Good Morning Gloucester

1) Celestial Pin Ball continues tonight with Venus practically slamming into Jupiter in the western sky over Cape Ann just after sunset. I posted about it here and here.

But we live in New England so we have missed the approach of Venus in the past week except for a glimpse and tonight right before they come into view we will leave this slice of clear air and clouds will again block our view. Try and get a glimpse because it is the closest aproach of these two planets in 2,000 years. What happened 2,000 years ago? That’s right. Some people say that the combo of the two brightest objects in the sky (besides sun and moon), was the Star of Bethlehem.

If you do catch a peak, check them out with binoculars and consider the fact you are looking at an inner planet as a crescent and a giant outer planet with four moons visible. Be one with the universe.

2) For science geek awesomeness it does not get any better than tonight at midnight 23:59:60 which will be followed by 24:00:00. How can that be? Those are the same exact times! But this is how those sneaky scientists wedge an extra leap second into today. So pour yourself another drink because today is longer than any other day of the year. Also pray that satellites and planes do not fall from the sky as computer systems worldwide add a second to their systems in different ways. Google is so freaked that they are going to do what they call a “leap smear” and spread the additional second over several minutes.

FYI: The leap second is added because the rotation of the earth is slowing and 1 PM would eventually become high noon. The leap second is also being added at midnight Greenwich Mean Time. That is 8 PM on Cape Ann so if you want to send a text message to your loved ones be sure you get it done before 7:59:59 tonight. Go out and look at the Star of Bethlehem instead.