February/March 2001
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Nehemia Gordon from Jerusalem, Israel compiled the
following New Moon Reports.
February 2001 – On Saturday February 24, 2001 the New Moon was
first sighted at 17:38 by Yosi Gaber from Ramla; 17:41 from Ofra; 17:42 from
Petach Tikva; 17:46 by Magdi from Ashdod; 17:48 by Devorah from Jerusalem;
17:53 by Issac Sergani from Arad; 17:53 by Musa from Ofakim; and 17:56 from
Ma’alei Adumim. [The first day of the
Hebrew month Adar began at sunset on February 24, 2001].
The
next New Moon, which will begin the Hebrew month of Abib (Nisan), will most
likely be visible from Jerusalem near sunset on March 26. Sunset March 26, to sunset March 27, will
most likely be Abib 1. Abib 15 will
most likely occur on April 10 this year (sunset April 9, to sunset April
10). This is an interesting date on the
Gregorian Calendar when considering the astronomical events that occurred on
this date in 1996, 1997 and 2000. There
will be more on this in the soon upcoming April issue of Biblical
Astronomy.
Charts
189 and 190 show the position of the moon in the heavens as seen from Jerusalem
on the evening of March 26, at 22 minutes after sunset. The moon is in The Band in the sign Pisces
(the nation of Israel). Cetus (the
beast from the sea) is to the left of the moon. This is nowhere near as spectacular as last year’s Abib new moon
and surrounding celestial events, but may prove to be noteworthy.
Speaking
of the moon, in the January issue of Biblical Astronomy it was mentioned
that the Total Lunar Eclipse of January 9, amazingly fell on the same Hebrew
and Gregorian calendar dates as the Total Lunar Eclipse of January 9, 1 B.C.,
and both were very near the same celestial coordinate. I later took thought on the subject and
realized that any lunar eclipse falling on a particular Gregorian date (such as
January 9) will always be in the same or very near to the same coordinate. This is because the sun is always in the
same, or, very close to the same celestial coordinate every year on the same
solar or Gregorian date (such as during the Vernal Equinox). That coordinate slowly moves through the
constellations due to the precessional movement of the earth. The moon is 180 degrees from the sun during
a lunar eclipse, thus the moon will be very near or at the same celestial coordinate
on the same Gregorian date of any given year during an eclipse.
Also,
the moon is full in the middle of the Hebrew month, and it is also full during
an eclipse. So when the moon goes into
an eclipse, it is always on the 14th or 15th day of any
given Hebrew month. When there is an
eclipse on January 9, it will most likely fall (75% chance, depending on a 12
month or 13 month year on the Jewish calendar) on Tebet 14.
Other
than the total eclipses that fell on January 9, in 1 B.C. and 2001, there have
been 5 other total lunar eclipses that have occurred in the last 2,000 years on
the same Gregorian date or evening of January 9/10, which were visible from
Jerusalem. They were in the years 65,
456, 1042, 1544, and 1982. In the last
2,000 years there were only 2 partial lunar eclipses that fell on January 9/10
which were visible from Jerusalem, and they occurred in the years 540 and
1591. For the most part, the total
lunar eclipses that fell on January 9 were many years or centuries apart. But in the last 19 years there have been two
of them.
Charts
191 and 192 show the position of the moon during the total lunar
eclipse of January 9, 1982 as seen from Jerusalem at 9:54 p.m. JST. The position of the moon here is very close
to the same coordinate that it was on January 9, 2001 [Compare these charts to
Charts 183 and 184 in the January 2001 issue of Biblical Astronomy – the
constellation lines are in a different format but notice the position of the
moon compared to the location of the star Wasat]. Of course, this is to be expected. Also, January 9, 1982 was Tebet 14.
Mars and the star Antares in
the constellation Scorpius will come into conjunction on March 5, 2001. Charts 193 and 194 show the
positions of the Mars and Antares as seen from Jerusalem at 4:50 a.m. on March
5, 2001. Mars symbolizes Michael the
warrior angel and the word Antares [Ant-ares] literally means the rival
or enemy of Mars (ares is the ancient Latin for Mars). In the Arabic, Antares means the Wounding;
the emphasis being on the wounding of the enemy of the seed of the woman.
Mars
comes into conjunction with Antares about every 2 years. It was two days after the
Mars/Antares conjunction of November 2, 1995 that Prime Minister Rabin of
Israel was assassinated. It was two
days after the Mar/Antares conjunction of March 5, 2001 that Ariel Sharon
became Israel’s 11th prime minister (officially started his tour of
duty).
Another
interesting celestial event that is ongoing in the scorpion [Akrab is the
Hebrew name for the constellation which means the conflict or war]
is the brightening of the star Delta Scorpii or Dschubba, which is the
center star in the head of the scorpion.
See the article “Head of Scorpion Getting Brighter” in the August
2000 issue of Biblical Astronomy for previous information on this star.
The following article from a
February 6, 2001 news release by Sky & Telescope is an update on Dschubba.
