groundhog day"? What is its significance?

Why is there a "groundhog day"? What is its significance?

Groundhog Day may seem like a newfangled ceremony — what with Punxsutawney Phil living in a climate-controlled environment in the town library (where he is fed dog food and ice cream) and being transported once a year to Gobbler's Knob where tuxedo-clad gentlemen await his exit from a heated burrow at 7:25 a.m. on February 2 and bend down respectfully to receive his meteorological prognostications and convey them to a breathless media and an attentive world...

But, in truth, the roots of Groundhog Day go way back. Consider this entry from the diary of a shopkeeper named James Morris, of Morgantown, Pennsylvania:

February 4, 1841 — "...Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate." (From the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College.)

Go back further, and you'll come across Imbolc, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (one of the year's cross-quarter days). It is celebrated nowadays on February 1 or 2, and it is a festival of light reflecting the lengthening days and the coming of spring. In fact, in the Irish calendar, Imbolc is the first day of spring. This correlates nicely with the belief that the lack of a shadow on that day indicates the end of winter (cloudy, overcast skies often come together with milder temperatures).

The groundhog, a brownish, short-legged, heavyset cousin of the squirrel, is a hibernating animal that lives in burrows. Its other name is woodchuck, which inspired the famous tongue twister: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The traditional answer is: A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. But a more practical piece of information came from wildlife expert Richard Thomas, quoted in The Wall Street Journal. He calculated that the average groundhog moves approximately one square meter (35 cubic feet), or 320 kilograms (700 pounds), of dirt when digging a burrow.

On February 2, groundhogs by any name will take a break from their burrowing and their hibernating, and check the ground to see whether winter is on its last gasp or still going strong. And thanks in part to the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, many of us will be waiting to find out.

Recommended Sites:

The official site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club

The site of Wiarton Willie, the Canadian counterpart of Punxsutawney Phil

One groundhog's blog

Why Groundhog Day is really based on Chinese astronomy

Punxsutawney Phil's 2006 prediction

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