Ephemeris: 04/22/2024 – Earth Day, support your local planet!

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Earth Day, Monday, April 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 8:37, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:44. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:28 tomorrow morning.

Earth Day was established in 1970, 2 years after William Anders in Apollo 8 took a picture of the Earth rising over the desolate moon, the Earth, a blue white oasis, in a hostile universe. I say support your local planet, there is no Planet B in case you messed this one up. Elon Musk wants to make the human race multi-planetary, which is a fine idea over time. It may take over a century to make any kind of Mars Base self-sustaining, if ever. I can’t see how we can terraform Mars, that is make Mars earth-like, because of lack of material. Mars probably was earth-like in its early days, but it has no magnetic field. Any large atmosphere it had when it had oceans has long been stripped away by the solar wind. It is here that we must make our stand!*

* Paraphrasing Carl Sagan “Pale Blue Dot”.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Earthrise photographed by William Anders from Apollo 8 on December 24th 1968 as they were moving, in orbit, around from the far side of the Moon. Credit: NASA, William Anders.