A weekend of WONDER, both natural and human-made -- a supermoon and moving for muons

6/21/13
ISC

Greetings!

Welcome to Summer! It is a wonder-ful thing. Literally. This weekend brings us a wonder of nature known as the "super moon" as well as an engineering marvel that involves moving a delicate electromagnet 3,200 miles to Illinois. If you aren't impressed with these, ISC will wonder what's wrong with you...

Muon g-2 and "The BIG Move"

And you thought packing your house to move was hard!

For a research project called Muon g-2 (pronounced gee minus two), researchers at Fermilab need a 50-foot wide electromagnet. But first they have to get it here from New York by barge and truck. In one piece. Oh, and it's so delicate that a twist of just 10 degrees would destroy it. So starting Saturday, it will be moved very, very, very slowly - over four weeks - and extremely carefully, and mostly in the dark (so as not to disturb traffic.)

ISC will keep you posted on this unique challenge in the world of transportation engineering as the ring inches its way toward us. Read up on the details of the project, the scenic route it will take, and the research it will be used for, at Fermilab's site, Muon g-2 The Big Move. You can read an article about it in the Chicago Tribune here.

Full "Super" Moon on the Rise

Full moons are always nice (unless you're a werewolf, of course), but the June full moon appearing this weekend is being called a "super" moon. It's not only the closest and largest full moon of the year, but also is the moon's closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013. It's called a 'perigee full moon' because 'perigee' describes the moon's closest point to earth for the month.

Technically, the true super full moon will appear at 6:32am CDT on Sunday, June 23 when the moon is a mere 221,886 miles from earth. But if the sky is clear, you should look up and appreciate earth's very special satellite each night this weekend. Moonrise for Chicago is 6:38pm today, June 21st, at 7:43pm on Saturday and 8:40pm on Sunday.

For lots of great information, visit the always terrific EarthSky website. See a great piece by Barbara Brotman with moon facts and info on full moon walks led on Chicago's lakefront here. And if any astrology buffs try to lead you astray, be sure to read "Does a supermoon have a super effect on us?"

Clarification: in case there was any doubt, ISC finds no scientific validity behind the idea of werewolves and recommends against using a full moon as an excuse for silly behavior.

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Illinois Science Council programs are possible thanks to the generous contributions of supporters like you. Please make a donation today.

Select Science Sayings

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery.

- Richard Powers

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. - Plato

Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles.

- Richard Dawkins

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

- William Bragg, Sr.

You aren't a real engineer until you make one $50,000 mistake.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.

- Bertrand Russell

READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested versions of the grand unified theory, the primary particles constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next 10³² Years.

- Engineering warning labell

Only in the US will you find people who think the moon landing was fake and wrestling is real.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

- Bill Watterson

What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.

- Jacques Yves Cousteau

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.
- Ray Bradbury

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.
- Ray Bradbury

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
- John Dewey

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

- John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.
- Tom Hanks

A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that.

- Gordon L. Glegg, American Engineer

Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century? I am afraid that it is.

- George Porter, British chemist