Leap Second--Don't Wait Up For It!

11:59:60

So I was listening to an astronomy podcast and they talked about the leap second. What?!? That got my attention. 

This is a leap year, so I know that we have a February 29 this year. That's because the earth's orbit is 365.242199 days, so we have to add an extra day every four years. (Like how I have those extra decimal places? Let me tell ya, I'm feeling like a mighty proud geek right now!)

But I sure haven't heard of a leap second before. Apparently the earth's rotation isn't exactly the same all the time. Earthquakes, melting of ice sheets, and unknown factors can cause the earth to rotate at slightly different speeds. Our time system was based on measuring the amount of time from the sun's zenith (high point) one day to the sun's zenith the next. That time is 24 hours, which is divided into 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per hour. 

Then along came some people who needed (or wanted?) to measure time more exactly, hence the atomic clock, which uses atoms and measures wavelengths to determine time. So now we have a problem with this ultra precise time measuring system not jiving with what the earth is actually doing. 

Some super-smart people decided that the thing to do would be to add (or subtract) a second when necessary. This year, we need to add a second. So at the end of June, instead of the clock going from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, it will go from 11:59:59 to 11:59:60 to 12:00:00. 

Of course something like changing time is a little controversial, which you can read about here, along with a whole lot more info about leap seconds. It will take a little longer than a second to read, so you'll have to decide if it's worth the time we'll be gaining.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We haven't had any elaborate preparations for Valentine's Day, but with a rainy afternoon yesterday, it was the perfect time to pull out the construction paper, glue, scissors, and crayons so the kids could make valentines for their preschool friends.

Oh yes, we also had to get out the paleta sticks. (Paleta means popsicle in Spanish, and the kids learned the word first in Spanish, so that's how they remember it, kind of cute.) Desert Boy was so excited to use the paleta sticks for a project. Desert Girl was delighted to play with glue. She didn't really produce anything except a mess, but she was happy.

Hope you have Feliz Dia de San Valentin!

Central Great Basin Running Races

Ready to stretch your legs? Then it's time to head to the Central Great Basin for some running races!

Saturday, February 25 is the Wild Goose Chase in Delta, Utah. It's part of the annual Snow Goose Festival, which celebrates the migrating snow geese that enjoy the fields around Delta and then often overnight on the reservoir. The race is a 5K and 10K run or walk that goes right along the reservoir for part of the route. Sign up by February 24 for discounted price.

Sunday, June 17 is the Snake Valley Slither, a 5K race with beautiful views of Great Basin National Park and the surrounding area. You can enjoy some of the Snake Valley Festival before the race. The website still has info from 2011, but the 2012 version should be up soon.

Ready to try something longer? Head over to Cave Lake for Ely, Nevada's first half-marathon, Take It To The Lake Half Marathon. Run 13.1 miles in a beautiful setting. A kids' one-mile run will also be part of the event.

Know of any other Central Great Basin races? I'd like to know!

Night Skies

A number of events have recently converged to make me want to be more of a night owl. Not because I want to go chasing mice or go swooping through the air (although that certainly does hold appeal from time to time), but because I want to spend more time gazing up at our wonderful night skies.

I've always appreciated the wonderful night skies out in the middle of the Great Basin. Driving for over an hour to get anywhere means we don't have much light pollution, and since our elevation is nearly a mile high, the atmosphere is thinner and the stars that much clearer. But appreciation is a little different than understanding, and I'm finding that now I really want to understand what's out there in that big, black abyss.

Maybe it's partly due to listening to Douglas Adams' A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book I remember reading in my teenage years. Listening to it recently made me roll with laughter and applaud his creative genius. Perhaps I'm more interested in the night skies because I've been finding out more about the nearby Astronomy Festival at Great Basin National Park this summer June 14-16 (which happens to coincide with the Snake Valley Festival June 15-17--a good time visit the area). Or maybe my curiosity is piqued by some Astronomy magazines I found, which show some outstanding photographs. They also contain some fascinating language that make me scratch my head:

black holes (are there red holes? blue holes? red holes? white holes?)
light years (are there heavy years? sound years?)
dark matter (what about light matter? obscure matter? transparent matter?)
extragalactic (would you like some fries with that? how about supergalactic?)
spiral galaxy (which way does it circle? Is it like toilets spiralling in different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres?)
white dwarf (okay, this isn't discrimination, right?)

Now that I have all you who actually know something about astronomy shaking your heads and hoping that I switch hobbies immediately, let me tell you, no, you can't get rid of me that easily. I think I'm going to try to wrap my head around this. After all, it's just a little creepy to look out at all those points of light in the night sky and think about someone on some other planet orbiting one of those little lights looking back at us. A good kind of creepy. A kind of creepy that puts me in my place and makes my worries seem pretty miniscule. And the huge dimensions of the universe are making my head want to bulge out until it has to be contained in an ever-enlarging galaxy. (Okay, astronomers, how many other basic principles did I just mix up in this paragraph?)

So in addition to the magazines and a couple of books, another place I've been gathering some astronomy information is from podcasts. One I particularly like is 365 Days of Astronomy. They have a podcast every day, usually about 10-15 minutes long (which is great for my attention span). The podcasts began in 2009, which was designated as the Year of Astronomy (you remember that, right?), and has continued since then. They're slowly running out of material, which means that they are replaying the best podcasts again, calling them encores. That's good for me! Two podcasts I particularly liked were on February 3, about what to look at in the night sky, and February 5, about space travel in science fiction (remember The Millenium Falcon or "Beam Me Up, Scotty?")

 Listening to the podcasts has made me go out and find Mars, which is in the photo above to the left of the moon. My night photography skills have a long way to go, but you can expect to see more night sky photos--and little bits of astronomy added to this blog from time to time. I won't become an astronomer over night--or even over several nights as I rarely am able to stay awake past 9 p.m., but hopefully little by little I can start understanding what exists beyond our rotating blue orb.

Feel free to share other good astronomy links, your thoughts on the night skies, or what star you'd like to visit in the comments.

Newcomers

 Desert Girl isn't the only one celebrating a birthday in recent days. We've been welcoming lots of new calves on the ranch. These calves are born to heifers, first-time mama cows. And they are absolutely darling!

The ones in these photos are a few days old. They've been moved from the circle field, where they were born, to a different meadow, which I drive through twice a day. That means there's lots of time for oohing and aahing.

 It looks like this calf and heifer are sniffing each other to make sure they've found each other okay.

 This heifer and calf are giving me a dirty stare. I guess they wanted a little more privacy.

The calves love to play and go running all over. I can just imagine these heifers trying to figure out where their little one has run off to.

We've had a really mild winter so far, so that's making these new calves have an easy welcome into the world. We're hoping they continue to do well. If you want to see more about cows on the ranch, just click on the cows label below, and you'll see lots more posts.