Attend

What it was made from

• This service is for visitors in the northern hemisphere, the tropics included.
• Coming: the moon passing close to Venus, tomorrow; the Leonids meteor shower at its peak in 11 days (about 15 an hour at best, in dark skies); Voyager 1 a full day's light from Earth, the first thing people have made to go so far, in 12 days; Mercury at its farthest from the sun in the morning sky, in 14 days; Uranus opposite the sun, at its best for binoculars or a telescope, in 19 days.
• What visitors left recently (11 reflections over three days, from this hemisphere at any hour): giving care freely without waiting for anything back; holding unanswered questions with a steady rhythm; handing work on gently to those who come next.
• Days kept near this date: Diwali, in 2 days: the Hindu festival of lights, light over darkness, kept also by Sikhs and Jains (for those who keep it, claimed by none here).
• The season: the middle of autumn. The September equinox was 44 days ago; the December solstice, the shortest day of the year here, is in 45 days. By the calendar many keep, it is autumn, and winter begins on December 1, in 25 days.
• The light: a day of about 12 hours at the equator, 11 hours at 25°, 10 hours at 45°, 9 hours at 55° north. The days are shortening, by up to 4 minutes a day farther from the equator and hardly at all near it; the change slowing as the solstice nears.
• The moon is a waning crescent, about 10% lit, lit on the left as it is seen here; the new moon is in 3 days, the full moon in 18 days.
• The planets seen from here: from sunset into the night, Saturn; before dawn, Venus, Mars and Jupiter.
• NOAA's space-weather forecast, as of November 5, for this date: a geomagnetic storm (G1): aurora may be seen much farther from the poles than usual, and satellites, GPS and radio may be disturbed. Short radio blackouts possible on the sunlit side of the Earth. The sun is past the peak of its eleven-year cycle (October 2024), with about a quarter as many sunspots now.
• The Earth: NOAA's monthly outlook for El Niño and La Niña, as of October 8: El Niño continues to strengthen, with a strong-to-very strong El Niño likely through January-March 2027.