Happy New Year Friends! There are some special biennial events that are scheduled to occur in 2024.  We will be partnering with the Down to Earth Garden Club again for their "Pathways and Blooms" South Windsor Garden Tour and Plant Sale on Sunday, June 9, 2024. During the month of April, we will also be participating in the Connecticut Library Association's biennial Passport to CT Libraries 2024 event.

Check out our websites www.WoodMemorialLibrary.org  and www.Nowashe.org  as well as our Facebook pages here and here  for all the details on our upcoming 2024 programs and events as they become available.

We have kicked off 2024 by launching our latest online exhibit, How South Windsor Engineers Got NASA to the Moon, based on the 2023 in person exhibit and panel discussion curated by Ria Saxena, South Windsor's Contributions to Space.

The wider world and even the vast universe also have some special events in store for all of our Friends in 2024. This Musings from Main takes a look at three special events that are set to occur in 2024.  We hope to see you soon!

It is a Leap Year!

In the year 2024 we will all receive the gift of time. An extra 24 hours that allows the calendar year to catch up to the solar year.

It takes Earth approximately 24 hours or in other words, one day, to rotate on its axis. It also takes Earth approximately 365.2422 days to make one revolution around the Sun, a solar year. The .2422 is equal to about six hours.  That means that it takes the Earth 365 and a quarter days to complete a solar year but most years we round it down to an even 365 day calendar year.

What happens to the extra quarter of a day?  Over time it adds up.  According to NASA's website, "After only a century without leap day, summer wouldn’t start until mid-July!" After a few centuries, the 4th of July would be in the cold of winter and New Year's celebrations would be in the summertime.

So this slow shift of seasons through the months doesn't happen, a day is added to the calendar approximately every four years, a leap day, February 29th.  Why is it added in February?  That would take another whole Musing to explain!

Want to take a deeper dive?

The adjustments don't end there. As stated earlier; the .2422 of a day is equal to about six hours, not exactly 6 hours.  It is equal to exactly 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds. Again, according to NASA's website, "Rounding up and inserting a 24-hour leap day every four years adds about 45 extra minutes to every four-year leap cycle. That adds up to about three days every 400 years. To correct for that, years that are divisible by 100 don't have leap days unless they’re also divisible by 400. If you do the math, you'll see that the year 2000 was a leap year, but 2100, 2200 and 2300 will not be."  (For those interested in "doing the math" visit this NASA website page.)

A Total Solar Eclipse

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will cross North America. A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon completely blocks out the face of the Sun as it passes in between the Sun and Earth. The sky will noticeably darken and people viewing the eclipse along its path of totality will will be able to see the Sun’s outer atmosphere called the corona. View a map of the path of totality.

This website contains a lot of detailed information about eclipses.

The NASA website states that "the next total solar eclipse that can be seen from the contiguous United States will be on Aug. 23, 2044."  Another fun eclipse fact from NASA; "When a solar eclipse reaches totality, nocturnal wildlife sometimes wakes up, thinking that it’s nighttime, and non-nocturnal wildlife might think it’s time to head to sleep!"
(Read the October 13, 2023 Musings From Main to learn more about eclipses.)

NASA Returns to the Moon

In April 2023, NASA introduced the three Americans and one Canadian who will be part of the Artemis II mission, which is set to launch as soon as November 2024.

According to NASA "The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight test will launch on the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space."

NASA aims to put astronauts back on the moon, hopefully the crew of Artemis III in 2025, for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

“For the first time in more than 50 years, these individuals – the Artemis II crew – will be the first humans to fly to the vicinity of the Moon...This mission paves the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration and presents new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry and academic partnerships and the Artemis Generation.”
- Director Vanessa Wyche, NASA Johnson

Learn More

Discover the work of countless local South Windsor engineers and NASA employees with our new online exhibit  How South Windsor Engineers Got NASA to the Moon.  This online exhibit is the culmination of countless hours of research by Friend’s volunteer Ria Saxena involving documents and objects from the Joseph A. Bost Collection of UTC Fuel Cell Papers and donated by Vicky and Paul Margiott, and longtime Friends’ supporter Henry Cote.

Have your seen the associated article in the Winter 2023/2024 edition of Connecticut Explored Magazine?

Read How South Windsor Engineers Got NASA to the Moon today!

Purchase single issues or as a donor to the Friends of Wood Memorial Library & Museum you can purchase an annual subscription at a discounted rate.

Sources use for this Musings From Main:

 - Great American Eclipse website.
 - NASA website, Artemis II
 - NASA website, 2024 Total Eclipse: When and Where
 - NASA website, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse
 - NASA website, Space Place
 - NASA website, Calendar Calculations
 - Tavernier, Lyle, Doing the Math on Why We Have Leap Day,  NASA website, February 21, 2020.