The snowdrops have arrived, and they're furious

Hello, friends!

This week’s newsletter contains a solar eclipse (of sorts) in that there are two lectures about the Sun happening at the same time.

If you can’t bear the conflict, consider turning your attention to the night sky this week, where no fewer than four planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) are up. Or, you know, stay inside to stream some live lectures. It’s cold. Ok. Let’s go!

🍿 online talks and events 🐧

All times are GMT.

Tuesday 14 January

One world is enough for all of us: geoenergy and an equitable energy transition, hybrid lecture by the Geological Society, 18.00, free: Geological Society president Professor Jon Gluyas discusses what it might take to ensure we secure low-carbon energy for generations to come.

Science-based targets, greenwashing and brownscraping: net zero in the private sector, hybrid lecture by Gresham College, 18.00, free: Professor Myles Allen discusses the need to decarbonise products and services, rather than companies and their financial portfolios.

Chris van Tulleken on ultra-processed food, online event by 5x15, 19.00, free: Chris van Tulleken serves up the latest thinking on ultra-processed food. (And if you missed it, his Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the same are on iPlayer or YouTube for viewers outside the UK.)

Eileen Hendriks: geology in Devon and Cornwall, online lecture by the Royal Geographical Society, 19.00, free: Dr Jenny Bennett gives this lecture on the work of Eileen Mary Lind Hendriks, a geologist who in the first half of the 20th century helped map the layers of rock in Devon and Cornwall. This was despite, and I quote, “general apathy of the wider geological community”. File under women who rock.

Wednesday 15 January

Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: Launch to the Moon, livestream by NASA, 05.30, free: Rocket launch fans, set your alarms. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander will lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 06.11 GMT on Wednesday morning. Its mission? To capture imagery of the lunar sunset and data about Moon dust. The lander will arrive on the lunar surface in early March.

Traversing the heart of India, online event by the Linnean Society, 13.15, free: Dr Amrita Neelakantan discusses how the practice of connectivity conservation, where otherwise fragmented habitats are linked to promote biodiversity, is supporting tiger populations in central India.

Our Sun’s life story, hybrid event by the Institute of Physics, 19.00, free: Astronomer James Fradgley tells the life story of the Sun, from “bouncing baby cloud of gas and dust to miserly old white dwarf”, after a tour of what’s in the sky this month.

Touching the Sun, hybrid lecture by Gresham College, 19.00, free: Professor Chris Lintott looks at the mysteries of the Sun and its effects on the Earth. He’ll be calling upon new insights from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which flew through the Sun’s corona in 2021, and ESA’s Solar Orbiter.

🔴 in a sky near you… 🔭

NB: Views from KFS HQ, London. See Stellarium for a personalised view of your night sky, after setting your location and time.

All the Mars you can muster: Mars will be at its brightest this week, as it reaches opposition (where the Earth sits directly between it and the Sun) on Thursday morning (16th). Spot it all week in the eastern sky after sunset.

(And if you happen to be up early tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, you could see it pass veeery close to the Moon – like, they’re practically kissing – in the western sky at about 4am.)

Venus is still shining bright in the southwestern sky until about 8pm every day this week, making a particularly close pass of Saturn on Saturday (18th).

❄️ closer to Earth 👀

Snowdrops just dropped: Usually a viewed as a signal spring is just around the corner, I’ve been hearing of snowdrop sightings since December. If that’s too depressing to think about, direct your attention to the fury inside one specific cultivar of the winter flower.

Galanthus grumpy has a ‘face’ whose green markings give expressions ranging from mild annoyance to extreme fear.

Snowdrops are hardy little flowers, owing their ability to recover after temperatures dip below zero to the ‘anti-freeze’ proteins they contain. Look for them in gardens, woods and on south-facing banks.

💫 we need answers

Last week I asked:

The answer is… the letter ‘e’. (Sorry.)

🤔 until next week…

“Being beneath a perpendicular force per unit area” is an accurate description of what 1981 song title?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x