Science is among our subjects here and astronomy is certainly a science even if it is often up in the stars. This is just a little piece to warn you that I expect to try to write a bit more about it at a later date.
I am new to the subject so we will be learning together and you may teach me more than I teach you. I am finding out that can be much about cycles. Cycles are predictive. Prediction is a part of science. We have a way to tell the future! But then, doesn't a calendar tell the future, sort of?
Our Earth moves through a 26,000 year and is half of 52,000 cycle approximately. The 52,000 year seems to be called the Great Year. Maybe we can find out what the cycle predicts and may help to predict. If you know something about please tell us as much as you can. You can use the "comments" section below.
This cycle is marked by the precession of the equinoxes. In this cycle the wobble of our Earth's axis draws a counter-clockwise circle in the heavens (so to speak) and points to different north stars in the process. If there were a pole at, say, the north pole and if you were watching it for decades it may seem to wobble. This wobble makes seasonal contrast more extreme in one hemisphere and lessin the other.
This precession deal is not easy. It seems we could lean a bit from movements of a spinning top. Let me just say for now that precession is a change in the orientation of the rotation axis of a rotating body.
The story of equinox may help our understanding of precession of the of the equinoxes. Humans observed the sunrise discovered that it occurs between two extreme locations at the horizon and eventually noted the midpoint between the two.(what a nice story). Later some realized that this happened on a day when the duration of night and day are practically equal.
The Earth's axis seems to be mostly an imaginary line running through the center of the Earth from one pole to the other. It does not just sit there, it moves around in the form of circles. It is tilted about 24 degrees as it swings around in circles, which include on at each pole. The resulting wobble or tilt causes the seasons. Those changes become greater as one moves from the equator toward the poles.
I would like to know the causes of the changes and happenings noted above. I would like to more of the implications of those changes. I would like to how they can effect the Earth, our world, and me.
rcs