Delta Scorpii’s Eruption Continues – “Last July the familiar head
of Scorpius took a new look as its middle star in the naked-eye row of Beta,
Delta, and Pi Scorpii near Antares. A
type-BO blue giant, Delta seemed to
be undergoing a Gamma-Cassiopeiae-type outburst.
It’s
still going on. Delta faded slightly by
the time it disappeared into the sunset late last fall, but when it emerged
into the dawn sky in late December, skywatchers found it still brighter than
normal. It has been back up to
magnitude 1.9 or 1.8 for the last couple of weeks.
If
Delta Scorpii is following in the venerable footsteps of Gamma Cassiopeiae (the
prototype of the Gamma Cas category of variables), it has an interesting future
ahead. Gamma Cas brightened from about
magnitude 2.25 to 1.6 in 1937 and remained near this peak for many months. It then dwindled to magnitude 3.0 during the
next three years, substantially fainter than it had ever been seen. It then took more than 15 years to brighten
back to normal. Both Delta Sco and
Gamma Cas are rapidly rotating Be stars evolving off
the main sequence and occasionally flinging mass from their equators.”
Charts
195 and 196 display the path of Venus from January 23, 2001 to June
10, 2001. Venus (the bright and morning
star) was, is, and will be in the constellation Pisces (the nation of Israel)
between the above given dates.
Throughout February, Venus shone with great brilliancy in the early
evening skies. Venus is in the midst of
a retrograde loop and will be at its eastern stationary position (on the left
side of the loop as seen in the charts) on March 9. Venus will be at its western stationary position (right side of
loop) on April 20. Venus will disappear
from the evening sky in late March and will reappear in the morning sky in
early April.
The
Russian space station Mir is shown on these charts in very near proximity to
Venus on June 10. The space station is
doomed to be cast to the earth long before that date.
The following is from a February 15 news release by NASA.
“You can’t tell by looking,
but scientists say the Sun has just undergone and important change. Our star’s magnetic field has flipped.
The
Sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few
months ago, now points south. It’s a
topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one.
‘This always happens around
the time of solar maximum,’ says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the
Marshall Space Flight Center. ‘The
magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it’s a good indication that Solar
Max is really here.’
The
Sun’s magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole
pointing through the Sun’s southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they
will reverse again. This transition
happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle – like
clockwork.
Earth’s
magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million
years apart. The last reversal happened
740,000 years ago. Some researchers
think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the
next reversal might occur.”
The following article is by
Robert Roy Britt who is the Senior Science Writer for Space.com.
26
February 2001 – “A comet detected three months ago is ambling toward the inner
solar system and could be visible to the naked eye late this year, possibly
providing the best comet show since Hale-Bopp in 1997. Tickets to the show should be popular, as
the comet threatens to make its apparition a one-time engagement.
The
comet was first thought to be an asteroid when it was spotted Nov. 16, 2000 by
researchers at the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project (LINEAR). It was later identified as a comet and given
the official designation of 2000 WM1.
Scientists are referring to it as Comet LINEAR, but it is different from
the comet 1999 S4, also called Comet LINEAR, which broke apart late in the
summer of 2000.
‘Although
no comet can be relied upon completely, there is a very good chance that [this
comet] will be a naked-eye Christmas comet for 2001,’ says astronomer Mark
Kidger.
The show is expected to
continue into early 2002.
Like
all comets, 2000 WM1 will loop around the Sun, though its path is not yet known
with certainty. As it approaches the
Sun, gas and dust will burn off of it at an increasing rate. Sunlight reflecting from this material will
make the comet’s head, or coma, grow brighter.
The gas and dust will be pushed away by charged particles known as the
solar wind, forming two tails. Dust
particles form a yellowish tail, and ionized gas makes a bluish ion tail. The tails always point away from the Sun.
How bright a comet gets
depends on many factors including its size, exactly what it’s made of and how
close it gets to the Sun and Earth.
Estimates
by Brian Marsden at the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center
put the peak brightness for Comet LINEAR at roughly magnitude 4. On this scale, higher numbers are
fainter. The faintest object visible to
the naked eye under dark rural skies is about magnitude 6, for example. The brightest stars are around magnitude
minus 1.4. Venus, at its most
brilliant, reaches minus 4.7.
Kidger
figures the peak brightness will be between magnitude 3 and 5, sometime in
November, and he’s optimistic that it will be on the brighter side. Better estimates will be possible in April
or May, he says.
‘In
all cases apart from the most pessimistic, the comet should be naked-eye
visible,’ Kidger says. ‘The worst case
would make it an easy binocular object.’
NASA’s
Ron Baalke echoed Kidger’s caution, saying that predicting the brightness of a
comet is far from an exact science.
‘The current estimates on how bright the comet may be varies from
magnitude 3 to magnitude 7,’ Baalke said.
‘There is a possibility the comet may be a naked-eye comet, but there is
no guarantee that it will be.’
The big show, then gone forever? – As of Feb. 21, Comet
LINEAR was 447 million miles from the Sun, about as far out as Jupiter, and
poking along at 42,500 miles per hour.
