Biking to the Moon

As you watched October’s first Full Moon rise last night, the Full Moon closest to the northern autumnal equinox, you were probably asking yourself, “How long would it take to bike to the Moon?” Sure, Apollo 11 astronauts made the trip in 1969, from launch to Moon landing, in about 103 hours or 4.3 days. But the Moon is 400,000 kilometers away. This year, the top bike riders in planet Earth’s well-known Tour de France race covered almost 3,500 kilometers in 21 stages after about 87 hours on the road. That gives an average speed of about 40 kilometers per hour and a lunar cycling travel time of 10,000 hours, a little over 416 days. While this bike rider’s destination isn’t clear, his journey did begin around moonrise on September 27 near Cleeve Hill, Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham, UK. via NASA https://ift.tt/3kY6n4S

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How Bob Dylan Turned David Remnick on to Serious Reading by Unknown Author

By Unknown Author

“He’d mention Allen Ginsberg and I’d discover ‘Howl’ for a nickel at a secondhand sale. He’d mention T.S. Eliot and I’d discover ‘The Waste Land.’”

Published: October 1, 2020 at 12:40PM

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The Feats and Failures of Jimmy Carter by David Greenberg

By David Greenberg

In a new biography, “His Very Best,” Jonathan Alter offers an authoritative introduction to a president who has been largely neglected by biographers.

Published: October 1, 2020 at 12:13PM

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The Postal Service Needs Fixing. Here’s How It Could Happen. by Zach Montague

By Zach Montague

Even as it becomes a focus of debate in a sharply partisan election year, the agency is crippled by economic forces outside its control. But a number of proposals, new and old, could chart a path forward.

Published: October 1, 2020 at 11:49AM

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On Long Island, a Beachfront Haven for Black Families by Sandra E. Garcia

By Sandra E. Garcia

In the 1930s, a group of trailblazing African-Americans bought plots for themselves in Sag Harbor, establishing a close-knit community that’s spanned multiple generations.

Published: October 1, 2020 at 08:00AM

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With His New Mystery Novel, John Banville Kills Off a Pen Name by Charles McGrath

By Charles McGrath

“Snow” would normally have been published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, but Banville says he doesn’t need that “rascal” anymore.

Published: October 1, 2020 at 05:00AM

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Solis Lacus: The Eye of Mars

As telescopes around planet Earth watch, Mars is growing brighter in night skies, approaching its 2020 opposition on October 13. Mars looks like its watching too in this view of the Red Planet from September 22. Mars’ disk is already near its maximum apparent size for earthbound telescopes, less than 1/80th the apparent diameter of a Full Moon. The seasonally shrinking south polar cap is at the bottom and hazy northern clouds are at the top. A circular, dark albedo feature, Solis Lacus (Lake of the Sun), is just below and left of disk center. Surrounded by a light area south of Valles Marineris, Solis Lacus looks like a planet-sized pupil, famously known as The Eye of Mars . Near the turn of the 20th century, astronomer and avid Mars watcher Percival Lowell associated the Eye of Mars with a conjunction of canals he charted in his drawings of the Red Planet. Broad, visible changes in the size and shape of the Eye of Mars are now understood from high resolution surface images to be due to dust transported by winds in the thin Martian atmosphere. via NASA https://ift.tt/33jtLUp

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