• Aurora Borealis

    One of the most vivid recollections of my early boyhood is that of seeing my father return hastily into the house one evening and call out to the family: “Come outside and look at the sky!” Ours was a country house situated on a commanding site, and as we all emerged from the doorway we…

  • Mare Humorum

    At the meager distance of 384,000 kilometers (238,000 miles) that separates us from it (about thirty times the diameter of the Earth), the Moon is a suburb of our terrestrial habitation. What does this small distance amount to? It is a mere step in the universe. A telegraphic message would get there in one and…

  • The November Meteors

    Although the appearance of shooting stars is a common enough phenomenon, visible every night of the year, there are certain times when they arrive in swarms, from different quarters of the sky. The most remarkable dates in this connection are the night of August 10th and the morning of November 14th. Every one knows the…