Saturn imitates David Copperfield, makes his rings vanish into thin air

Saturn shows us one of his amazing tricks this week, as he makes his rings vanish into thin air. Is he imitating that shapeshifter Neptune? Is he having a makeover?

Some Companies Hire Only Certain Sun Signs

Some companies may be choosing their new hires based on sun signs. Most are, I am sure, very quiet about it. But one Austrian company actually put the sun signs desired in their ‘Help Wanted’ ad.
The Salzburg insurance company specified that only those born under Aries, Taurus, Leo, Capricorn, and Aquarius need apply. Three fixed signs (sorry, Scorpio) and two cardinal signs. Understandably, this ad created some protest that it may be discriminatory.

Your Milky Way Horoscope for Aug. 30-Sept. 5, 2009

Mercury in Libra squares Mars at five degrees Cancer at midday Thursday, at 12:19 pm . There is some danger of accidents especially if you are suppressing anger (Mars). With Cancer involved, I think it is more likely that something you eat may sicken you or cause some reaction. Just make sure foods are well cooked and you stick to familiar foods and recipes. Everyone, look waaay back in the frig and clear out the moldy whatever back there. All the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) are likely to be affected most, but also any air and water signs.
Mercury will go retrograde on Sept. 6 so try to tie up any loose ends but do NOT rush to sign contracts. You may find out something during the retrograde period that changes whether or not you want to finalize the matter. Do take advantage of the Mercury retrograde to poke around for negative feedback from former customers or associates of whatever company you are thinking of dealing with.
It’s rather a quiet week astrologically. I notice that the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy came right when the T-square between Mercury, Mars and Pluto was coming to a head. Mercury is news, Mars is health issues, Pluto represents both the ‘old money’ he came from and life-death transitions. Also Cancer is family or clan, and of course the Kennedy family is possibly the best-known family in American politics if not in all of America. My deepest condolences to the entire Kennedy clan on the loss of their paterfamilias.

Aussie aborigines were first astronomers?

I came across an interesting article in ABC.net on the traitions and myths of the aborigines in Australia. The named one constellation the Great Emu, and use it to time their egg-collecting.

Sunspot Report from EOS Journal Now Available

The 11-year sunspot cycle is still in its doldrums, by that I mean that scientists still have not seen an uptick in volume or development in solar activity.

 Scientists are left scratching their heads as they comb through historical records to understand this long pause in sunspots.

The most famous, or should I say notorious, slowdown in solar activity occurred during the Maunder Minimum, from 1645 to about 1715, when the Sun was in a prolonged phase of low activity and which coincided with the Little Ice Age in Europe.

According to the explanation on one of the cable channels (probably History Channel), the Maunder Minimum led to the melting of polar ice. The diluted oceans led to the breakdown of the ocean currents (Gulf Stream) which equalized temperatures between the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. Thus, weather was literally more polarized, with a huge buildup of ice south of the Nordic countries.

It sounds like everyone is beginning to get a bit nervous about the lack of sunspots. The article states that it has been more than 670 days without sunspots through June 2009, a stretch that was last experienced back in 1933.

C’mon, Sun. You can do it! Get those flares boiling up and send ‘em over here!

 You can read the full two-page report by going to http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf. As you can see, it is in PDF format so allow for a bit extra time to appear. It is in fairly easy to understand language, plus it has a couple charts to illustrate the decline in intensity and field strength.