Saturday: The CWU Pumpkin Drop is this weekend. Register and drop off your decorated pumpkin to Discovery Hall, room 302 on the CWU campus (https://www.cwu.edu/map). If you don’t have any decorating ideas or materials, show up to Discovery Hall at 2:00 to purchase a pumpkin and decorating supplies. All funds collected go to support the organizing clubs’ activities, outreach and fund scholarships.
Sunday: What’s big and orange and goes “splat”? A pumpkin
participating in the CWU annual Pumpkin Drop. The 2022 Pumpkin Drop &
Trashcano Event will be held today beginning at 12 pm noon and ending when the
last trashcano erupts and the last pumpkin falls! The event features
trashcanoes erupting on the north side of Discovery Hall and pumpkins being
dropped from the roof on the south side of Discovery Hall.The Pumpkin Drop and
Trashcano event is an annual fundraiser sponsored by CWU’s Society of Physics
Students (SPS), Astronomy and Geology clubs. All funds collected go to support
club activities, outreach and fund scholarships. There are many opportunities
to actively participate or passively enjoy. There is a special planetarium show
following the event. Go to http://www.cwu.edu/physics/PumpkinDrop
for more information about the entire event.
Monday: Last week, you learned how to find 40 Eridani A.
Today is Halloween. If you need costume ideas for Halloween, look to 40 Eridani
A, a popular presence in science fiction. Vulcan, Mr. Spock’s home planet in Star
Trek, orbits it. Two main planets in the Dune Universe orbit it. If you are
interested in recent science fiction, the main alien character in Andy Weir’s
new book Project Hail Mary comes from a planet that orbits 40 Eridani. Weir,
also author of The Martian, is known to use a lot of actual science in his
books. The planet in the book shares many characteristics with the actual
planet orbiting 40 Eridani, discovered in 2018. For more about 40 Eridani in
fiction, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction#40_Eridani.
Tuesday: Happy Celtic New Year! Many historians think that
November 1, known for the festival of Samhain, was the ancient Celtic New
Year’s Day. Samhain, Old Irish for “summer’s end”, was a harvest festival that
may have contributed to some of the customs of our current “holiday” of
Halloween.
Wednesday: At 7:00 p.m., the moon is in the middle of three
bright objects in the south-southeastern sky. Jupiter is three fists to the
left of the moon, Saturn is one and a half fists to the right of the moon, and
the bright star Fomalhaut is one and a half fists below the moon.
Thursday: Did you know that moons and dwarf planets can
share similar features? The five largest moons of Uranus have the same heat
signatures as the largest dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris. That means they
are relatively dense and don’t immediately radiate away all of their
daytime-absorbed heat at night. Read more about Uranian moons at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/uranian-moons-are-like-dwarf-planets/.
Friday: Mars is four and a half fists above the
west-southwest horizon at 7:00 a.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information
about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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