A still shot from a webcam captures a meteor as it enters the atmosphere. (ThorntonWeather.com)
Anytime someone shares pics or video of a meteor in the Denver metro area, we check the Thornton Weather webcams to see if they caught it. As they only take a picture every minute, it is a very slim chance and they never had success – until last night!
This morning we saw a dashcam video from a Scott Cline who was traveling westbound / south on 285 (Hampden) near Federal. The video clearly showed a meteor falling nearly vertical. No big fireball but it was clear what it was.
We pulled up our images from our west facing webcam and as luck would have it, a picture taken at the same time caught the celestial entity entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Way cool!
Ashley Morrow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Coming soon for the first time in more than 30 years: you’ll be able to witness a supermoon in combination with a lunar eclipse. Late on Sept. 27, 2015, in the U.S. and much of the world, a total lunar eclipse will mask the moon’s larger-than-life face for more… Continue reading Shedding light on the rare Sept. 27 supermoon eclipse→
The first New Year's Eve blue moon in 19 years will shine on revelers this year. (NASA)
A relatively rare New Year’s Eve blue moon will be shining down on revelers as they ring in 2010. Blue moons are relatively common but it has been 19 years since one was coupled with December 31st and it will be another 19 years before another occurs.
Since the 1940s the term ‘blue moon’ has come to mean the second full moon in any given month. Full moons occur every 29.5 days so most years have 12 full moons. When the calendar aligns just right though, an ‘extra’ full moon can occur. The blue moon occurs every 2 years, 7 months so given its relatively infrequency, one can understand where the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ got its meaning.
That current definition of ‘blue moon’ actually came about as a mistake. The phrase itself has been around for at least 400 years. Prior to the 1940s the Maine Farmers’ Almanac tied the event to the seasons saying a blue moon was the fourth full moon in a season rather than the usual three. Its explanation however was entirely convoluted and difficult to understand.
In 1946 the magazine Sky & Telescope published an article titled “Once in a Blue Moon” and in it the author misinterpreted the almanac saying the “second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon.” This mistake caught on in modern folklore and continues to this very day.
