<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With a couple of notable Lunar events taking place in March, let us start this AstroCal by focusing on our neighbor.\u00a0 The <\/span>Full Moon <\/b>will take place on March 14 and bears the curious name of <\/span>The Worm Moon<\/b>.\u00a0 It is so named because this month, \u201c<\/span>the earthworms start to appear in the soil<\/span><\/i> which finally warms up after the cold winter season.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 With our location along the south shore of Lake Superior (for those of us living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), you will full understand why the preceding explanation has been <\/span>italicised<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Our earthworm population and the robins they attract as a harbinger of spring usually don\u2019t make their appearance until sometime in April.\u00a0 It all depends on how fast the warmer weather arrives and how long it takes the accumulated snow mass to melt.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Other cultures use various names to describe the same Full Moon, among them:\u00a0 Sleepy Moon (Chinese), Moon of Winds (Celtic), Chaste Moon (Wicca), Windy Moon (Cherokee) and the Harvest or Corn Moon in the Southern Hemisphere (who will be entering their Fall season).<\/span><\/p>\n The term <\/span>Blood Moon<\/b> can also be applied this March as there will be a <\/span>Total Lunar Eclipse<\/b> that will cause the Full Moon to appear deep red in color for about an hour between 1 a.m and 3 a.m. EDT on March 14.\u00a0 This will be the last Blood Moon visible for all of North America until 2048.\u00a0 With this Full Moon taking place at apogee, the point in the Moon\u2019s orbit farthest away from the <\/span>Earth<\/b>, it will appear 5.4 percent smaller than an average Full Moon.\u00a0 In this case, it will be known as a \u2018micromoon\u2019.\u00a0 Look for the <\/span>New Crescent Moon<\/b> low in the wester sky on March 1 at the same time it will be at Perigee (224,914 miles from Earth).\u00a0 The <\/span>First Quarter Moon<\/b> will take place on March 6, the <\/span>Last Quarter Moon <\/b>on March 22 and the Moon will be at Apogee on March 30..\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The <\/span>New Moon<\/b> of March 29th will also see a deep partial solar eclipse during which 94 percent of the sun will be covered by the Moon.\u00a0 This should be partially visible in the Northeastern United States.\u00a0 The Lunar and Solar eclipses mark the beginning of what is known as \u2018eclipse season\u2019.\u00a0 The Moon\u2019s orbit is tilted in relation to the Earth \/ Sun plane.\u00a0 As a result, the only two\u00a0 times of the year eclipses can happen are when the plane of the Moon\u2019s orbit crosses the Earth \/ Sun plane.\u00a0 This tilt also regulates when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are in the proper alignment for a Solar Eclipse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0March planetary viewing will still be dominated by <\/span>Venus.<\/b>\u00a0 Low in the SW sky after sunset and shining at Mag -4.1, it will be the second brightest object in the night sky after the Full Moon (mag -10.2).\u00a0 Venus begins the month at a 14 percent phase and this will drop to 5 percent as it approaches inferior conjunction on March 22.\u00a0 At this time, Venus will be just 8.4 degrees north of the Sun.\u00a0 Our viewing challenge for March 20 is to see if you can see Venus very low in the eastern sky just prior to sunrise and very low in the western sky after sun set.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Jupiter<\/b> continues to shine brightly in <\/span>Taurus, the Bull<\/b> while <\/span>Mars<\/b> can be seen 35 degrees east of Jupiter in <\/span>Gemini, the Twins.<\/b>\u00a0 Mars will pass just 4 degrees of <\/span>Pollux <\/b>on March 30.\u00a0 Look for <\/span>Mercury<\/b> low in the western sky in the first two weeks of the month.\u00a0 <\/span>Saturn<\/b> will not be visible when our view crosses the <\/span>Ring Plane <\/b>as it will be too near the Sun for us to see it.\u00a0 The last crossing took place in 2009 and the next one will occur in 2038-2039.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Other notable events for March will include the <\/span>Vernal (or Spring) Equinox <\/b>on at 5:01 EDT on March 20 and conjunctions for several planets.\u00a0 These include Saturn (Mar 12), Neptune (Mar 19), Venus (Mar 22), and Mercury (Mar 24).\u00a0 Our last challenge for the month will be to see if you can spot the<\/span> very <\/span>Young Crescent Moon<\/b> low in the western sky on March 30 just after sunset.<\/span> q`\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM 91.5 – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/<\/span>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime. Comments and questions can be emailed to kraisanen@oasd.k12.mi.us<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video – As long as we are talkin lunar events – we will let Cat sing about his\u00a0Moon Shadow . . .<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With a couple of notable Lunar events taking place in March, let us start this AstroCal by focusing on our neighbor.\u00a0 The Full Moon will take place on March 14 and bears the curious name of The Worm Moon.\u00a0 It is so named because this month, \u201cthe earthworms start to appear in the soil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3456,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions\/3456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}