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The Blue Moon And Neil Armstrong: A Cosmic Wink?
by Judy Molland
The next full moon will be on Friday, August 31, and will be quite special because it is the second within the calendar month. (The first one was on August 1.) This full moon is called a ‘blue moon,’ and will happen in the U.S. at 9:58 am EDT, or 6:58 am PDT.
The time between one full moon and the next is close to the length of a calendar month. So the only time one month can have two full moons is when the first full moon happens in the first few days of the month. That means a blue moon has come to mean something rare. In fact, the next blue moon won’t happen until July 2015.
Can there be two blue moons in a single calendar year? Yes. It last happened in 1999. There were two full moons in January and two full moons in March and no full moon in February. So both January and March had blue moons.
The next year of double blue moons is coming up in 2018.
But wait, there’s more!
There are two other definitions for blue moon. It can be the third of four full moons in a single season. The Old Farmer’s Almanac defined a blue moon as an extra full moon that occurred in a season. One season – winter, spring, fall, summer – typically has three full moons. If a season has four full moons, then the third full moon may be called a blue moon.
The next blue moon by this definition will fall on August 21, 2013.
Or you might actually see a blue-colored moon one day, but it’s pretty unlikely. Unusual sky conditions can create them as they did in 1883, when an Indonesian volcano named Krakatoa exploded. Plumes of ash rose to the very top of Earth’s atmosphere. And the moon turned blue. Some of the ash-clouds were filled with particles about 1 micron (one millionth of a meter) wide–the right size to strongly scatter red light, while allowing other colors to pass. White moonbeams shining through the clouds emerged blue, and sometimes green.
But don’t be misled by the photo above. The secret to photos like these lies in special photographic filters.
What does all this have to do with Neil Armstrong?
Friday, the day of the blue moon, is also the day of a private funeral service for Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, who died last Saturday in Ohio at age 82.
Serendipitous timing!
Armstrong’s family has suggested paying tribute to him by looking at the moon and giving the astronaut a wink.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-blue-moon-and-neil-armstrong-a-cosmic-wink.html#ixzz252JAxBKs
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FYI … American Progress
Ohio coal miners lost a day’s pay after they were forced to attend a Romney rally on a “mandatory and unpaid” basis. The mine is owned by a major Romney donor.
Mitt Romney wants consumers to waste an extra $1.7 TRILLION on gas.
The Romney campaign laughs off a reporter’s question about their false and discredited welfare attacks.
As Hurricane Isaac bears down on New Orleans, a Romney campaign co-chair complains that the media is “obsessed with mother nature.”
The fact-free Romney campaign.
The mayor of Los Angeles had some sharp words for the GOP on immigration.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is crying wolf on the Obama administration’s response to Hurricane Isaac.
Florida’s GOP voter suppression law brought voter registration to a standstill.
Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor backtracked on her criticism of Todd Akin after being told that Paul Ryan also tried to redefine rape: “I think there is a way to have a more forcible rape.”
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Posted on Aug 28, 2012 by technicalality
Queen Elizabeth II is cooler than any of us. She raises corgis, parachutes from planes with James Bond (sort of) and hangs out with some awesome girlfriends. Should we even keep trying?
Her Majesty took to the wheel in Balmoral over the weekend — home of the infamous corgis vs. Princess Beatrice’s terrier smackdown — rollin’ in a Range Rover on her way back from a grouse shoot. But instead of her trademark floral hats — much more customary for a royal — she slipped into some unusual headgear, wearing what appeared to be a grey-colored hoodie.
The 86-year-old queen usually scoots around in her chaffeured Bentley, so we’re surprised to see her gunning behind the wheel of a green Range Rover. But regardless… THAT HOODIE.
Now, we have to ask. Was the queen actually decked out in a hoodie, or was her headwear just a scarf pinned down with bobby pins (which we can sort of make out in the photos)? Judge for yourself.
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This Week’s Top 3 On ThinkProgress: The GOP Platform Edition
ThinkProgress has three important stories you may have missed:
1. GOP Approves ‘Most Conservative Platform In Modern History’
Best,
Igor Volsky Deputy Editor, ThinkProgress
Be a Seed for Change 
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