It's Dark

News Flash: It's almost 8 PM in the DC metropolitan area. And it's dark. The good news is that the days are getting slowly longer as we wend our way toward summer solstice. Which, ironically in the northern hemisphere, happens when the earth is farthest from the sun each year. That's a good trick question to ask people: "In the summer are we in the northern hemisphere closer to the sun or farther from the sun than in the winter on our annual trek around our nearest star?" Another good related question is "What is the star nearest the earth?"

Speaking of astronomical trivia (right up there in the preceding paragraph), I have a calendar where every day when you rip off the date, there is a new trivia question to try. Last week one of the questions was something like, "Besides the sun and the moon, what is the only other celestial object that casts a shadow on earth?" The answer was Venus. But that got me to thinking. Shadows are in the eye of the beholder, and if you had a sensitive enough instrument, I bet its "eye" (sensor) might be able to detect a shadow cast by some other celestial things. Plus (I know from my days as an oceanographer) the pelagic (look it up) zooplankton in the ocean respond to starlight by moving up and down in the water column. So, they must sense something there, and would sense the absence of that "something" (light) if some large object got in the way. Casting a shadow.

Eye of the beholder! Like a lot of other things. Beauty. Art. Truth. God.

Something to think about on a dark winter's night. Or not - depending on your viewpoint.