If you were in the continental United States on August 21st, and if you looked skyward during the day, would would have been greeting by a “once in a lifetime” sight: the new moon, passing over the face of the sun, casting a chilling and uncanny shadow over the face of the Earth
What you have witnessed is a solar eclipse. The great wolf has swallowed the sun! The serpent of days has done battle with the gods! The end of days is upon us!
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| Photo courtesy of NASA |
Rather, the eclipse is the result of a Syzygy, the conjunction of three celestial bodies in a line. In the case of the 2017 solar eclipse, the Earth, Sun, and Moon moved into syzygy with the Moon in the middle. In the case of a lunar eclipse, the Earth would take the center position in the syzygy, casting its shadow on the face of the full moon.
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| Photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Times |
Syzygies do not happen solely in the Sun-Earth-Moon system though. From time to time, if you observe the sky carefully, you might be treated to a syzygy of multiple bright planets with Earth. The results are always lovely to observe, and if your interests include astrology as well as astronomy, let us at Floodmark know what it means for these planets to be “aligned”!
Prompt:
Consider chance encounters in your life that might not necessarily occur between celestial objects. Have you ever been in syzygy with other people? Consider the mythologies that surround astronomical events. What sort of folklore surrounds eclipses and planetary alignments? And if you witnessed the 2017 solar eclipse over North America, what did you experience? Put pen to paper, and as always, we at Floodmark would love to hear from you!
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| Read more from Vernon Meidlinger-Chin on Floodmark |
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