Sunday 2 January 2011

KV 292

I understand that my mystery Mozart from last night was his Sonata for Bassoon and Cello KV 292, and not to be confused with the stellar object KV42 (pictured below courtesy of the Canada France Elliptic Plane Survey) which is just now orbiting the sun in a backwards motion.  It's nicknamed Dracula and is Trans-Neptunian (rather than Transylvanian ... lol!)  meaning it's in the Kuiper Belt region of the Solar System. I write this not knowing exactly whereof I speak.  Although fascinated by the planets and stars, I find it a subject difficult to get into.  I struggle with the concepts of size, scale and distance involved in astronomy.  When I'm told that the Andromeda Nebula is 2,300,000 light years away from the Earth, when a light year is equal to 5.88 trillion miles, my brain starts to hurt.  I'm going to speculate that my difficulties stem from my mathematical incompetence and leave it at that for the moment.

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