In other years on this blog, the period between Christmas and the New Year has been devoted to certain esoteric but (to me) such intereting subjects as the music of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards (actually Paul Weston and Jo Stafford), Auld Lang Syne Festivals of my own creation, the highbrow operatic comedy of Anna Russell, and such like. If you have never heard of any of them, they are all at various places in the archives list in the sidebar and with a few strategically placed clicks here and there (concentrating on the months of December in each yer) could be experienced either again or for the first time. It's strictly up to you. I can't do all of the work. I'm old and feeble. You don't have to agree so readily.
This year I'm on a different tack. Having recently discussed herein the effect of the winter solstice on the amount of daylight and darkness at various latitudes on our planet, I was hit with the sudden urge to know just how long a day is on the other planets of our solar system plus Pluto, which used to be considered a planet but has been downgraded by those in the know to dwarf planet status.
So I looked it up.
Into my favorite (British: favourite) search engine I entered the phrase "the length of a day on each planet and Pluto" and with the kind assistance of AI received the following answer almost immediately:
"The length of a day on each planet and Pluto is as follows:
• Mercury: 58.6 Earth days
• Venus: 243 Earth days
• Earth: 23 hours, 56 minutes
• Mars: 24 hours, 37 minutes
• Jupiter: 9 hours, 55 minutes
• Saturn: 10 hours, 33 minutes
• Uranus: 17 hours, 14 minutes
• Neptune: 15 hours, 57 minutes
• Pluto: 6.4 Earth days (6 days, 9 hours, 36 minutes)"
(end of AI's contribution to this post)
So now you know. And by "length of a day" I mean how long it takes said heavenly body to complete one rotation on its axis. Some of the tilts of planetary axes from vertical are so staggering as to make one's head swim. You can look them up if you are of a mind to. The randomness of our nearest neighbors would seem to indicate that a heavenly toddler was playing with dreidels (a Jewish game using spinning tops for those who don't know) and leaving them scattered about at the end of play time.
The size of a planet and its nearness to or distance from the sun (one astronomical unit (AU) equals 93,000,000 miles) seem to have no effect whatsoever on the planet's characteristics. For instance, Mercury (closest to the sun) and Pluto (farthest from the sun) are approximately the same size but Mercury's day, in round figures, is slightly less than two months and Pluto's day is slightly less than one week. Who knew? A day on Earth lasts from January 1st to January 2nd. A day on Venus, which is almost the same size as Earth, lasts from January 1st to what we would call August 31st. And the largest planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are veritable whirling dervishes. I wonder what centrifugal force feels like on a place so big that spins so fast.
I guess we'll never know, or maybe we (our species collectively) will know long after our generation has shuffled off this mortal coil.
My job here, as always, is to provoke your grey matter into wondering about things on your own and investigating the ramifications thereof to your heart's content.
In other words, my work here is finished.
At least for today.
I'm off to enjoy me some Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, Anna Russell insulting coloratura sopranos ("they have resonance where their brains ought to be"), Kenny G, the young Aretha Franklin, offkey musical saws, and (as Andy Griffith used to say) I don't know wha all, but the possibilities are endless.
One more post in the next five days will put this year's post count at 70, perhaps not as impressive as others (other years, other people) but pretty good for an old, feeble guy if I do say so myself.
I hope your Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, et al was a good one and that the New Year will turn out to be one of your very best ever. We are looking forward to meeting a fourth great-grandchild in 2026.
Peace on earth, goodwill to men.
God knows we could use some.
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