It's the first day of spring on the northern hemisphere of Uranus

Happy Equinox to our Uranian colleagues! Today is the day that Uranus' north pole is seeing the Sun for the first time in 42 years; for astronomers, the equinox is more precisely defined as when the sub-solar point on the planet is at the equator. Remember that Uranus is the planet tilted almost exactly sideways, with an axial tilt of 98 degrees; so it's a big deal when the seasons change. Of course, the change of the seasons is quite gradual, and the atmosphere of Uranus has been shifting and changing a lot in recent years as Sunlight gradually crawls northward, something I've written about before.

Outer planets astronomers are in the thick of a busy schedule of observing Uranus during this dynamic time; there are few astronomers who will be privileged to see this event unfold twice in their professional lifetimes. They're studying how sunlight forces weather activity in the atmosphere and how the northern and southern hemispheres differ (and whether those differences, from before the equinox to after, flip from one hemisphere to the other); they're watching the rings, particularly as Earth crosses the ring plane, which happened twice in the last year and will happen one more time, on February 20; they're studying mutual events of Uranus' moons, when one satellite crosses another; and lots of other stuff.

Anyway, I invite you to start a conversation this weekend by mentioning the title of today's blog entry in conversation. "Uranus" jokes may be cheap but I've come to terms with the fact that they are a reliable method for breaking through the apathy of unenlightened folks who don't care about space.