Blue moon set to rise on New Year’s Eve.

If you can take a break from all that New Year’s Eve revelry on Thursday, take a look up in the sky.

Behold, the blue moon.

For those expecting a slight blue hue encircling the moon, you might be a little disappointed.

“It won’t be blue at all - it’s just a saying,” said David Richey, associate director of the James S. McDonnell Planetarium at the St. Louis Science Center.

Richey explained that a blue moon occurs when there is two full moons in a calendar month. The first full moon of this month occurred on Dec. 2 and the next happens Thursday.

Blue moons happen every two years or so. The last was May 31, 2007 and the next will be in November 2010. And there won’t be any blue moons in 2011, 2014 and 2017.

“It’s fun to have it fall on New Year’s Eve, but it’s really just a function of how the calendar plays out,” Richey said.

No doubt, it will also be a boon for Molson Coors, the maker of the Belgian beer, Blue Moon.

For example, it appears Blue Moon is one of the sponsors of the New Year’s Eve bash at the Hyatt Regency in St. Louis.

In case you were wondering, the last blue moon that fell on New Year’s Eve happened in 1990. The next will be 2028.

Winter Solstice 2009

The mid December solstice marks the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21, 2009 at 12:47 PM EST and 17:47 UT (Universal Time).

In the Southern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice takes place on June 21, 2009 5:45 UT (Universal Time).

While the beginning of summer marks the longest day of the year, the winter solstice brings the shortest day - and the longest night! - of the year.

The reason for the different seasons in the two hemispheres is that while the earth rotates around the sun, it also spins on its axis, which is tilted some 23.5 degrees. Because of this tilt, the Northern Hemisphere receives less direct sunlight and the Southern Hemisphere receives more (and vice versa) depending on the season.

In the Northern Hemipshere, the gloomy winter solstice has been responsible for many symbols, ancient myths and religous beliefs over millennia.

In ancient Rome, the winter solstice was celebrated at the feast of Saturnalia, while in pre-christian Britain, the end of December centered around the pagan Yule log in a fiery display to melt the heart of a cold and dreary winter. Today, a similar response to winter doldrums is the celebration of Christmas by many cultures around the world complete with twinkling lights, holiday feasts & lively festivals.

To many pre-Christian culture, however, December was thought of as the most dreaded time of year, when the lack of heat and light and a limited supply of food spelled danger. The cold was stark and the darkness seemed perpetual.

Even today, modern science points to a mental disorder that is now officially recognized as SAD, or seasonal affective disorder that results in moodiness or depression during the winter months due to the lack of sunlight.

The cure? Turn up the wattage! — indeed, the use of artificial light is the only known treatment for SAD.

Yet as the old wise man once said, it truly is darkest before the dawn. After December 21, the light slowly begins its inevitable return, and the days begin to grow blessedly longer, flipping the switch to ON for the inevitable countdown to spring ...

A Great Year for Geminid Meteors

The strongest and most reliable meteor showers are the Perseids of August and December's Geminids. Balmy weather and summer vacations have made the Perseids well known and popular, but the Geminids are actually easier to view from mid-northern latitudes. For one thing, nights are much longer in December. And while the Perseids are best viewed just before dawn (as most showers are), you can easily get an eyeful of the Geminids during the evening hours.

This year the Moon will be nearly new when the Geminids peak on the night of December 13-14. The shower's radiant, the point in the sky from which they all seem to originate, is near Castor and Pollux. It's well up in the east by 9 or 10 p.m. and crosses near the zenith (for mid-northern observers) around 2 a.m.

The shower should peak around 5:00 Universal Time on the morning of the 14th, corresponding to midnight EST and on the 13th at 9 p.m. PST — excellent timing for North America and Western Europe. Under dark-sky conditions you might see as many as 120 medium-speed meteors per hour. (Light pollution reduces the numbers.) The shower is active to a lesser extent for at least a day or two beforehand and about one day after.

The Geminid meteor shower is extremely unusual in that its parent object isn't a comet. Instead, it's an asteroid, a chunk of rock roughly 3 miles across called Phaethon (pronounced FAY-uh-ton). How can an asteroid produce meteoroids? Nobody knows for sure. Many scientists believe that Phaethon is the core of a comet that's been baked completely dry. Maybe a smaller asteroid collided with it long ago. In any case, a ribbon of debris lines Phaethon's orbit.

Meteor watching couldn't be easier. Lie back in a reclining lawn chair, relax, and watch the sky overhead. Ideally, you want nothing but sky in your field of view — not trees, and certainly not the ground. That means that you should either lie flat on your back or recline so that you face at least 45° above the horizon. Also remember that December nights are cold at mid-northern latitudes. Normal winter clothing won't even come close to keeping you warm after you've been lying still for a couple of hours. The best solution is to use a sleeping bag. Second best is plenty of blankets over your warmest clothing. And don't forget a hat and gloves!

The arriving Geminids will cover the whole sky, so it doesn't really matter which way you're pointed. If you look straight at the radiant, you'll see meteors coming directly toward you, bright but with short trails. Look the opposite way, and you'll see lots of long meteors moving away from you.

Geminids - Location of the Geminids For Northern Hemisphere Observers

Location of the Geminids For Northern Hemisphere Observers

Observing the Geminids

This is one of the best meteor showers of the year and never seems to disappoint observers.

This meteor shower gets the name "Geminids" because it appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. An observer in the Northern Hemisphere can start seeing Geminid meteors as early as December 6, when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next week, rates increase until a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour is attained on the night of December 13/14. The last Geminids are seen on December 18, when an observer might see a rate of one every hour or so.

There are other, weaker meteor showers going on around the same time as the Geminids, but the best way to know if the meteor you see is a Geminid is to mentally trace the meteor backwards. If you end up at Gemini then you have probably seen a Geminid meteor.

Odyssey Orbiter Puts Itself Into Safe Standby

Artist concept of Odyssey Artist concept of Mars Odyssey.

Update:

As of Dec. 3, the Odyssey spacecraft resumed relay operations. Odyssey’s first task was to support a communications relay session for the Spirit rover. Science operations for the orbiter will resume on Dec. 4.

Mars Odyssey Mission Status Report

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode on Saturday, Nov. 28, and the team operating the spacecraft has begun implementing careful steps designed to resume Odyssey's science and relay operations within about a week.

Engineers have diagnosed the cause of the Nov. 28 event as the spacecraft's proper response to a memory error with a known source. The likely cause is an upset in the orbiter's "memory error external bus," as was the case with a similar event in June 2008.

In safe mode over the weekend, Odyssey remained in communication with ground controllers and maintained healthy temperatures and power. To clear the memory error, the team commanded Odyssey today to perform a cold reboot of the orbiter's onboard computer. The spacecraft reported that the reboot had been completed successfully.

"This event is a type we have seen before, so we have a known and tested path to resuming normal operations," said Odyssey Project Manager Philip Varghese of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001. In addition to its own major scientific discoveries and continuing studies of the planet, the Odyssey mission has played important roles in supporting the missions of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the Phoenix Mars Lander.

Until Odyssey is available again as a communications relay, Spirit and Opportunity will be operating with direct communications to and from Earth.