Today:
Rising at sunset, though not visible until closer to 6 o’clock, the mighty Jupiter reaches opposition, located directly opposite the Sun from the Earth. This also places us as close as we get to Jupiter, giving us our best and brightest views of the largest planet in the Solar System. Jupiter is so large, in fact, that ALL the other planets, and ALL their moons would fit inside Jupiter, with room to spare.
Saturday:
Today marks the latest sunrise of the year. But wait, doesn’t that happen in December near the Winter Solstice? That would be true, except the date for changing from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time now occurs so late, that our sunrise is ten minutes later today, then in late December.
Sunday:
Standard Time has returned, but what does that mean? The idea of a “standard” time, and time zones, replaced the Sun as the method for determining noon. Local noon is when the Sun is directly south, but when trains made long distance travel possible in the 1800s, train schedules required standardized, rather than local time.