Word: orbiter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some scientific discoveries are made because they were theoretically predicted and diligently looked for. Such was the discovery of the planet Pluto whose existence and probable orbit were indicated by irregularities in the orbits of other planets. So, too, deuterium (heavy hydrogen) was identified because its discoverer already had intimations of its existence, and the positive electron was foreshadowed in the cogitations of at least one mathematician before its track turned up in the laboratory. In fact, some things are made use of even before they are discovered - e.g., the little uncharged particle called the neutrino which atomic physicists need...
Widens its yellow orbit to the night...
...Korff of the Carnegie Institution reported that the eclipse lasted ten seconds longer than the computations called for, and a Japanese savant declared that it began ten seconds later than expected. The fault is not with human mathematics, but with a mysterious wobbling of the moon from its orbit...
Total solar eclipses occur on the average about once every 18 months somewhere on earth. Any given spot should have one once every 360 years. The size of the shadow and hence the rapidity with which it passes a given point vary because, the earth's orbit around the sun and the moon's orbit around the earth being elliptical, the earth-sun and earth-moon distances vary. For a long eclipse, the sun must be near its maximum swing of over 94,000,000 miles (mean distance: 92,900,000 mi.) and the moon near its minimum...
Another factor affecting totality duration is that the shadow travels slowest at noon, fastest near the beginning and end of the eclipse day. Earth rotates eastward at about 1,040 m.p.h. at the Equator. The moon's eastward orbit carries the lunar shadow in the same direction at just about twice that speed, so that it rapidly overtakes the terrestrial rotation. At noon, when the shadow is perpendicular, the speed is 1,060 m.p.h.; earlier and later, when the cone of darkness impinges at an angle, it goes faster-depending on the acuteness of the angle...