It's Welcoming Week! KRCL’s Tamrika Khvtisiashvili talks with Women of the World on the plight of Ukrainian women and children. Plus, Bring Home Happiness Pet Adoption, Great Salt Lake Community Anthology, SL County Parks & Rec.
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March’s Full Moon is known as the Worm Moon in the Traditional Farmer’s Almanac. It was believed that this is the time of year that the earthworms appear as the soil starts to warm up.
Some ancient astronomers believed the dark areas of the moon were bodies of water and therefore named them seas and even oceans. We now know that these areas are lava fields. There was volcanic activity over a billion years ago in these areas. The volcanic material has a higher iron concentration than the material in the highlands. This material is less reflective and looks darker. We also know that the volcanic activity resulted more recently than the creation of the Moon, because there are fewer craters in these areas. It is believed that the volcanic material covered over the older craters.
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The most famous of all star clusters is the Pleiades Cluster, better known as the Seven Sisters. This beautiful group of stars lies in the constellation Taurus the Bull.
To the casual observer, the Pleiades appear as a tight formation of 6 or 7 stars in the shape of a little dipper. However, under dark sky conditions, observers have reported as many as 11. In fact, the cluster contains hundreds of stars. The cluster lies at a distance of 425 light-years. Compared to our Sun the stars that form the Pleiades are only 100 million years old.
The stars are surrounded by a faint nebulosity that appears blue in long photographic exposures. The nebulosity is seen by reflected starlight from the cluster members. Alcyone is the central star of the group and the brightest member. It’s 10 times the size of the Sun.