Science : Super Blue Moon & Lunar eclipse ? Wow ! Let's talk !

Blue Moon

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/astronomy/

The Blue Moon – second of two full moons in one calendar month – will pass through the Earth’s shadow on January 31, 2018, to give us a total lunar eclipse. 

The last time that we had a Blue Moon total lunar eclipse, reckoning in world time (UTC, or GMT), was December 30, 1982.

No, this time I will not sing Blue Moon! But the song is on my mind while I'm writing about the moon-blue.

credits: Astronomy Ohio 

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/

Totality, when the moon will be entirely inside the Earth’s dark umbral shadow, will last a bit more than one-and-a-quarter hours. 

The January 31 2018 much of the world will have the opportunity to observe a Blue Moon: A somewhat rare occurrence that doesn't have anything to do with the moon's color.

Full moon is also the third in a series of three straight full moon supermoons – that is, super-close full moons. 

credits: EarthSky

http://earthsky.org/

It’s the first of two Blue Moons in 2018. So it’s not just a total lunar eclipse, or a Blue Moon, or a supermoon. It’s all three … a super Blue Moon total eclipse!

It’s not just a total lunar eclipse, or a Blue Moon, or a super moon. It’s all three! A super Blue Moon total eclipse!

A lunar trio will be visible in the sky tomorrow before dawn:
Supermoon – When the Moon is at/near its closest point to Earth Blue Moon – The 2nd full moon in a month Blood Moon – The red tint Earth’s shadow casts on the Moon during a lunar eclipse

NASA

Is it the first Blue Moon total eclipse in 150 years, as some social media memes are now claiming? Yes, it is, if you’re not considering the whole world, but only the Americas. 

credits: Eclipse computer 

via the US Naval Observatory

http://earthsky.org/

It’s a Blue Moon by the monthly definition of the term: the second of two full moons to fall within a single calendar month. The first Blue Moon comes on January 31, 2018, and the second on March 31, 2018.

The full moon happens at the same instant worldwide, the hour differs by time zone.

credits: NASA

https://www.nasa.gov/

Who can watch?

Visible in the USA and India, this blue moon total eclipse will be entirely observed  in French Polynesia, Nouvelle-Calédonie and La Réunion,

In Europe, Africa and a large part in South America in the morning.

credits: NASA 

This NASA chart shows the lunar eclipse times for the US
https://www.nasa.gov/

Why Blue Moon?

For the longest time nobody knew exactly why the second full Moon of a calendar month was designated as a Blue Moon. 

One explanation connects it with the word belewe from the Old English, meaning, “to betray.” Perhaps, then, the Moon was “belewe” because it betrayed the usual perception of one full Moon per month.

However, in March 1999 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, Phillip Hiscock revealed one somewhat confusing origin of this term. 

It seems that the modern custom of naming the second full Moon of a month “blue,” came from an article published in March 1946 Sky & Telescope magazine. 

The article was “Once in a Blue Moon,” written by James Hugh Pruett. In this article, Pruett interpreted what he read in a publication known as the Maine Farmers’ Almanac, and declared that a second full Moon in a calendar month is a “Blue Moon.” 

in Farmer's Almanac

The Harvest Moon

artist: George Hemming Mason, 1872

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Education:

So, the Jan. 31 full moon is special for three reasons: it’s the third in a series of “supermoons,” when the Moon is closer to Earth in its orbit - known as perigee -- and about 14 % brighter than usual. 

It’s also the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a “blue moon.” If you live in North America, Alaska, or Hawaii, a lunar eclipse will be visible before sunrise on Jan. 31. 

For those in the Middle East, Asia, eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the “super blue blood moon” can be seen during moon rise in the morning on the 31st.

If your local weather is calling for clouds this morning, you can still see the super blue blood moon. 

NASA TV's live feed will probably be your best chance to see it live if there's bad viewing weather in your location. 

The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles is also doing a live feed at the lunar eclipse.

Oh, my ! It should offer some pretty photo opportunities for sky watchers. Ask students to take some photos if they are lucky or do small videos (some seconds) with their smartphones and tablets to explore in Science classroom next tomorrow or during the week.

Remember! No matter what has come in or out of our lives in the past few years, once in a while we are given the chance to have everything we’ve always wanted. We just have to make the choice now to not let it go. Because certain chances only come around once in a blue moon.

Hope you will enjoy the beauty of this awesome scientific event. And of course with an open mind to the magic of the moment not only in the sky, also into our life.

I could not resist. Here I am singing Blue Moon by Chris Isaak!

Blue moon!

Blue moon you saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for 
Someone I really could care for
And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms will ever hold.

Lyrics Hart, Lorenz / Rodgers, Richard

G-Souto

30.01.2018

Sources:

NASA/ EarthSky/ Farmer's Almanac

Science : Super Blue Moon eclipse ? Wow ! Let's talk ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Literature : Virginia Woolf, the modern feminist novelist : Resources

Virginia Wolf

credits: George Charles Beresford, August 1902

https://pt.wikipedia.org/

“I see children running in the garden…The sound of the sea at night… almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain."

Virginia Wolf, childhood memories

Virginia Woolf, the English author was a pioneer in the use of powerful stream-of-consciousness narratives approach, harnessing a poetic vision that elevated sometimes mundane settings while examining the complex interior lives of her characters. 

A unique literary style that established Woolf as one of modern feminism’s most influential voices.

Virginia Woolf's legacy has endured well beyond her tragic death, with the author's importance coming to the fore with the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s.

Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Wolf

London: Hogarth Press, 1925

https://www.smith.edu/libraries/

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.” 

Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts

Woolf’s lyrical writing thrived on the introspection of her characters, revealing the complex emotions underlying seemingly mundane events — how the ringing of the Big Ben evokes the passage of time in Mrs. Dalloway (1925) or a family’s visit to the coast hides deep-seated tensions in To the Lighthouse (1927).   

Wolf is revealed for her lyrical writing thrived on the introspection of her characters: Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), Orlando A Biography (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929). 

She is credited with popularising the stream-of-consciousness style of prose, giving the English novel a bold, new voice and pushing it beyond the tried-and-tested narrative structures of the Victorian era into fresh and experimental new territory.

Google doodle Virginia Woolf’s 136th birthday

https://www.google.com/doodles/

To celebrate one of the 20th century's foremost novelists, Google dedicated its Doodle on Thursday to Virginia Woolf on the 136th anniversary of her birth.

Created by London-based illustrator Louise Pomeroy, today’s Doodle celebrates Woolf’s minimalist style: her iconic profile surrounded by the falling autumn leaves (a frequent visual theme in her work). 

In Woolf’s words: “The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labor, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.”

Virginia Wolf

credits: Getty Images

https://www.gettyimages.com/

• Some biographic notes:

Born in London in 1882, Virginia Woolf (Adeline Virginia Stephen) was home schooled in the English classics and Victorian literature for much of her childhood. She began writing professionally in 1900, becoming a significant member of London's literary society and the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of prominent contemporary intellectuals and artists.

She began writing at an early age, having her first piece published in December 1904, and writing for the Times Literary Supplement from the following year.

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf, 1927

https://en.wikipedia.org/

While Woolf grew up surrounded by the London literary scene, it was her childhood memories of visiting the Cornish coast that inspired the settings of the English author's most powerful narratives, including "To the Lighthouse" (1927).

Along with her husband, Leonard Woolf, whom she married in 1912, she became part of the influential group of writers known as the Bloomsbury Group prominent in London during the early 20th century.

Virginia Woolf's suicide letter to her husband

https://en.wikipedia.org/

After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts, Woolf fell into a depression throughout her life and killed herself in 1941, March 28, at the height of the Blitz, wading into the River Ouse in Sussex with stones lining her pockets to ensure she drowned.

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Novelist, essayist, biographer and critic, Virginia Wolf inspired the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Ablee (1962), later adapted to a movie by Mike Nichols (1966) great performances by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf

play by Edward Ablee, 1962

https://en.wikipedia.org/

She's also well known for her non-fiction, particularly the book-length essays A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938). These non-fiction works showcase Woolf’s unflinching feminist perspective by documenting the gendered intellectual stratification and resulting male-dominated power dynamics of the period.

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf

https://en.wikipedia.org/

it was her extended essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) that established her status as one of the most influential voices of feminism. In it, she examined the educational, social and financial disadvantages women have faced throughout history, arguing that: 

" a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

The Voyage Out

Virginia Woolf, 1915

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915, and her subsequent writings established her as one of the leading novelists and essayists of her time.

Virginia Woolf also wrote pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing, and the politics of power. 

She would later be revived as a feminist icon, however, celebrated for her independent example and famous for her dictum : 

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Virginia Woolf portraits

Duncan Grant’s 1911 portrait /Vanessa Bell’s of 1912

https://westernindependent.blogspot.com/

• Education:

Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.” 

Virginia Woolf 

My readers know I've a master in Literature and Linguistic. So every time I can, I write about Literature. The love of books inspires me all the time. Great novelists and poets are my passion. I read so many books. 

Virginia Woolf

photograph: Gisele Freund, 1936

https://www.britannica.com/biography/

Of course, Virginia Woolf is a novelist included into college studies in Literature. And some texts into high school curricula. Wolf was one of my favorite authors in college.

But there are some books and excerpts of her famous novels that we can include into high school curriculum. 

Choosing some books by Virginia Woolf, the British modernist, you can teach students how to understand Narration: description, characters, for example.

I would choose : Mrs. Dalloway; The Voyage Out; Kew Gardens (short story); To the Lighthouse (excerpts) containing childhood emotions.

"Woolf is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest novelists, whose influence on the literary world continues to be felt to this very day."

Virginia Woolf

Time Magazine

April 12, 1937

http://content.time.com/time/covers/

Resources:

• Today, thanks to the BBC, we can still hear Virginia Woolf's voice:

Virginia Woolf - Only Surviving Recording of Her Voice 

Part of a BBC radio broadcast from 1937. Among other things, she discusses the process of writing, the difficulties of finding words for new experiences, and the question of where the meaning of words reside.

British Library : Virginia Wolf

• Film: Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway, film by Marleen Gorris (1997) based on the novel by Virginia Wolf, wonderful performed by Oscar winner actress Vanessa Redgrave. 

Mrs. Dalloway

Marleen Gorris, 1997

https://www.imdb.com/

In 1923 London, socialite Clarissa Dalloway's (Vanessa Redgrave) well-planned party is overshadowed by the return of an old suitor she had known thirty-three years earlier.

• Notebook:

Notebook drafts of Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf

credits: The British Library

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/

The British Library: Exploring Woolf's notebook drafts of Mrs Dalloway

• Videos: 

The Open University : Know about the works and influences of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf documentary

Virginia Wolf: video below

Ted Ed : Why should you read Virginia Woolf ? watch below

• Bloomsbury University: Teaching Resources containing a great numbers of resources for teachers.

"Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners." 

Virginia Woof, A Room of One's Own

G-Souto

25.01.2018

update: 25.01.2022

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Literature : Virginia Woolf, the modern feminist novelist : resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.