2 – 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, than in late December.
3 – 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.
4 – As darkness grows along the southwestern horizon, between 6:00 and 6:30 PM, the crescent moon will dip toward the horizon, its slender curve beneath the brilliant planet Venus, slowly emerging from the twilight. Venus follows the moon in its descent, setting around 7 PM. The Moon appears just a little larger, and to Venus’s left tomorrow evening.