About daytime day… I was about to say päivä is the hours most people are awake, but that discriminates against shift workers. Then I thought about saying it’s the hours during which you have daylight, but that discriminates against North Finland beyond the Arctic Circle, where you have several days or weeks with no sunrise in winter. It’s generally understood as both, even by shiftworkers and the Sami.

(Yes, my comment is a bit late with respect to the original publishing date. I found this blog entry through a link in 9 Nov, 2011 entry about Carl Sagan’s birthday.)

I’ve been learning about this in my astronomy course but didn’t really get it until I read this. Thanks again.

Intresting note :In the 1800s the devations in Mercurys orbit were thought to be caused by the gravational pull of a planet closer to the sun then Mercury.One Astronomer claimed to have discoverd it and named it Vulcan (no not Mr Spocks homeplanet) other Astronomers could not confrim his discovery and soon the idea of planet Vulcan was abandon .But there are a few who still look for it, the last serious attemp was useing Skylabs telescope with negative results .One Astronomer has sugested there may be an Asteroid belt between Mercury and the Sun but no one has as yet found it.

“One astronomer eh?” Another astronomer who is pretty familiar here has also written about this topic too several times incl. quite recently – see :

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/03/inside-mercurys-orbit/

for more.

Wonder if he could kindly give us a progress update on the Vulcanoid search? Please BA?

@Messier Tidy Upper (47) is it not ‘par ardua’ for difficulties ‘per aspera’ to aspire.
As in ‘Par ardua ad mona’ through troubles to the Isle of Man the motto of the Isle of Man TT races.

Could be, I’m just quoting it as I remember seeing it. Which was Isaac Asimov quoting it in one of his short stories written decades ago so, yeah, it may not be exactly right.

I’d check the book again – fairly sure I got it right from there – but unfortunately all my books are packed into boxes and inaccessible for the next week or so. (Painting & carpeting happening at my house presently.)

By that line of reasoning, though, the moon is much more vital to modern science then Mercury, as Eddington’s measurement of the bending of starlight by the Sun’s gravity during a total eclipse in 1919 was what really put general relativity on solid evidential footing.