Dave Reneke: A great week for star watchers

In fact our temperature is not really affected by distance from the Sun at all. It’s all to do with earth’s tilt, or axis.

“When the South Pole is tilted towards the Sun, this is our Summer. Six months later, when the South Pole is tilted away from the Sun, it's Winter,” said Dave Reneke from Australasian Science magazine. “In between we have Autumn and Spring. Easy huh?”

By the way, the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere. It’s flattened at the poles a bit, and that makes a difference of 43 kilometres wider in the middle. And you were worried about your own waistline weren’t you?  In effect, it’s a shorter trip around the earth from pole to pole than around the equator.

If we can keep the clouds and rain away this will be an incredible week to enjoy some time under the stars with a new crescent Moon.  “You might even see a shooting star zip by,” said Dave.

Shooting stars is a name that people have used for hundreds of years to describe meteors burning high in Earth's upper atmosphere. Meteors generally range in size from a grain of sand to a baseball.

The Earth’s weight increases by 50,000 kilograms each year from dust and meteoric material falling from the sky. In fact, it’s enough cosmic dust to fill a six story office building! True!

There are a number of meteor showers occurring this month. Although low in number the shower members can often be spectacular, appearing slow and bright with many displaying a yellow/orange colour. The best time to see meteors is after midnight.

Australia experiences the Winter Solstice on Tuesday 21st. At 8.34am on the east coast the Sun has reached its furthest north for the year and begins to move southward. It’s also our shortest day, with just 9 hours and 32 minutes of daylight.