There is going to be a special event this coming Monday. The planet Mercury will be passing between the Sun and the Earth. It's called a Mercury Transit, and it is a rare occurrence. The next time such an event will be visible from the United States will be 2049. There will be one in
Next Wednesday (January 23) two great resources will be coming together to help teachers and public librarians unite to create a wonderful summer experience for children all across the United States! STAR_Net, a resource for librarians who provide STREAM programming, is uniting with Infiniscope, a resource used by teachers to teach science concepts, especially
Happy New Year everyone! For anyone interested in space, space exploration, astronomy, and NASA, this year has begun with a bang! Just after the new year began on the east coast, the New Horizons successfully passed within 2,200 miles of the Kuiper Belt object named Ultima Thule, collected data, including great pictures which have already
Many people are aware that New Horizons will be taking pictures, and collecting data as it passes close by the Kuiper Belt object commonly known as Ultima Thule (2014 MU6) on January 1, 2019. It will be passing closer to Ultima Thule than it has come to any other object since it launched from
How do you decide if an event is a success? Usually the number of people in attendance is a good indicator, and one that the state wants us to report. But what if you only have three people from your intended audience attend? Can you still call that a successful
Indoor astronomy is a great way to light up the night! We recently did that, both figuratively and literally. I have done a fairly large number of astronomy programs in the past 5 or 6 years, both with and without the library's 8" Dobsonian telescope; both indoors and out. I want these programs to be
This will be the month to keep an eye on the moon. The largest full moon of 2018 occurred on January 1, and the second, and last super moon of this year will occur on January 31. Since it will also be the second full moon in a calendar month, it will be a blue
Here at Skokie Public Library, one of our favorite seasonal recurring events is our Stargazer Night program. While we first started these all-ages programs in the spring of 2015 in conjunction with an exploration of microcosms and macrocosms in our BOOMbox, we’ve continued offering 5 or 6 of these programs each year. Here’s what we
While we all know that the Sun is very big and very far away, its actual size and distance from Earth can be hard concepts to grasp. Many Solar System models that we see inaccurately display the relative size of the Sun compared to the planets, and almost all models inaccurately display the true distance
April was a good time for Astronomy programs, with the Lyrid Meteor Shower on Earth Day this year. We held two different programs in anticipation of the shower; one in the library, and one in a local county park. The program Meet a Meteor began with some meteor basics, including this "What's Up in April"
