THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM 207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet 70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103 43.6667° N 70.2667° W Founded January 1970 *THE DAILY ASTRONOMER* *Monday, June 13, 2016* *Pandora Fragments* ----------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMY CAFE TONIGHT "Where we are in the Universe" Monday. June 13, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. Admission by donation. ------------------------------------------------- Today, we merely sweeping up a few of Pandora's fragments. More straightforward astronomical questions that are often overlooked as we seek out the more complex queries. So, now, we offer two fragments: still great questions that just happen to have elicited brief answers. *"What is the minimum and maximum number of eclipses (solar and lunar) which can occur within one year?" -T O'Reilly, Belfast* A year will always have at least two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses. (Here, we are referring to one period of time equaling 365.25 days. At the most, we can have seven eclipses, solar and lunar, within a one year period. We can have seven eclipses within a single calendar year: The next calendar year with seven eclipses (three solar/four lunar) will be 2038. The last calendar year with seven eclipses was 1982. *"Is it true that if you fire a bullet at the same moment that you drop a bullet from the same height, they will hit the ground at the same time?" -Anonymous* Yes. As counter intuitive as this statement sounds, a fired bullet and a dropped bullet will strike the ground at the same moment if they are fire/dropped from the same height at the same moment. The only force that acts on the bullet is the downward pull of gravity, which affects both bullets equally.