by Shaphan Shank | Feb 27, 2023 | 2023, 03 March, Articles & Stories, Astronomy, Conjunctions, Eclipses, In Our Skies, Meteors, Solar Eclipse
View the March 2023 Nature Friend Magazine One of the closest planetary conjunctions of the year will occur on the first evening of March. On this evening, the two brightest planets, Jupiter and Venus, will approach to about 0.5° from each other. The brilliant pair...
by Shaphan Shank | Sep 1, 2022 | 2022, 09 September, Articles & Stories, Astronomy, Eclipses, In Our Skies, Meteors, Moon, Planets, Sun
About once a year, Earth passes between the Sun and Neptune. This event is called an opposition because Neptune is on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun, rising around sunset and setting around sunrise. Earth is closer to Neptune at opposition than at other times...
by Shaphan Shank | Mar 3, 2022 | Articles & Stories, Astronomy, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Planets
Where I live in Virginia, March brings the signs of a new season. The days are slowly warming, and the evenings, which were quiet all winter, are now enlivened by the calls of spring peepers and woodcocks. The stars also indicate, more reliably than the weather, that...
by Grace Hennivk, 17, Brussels, ON | Apr 9, 2021 | 2020, 08, August, Articles & Stories, Astronomy, Eclipses
One ordinary day, I noticed a Nature Friend magazine from March 2017 lying on the couch. I picked it up and started flipping through it. I soon noticed the article by Kevin Shank, “Story Starter for Winter, Spring, and Summer.” Nature Friend was requesting stories...
