Re: APOD: Crescent Venus and Moon

Sam Wormley wrote:

APOD: Crescent Venus and Moon
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061030.html


A similar Moon-Venus encounter is slated for 18 June 2007. Best of
all, observers over a large swath of the Middle East may get to see
Venus disappear behind the crescent Moon during prime-time hours
-- always a sensational event, but even more so in this case owing
to a rather interesting coincidence.

Viewed from southern Pakistan, specifically along the Arabian Sea
coast, Venus will touch the unlit lunar limb about midway between the
Moon's cusps. (Fire up your favorite sky simulator and plug in the
following values, which correspond to Pakistan's largest city,
Karachi...

Longitude: 67.0 E Latitude: 25.0 N
Date: 18 June 2007 Time: 16:00 UT

.... then zoom in on the Moon to get the pre-occultation visage.)
Here we have, then, hanging some 18 degrees above the western horizon,
under a dark sky, a stunning simulacrum of the crescent and star
depicted on Pakistan's national flag:

http://flagspot.net/flags/pk.html .

Such a spectacle surely can't fail to impress the Pakistani populace!

'Tis notable that this same occultation is visible also from Turkey
and Azerbaijan, both of which decorate their respective flags with the
crescent and star. However, from these locales the planet meets the
Moon in broad daylight.

Pakistan has a literacy rate somewhat less than 50 percent. I can't
help but wonder whether some Pakistanis, if not forewarned by their
news media, might consider this heavenly sight a divine omen. And with
the occultation also visible from bordering northwest India -- Pakistan's
rival -- how might it be interpreted there? So I don't think it too
far-fetched that this natural, expected occurrence could motivate a few
extremists to act in some brash way for religious, nationalistic, or
political reasons.

--
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mark Gingrich grinch@xxxxxxxxx San Leandro, California
.

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