The Sun’s gravity has pulled the comet in from the distant Oort Cloud, a
reservoir of icy bodies that surrounds the solar system and was created back
when the sun was formed, some 4.5 billion years ago.
As
the dirty snowball gets closer to the Sun, it will speed up enormously, Kidger
explains, reaching a top speed of 125,300 miles per hour on January 22,
2002. On that day, it will be at its
closest point to the Sun, some 51.7 million miles away. Scientists call this perihelion.
Astronomers
suspect that 2000 WM1 is a “new” comet, making its first pass from the Oort
Cloud into the inner solar system.
Marsden of the minor planet center calculates that it won’t come around
again for at least 100,000 years.
However, the orbit appears to be ‘open,’ meaning that 2000 WM1 may shoot
off into interstellar space and never return.
Similar to Hyakutake – Kidger says the comet’s
diameter is roughly 2 miles, though this estimate may change as better
observations are made. On approach to
the Sun, the comet will pass within 30 million miles of Earth in early
December.
This
scenario will be similar to Comet Hyakutake in 1996, which was estimated to be
about the same size and came within 9.3 million miles of our planet. Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 was much larger,
some 25 to 44 miles wide. But Hale-Bopp
was almost 15 times farther away than Hyakutake. Both comets made for delightful naked-eye viewing and fabulous
telescopic photographs.
Like
Hyakutake, Comet LINEAR may reach its peak brightness before perihelion. Kidger says this means that while it should
be easy to see, the comet’s tail may not be very spectacular.
‘The
fact that the comet is new suggests that it will probably brighten quickly
initially and then slow down considerably as it gets closer to the Sun and the
fresh ices on the surface of the nucleus are exhausted,’ Kidger says. ‘A consequence of this is that it is
unlikely that the comet will have a bright tail when [it is] closest to the
Earth and brightest at the end of the year.
Even though Comet LINEAR may be quite bright and easy to see with the
naked eye, it may be little more than a fuzzy patch in the sky.’”
For
more info on this comet see the January 2001 issue of Biblical Astronomy.
SHARON BECOMES ISRAEL PRIME
MINISTER
The following article is by
Associated Press Writer Mark Lavie, March 8, 2001.
JERUSALEM – Ariel Sharon set to work on his first
full day as Israel’s prime minister, after pledging that his “supreme mission”
is security in a country fearful of the threat of Palestinian militant attacks.
His
first day in office Thursday coincided with the start of a joyous Jewish
holiday, overshadowed by worries over threats by the militant group Hamas to
conduct new suicide bombings in Israel.
Presenting
his government to the parliament the night before, Sharon pledged to restore a
feeling of security to his people and held out the prospect of peace talks with
the Palestinians – but repeated his condition that all violence must stop
first.
“The
supreme mission of the new government is bolstering Israel’s security,” Sharon
told the Knesset, pledging a “relentless struggle against violence and terror.”
Sharon
said his coalition would be ready for “painful compromises” toward peace with
the Palestinians provided that they “abandon the way of violence, terrorism and
incitement.”
Sharon,
the nation’s fifth prime minister in six years, heads a large and unwieldy
government that inherits a five-month-old Palestinian uprising, a broken-down
peace process and an anxiety-ridden Israel.
The
Islamic Hamas movement declared it would send 10 suicide bombers to greet
Sharon and took credit for a bomb blast in the city of Netanya on Sunday that
killed three Israelis and the bomber – the latest in a series of bomb attacks
that has shaken Israelis.
The
city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, canceled its traditional outdoor celebration
of the Purim holiday Thursday night and Friday because of calls from citizens
worried it could draw Palestinian bombers.
As
Sharon took office, the White House announced that the new Israeli leader will
meet with President Bush in Washington on March 20 to discuss ways to end the
unrest.
The
Knesset approved Sharon’s government in a 72 to 21 vote, reflecting the breadth
of a coalition ranging from center-left to right and also including parties of
Orthodox Jews, immigrants and labor unions.
The
new premier was short on specifics of his security plans, reflecting the
political gymnastics he will need to perform and keep the diverse groups of
parties together.
Palestinian
leaders rejected Sharon’s condition of stopping the violence before talks
resume, blaming Israel for clashes that have taken the lives of 423 people in
five months….
Sharon,
73, is seen by many Palestinians as an archenemy because of his decades of
operations against them, first as a career soldier and then as a
politician. Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erekat was skeptical about Sharon’s peace offers, complaining over the lack of
specifics…
Sharon
appealed to the Palestinians to make peace, but said that “despite concessions
we have made… we still haven’t found a willingness for reconciliation and true
peace on the other side.”
He
was backed by Ehud Barak, the incumbent he defeated soundly in a Feb. 6
election. Speaking after Sharon, Barak
said the Palestinian rejection of his far-reaching compromise offers, including
a state in almost all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and parts of Jerusalem,
showed that they are “not for true peace.”
Barak
said his offers are off the table and “do not obligate” the Sharon government…
May the super-abundant blessings of Yahweh be poured
forth upon you.
