On Sunday afternoon, October 13, 2024, I attended a wonderful concert by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra (SASO) that included a rousing performance of Scheherazade by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Early that evening, I was the first person in the world to observe the composer’s namesake asteroid 4534 Rimskij-Korsakov passing in front of a distant star and, briefly, blocking its light. As a classical music lover, that made me very happy.
The 0.5-second occultation of the 13.6-magnitude star UCAC4 558-003434 by the asteroid 4534 Rimskij-Korsakov on 14 Oct 2024 2:23:46 UT as seen from Tucson, Arizona using an 8-inch telescope
4534 Rimskij-Korsakov was discovered on 6 Aug 1986 by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Chernykh (1931-2004) at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory near the small settlement of Nauchnyi on the Crimean peninsula, part of Ukraine but illegally occupied by Putin’s Russian forces since 2014.
At the time of its discovery, this asteroid received its preliminary designation 1986 PV4. As is the custom, the discoverer gets to choose a name for the asteroid if they so desire, and Nikolai Chernykh decided to name his discovery after Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908). This name was approved by the IAU and published in Minor Planet Circular 23352 on 25 Apr 1994.
4534 Rimskij-Korsakov is not a large asteroid. Its average diameter is estimated to be just 9.9 miles. Had I been right on the centerline of the asteroid’s shadow, I should have seen the star disappear for about 1.2 seconds. Given that I had to use an integration time of 0.27s due the faintness of the occulted star, the 0.5-second event I recorded had only two data points in the “dip” where the 13.6 magnitude star disappeared leaving only the sky background since the asteroid’s estimated magnitude was just 17.5m. Normally, one likes to have at least three data points in the dip, but two is better than one and the event happened at exactly the predicted time.
20241014_4534_Rimskij-Korsakov_Prediction.gif
20241014_4534_Rimskij-Korsakov_GE.gif
20241014_4534_Rimskij-Korsakov_DAMIT.gif
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a lot of great music, and he was a master of orchestration and orchestral “colors”. Here are my favorite works. If you don’t already know them, give them a listen!
Capriccio espagnol
Le Coq d’Or, Suite [arranged by Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) & Maximilian Steinberg (1883-1946)]
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) October 20, 2024 0208 UT, west of Tucson, Arizona Photograph by David Oesper
A bright comet with a long tail is just now emerging into our evening sky after passing perihelion, and today around 9:08 a.m. MST it passed closest to the Earth at a distance of 0.47 AU.
Even though there is currently moonlight interference and the comet’s head is on the WSW horizon at the end of astronomical twilight (here in Tucson), the tail may be visible even as early as tonight, and each evening going forward Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be rising higher in the WSW sky.
Our first chance this month to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS at least 10° above the horizon in a sky free of twilight and moonlight will come next Saturday evening, but you should definitely make an effort to get out of the city to a dark rural location free of light pollution to get the best view.
Here’s a dark-sky ephemeris for Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS for Tucson, Arizona for October and November. Since the comet is moving away from both the Sun and the Earth, the sooner you make an effort to see this spectacular comet, the better!
How do we know our Sun is 93 million miles (150 million km) away1?
The ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos, who lived around 2,300 years ago, was probably the first person who made a reasonable attempt to determine the distance to the Sun.
Using a method of geometric analysis developed by Euclid (trigonometry had not yet been invented), Aristarchus measured the angle between the half-lit Moon and the Sun and determined that the Sun is 18 to 20 times farther away than the Moon. Though he fell far short of the actual value of 389 due to the extreme difficulty of making accurate measurements using the instruments and methods available to him, Aristarchus showed the way for future generations of astronomers to determine the true distance to the Sun.
Determining the actual distance (and not the relative distance) to the Sun had to wait for Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion that relates a planet’s orbital period to its distance from the Sun, the invention of the telescope, and Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation.
Distances within the solar system can be determined using trigonometry and parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object against the distant background stars as seen from different locations.
Hold your thumb at arm’s length and alternate between right and left eye open to see the parallactic shift. Bring your thumb closer, and the shift is greater.
Measuring the parallax to a Sun-orbiting object (such as Mars) from two different locations on the Earth’s surface allows us to measure its distance and, thanks to Kepler and Newton, sets the scale for the entire solar system. The true distance of each planet from the Sun can then be mathematically determined. This was first accomplished in 1672, and has been done many times since, with ever-improving accuracy.
Observations of the position of Mars by Giovanni Cassini at Paris and Jean Richer at Cayenne allowed the first determination of the distance to Mars using trigonometric parallax in 1672.
Today, we have even better methods to determine the scale of the solar system: timing radar reflections off of solar system objects, and measuring travel time for radio communications between Earth and spacecraft. Both radar and radio signals travel at the speed of light, which is very well determined.
Clockwise from upper left: George Ellery Hale, Edwin Powell Hubble, Milton La Salle Humason, John Daggett Hooker, Hooker 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory
Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953) was born in Marshfield, Missouri, nine years after a devastating F4 tornado destroyed most of the town, killing 99 people and injuring 100. The Hubble family moved to Wheaton, Illinois (near Chicago) the year Edwin was born.
After receiving a B.S. degree from the University of Chicago in 1910, Hubble spent three years at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. The experience must have made quite an impression on young Hubble, as he returned to the U.S. with an affected British accent and other mannerisms (such as smoking a pipe) that stayed with him (and sometimes irritated others) for the rest of his life.
George Ellery Hale (1868-1938) offered Hubble a job at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1919, and that same year also hired a talented man who would soon become Hubble’s assistant, Milton Humason (1891-1972), just as Mt. Wilson’s 100-inch Hooker telescope (the largest in the world at that time) started to see regular use.
Hubble identified Cepheid variables in M31, the Andromeda Nebula (and some other spiral nebulae), using the 100-inch in 1922-1923. From those observations, Hubble determined without a shadow of doubt that the Andromeda Nebula is in fact another galaxy of stars lying far beyond our own Milky Way galaxy. Up until this time, there was great debate about whether “spiral nebulae” like M31 were within our own galaxy or beyond it. Many thought that our galaxy was the entire universe. Thanks to Edwin Hubble and those who followed him, we now know that our galaxy is but one of many billions in this unimaginably vast universe we are lucky enough to explore.
How did Hubble use the faint Cepheid variables to determine the distance to M31? Cepheid variables are very luminous yellow giant and supergiant stars whose luminosity is directly related to the period of time it takes for the star to vary in brightness from brightest to dimmest to brightest again. The longer the period, the brighter the star really is. Knowing the apparent brightness of a star (dependent on distance), and knowing its true brightness (not dependent on distance), we can easily calculate the distance to the star. In the case of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, we now know its distance to be 2.48 ± 0.04 million light years. M31 and the Milky Way are comparable in size and mass, and are by far the two largest galaxies of the Local Group, which contains at least 80 members. M31 and our Milky Way are moving towards each other due to gravitational attraction, and they will “collide” in about 4 to 5 billion years, probably leading to the formation of a giant elliptical or lenticular galaxy. But no one on Earth will witness this event. Due to the warming Sun, the surface of the Earth will become lifeless in a billion years or so.
Maria (pronounced Ma-RYE-ah) Mitchell (1818-1889), America’s first female professor of astronomy, was born August 1, 1818 on Nantucket Island (Massachusetts). Her interest in astronomy was encouraged by her father, and she assisted him with his research at a time when few women were allowed an opportunity to do scientific research. She discovered a comet in 1847 at the age of 29, and this brought her fame as one of America’s few women scientists. She was employed for many years as a computer (a person who performs lengthy mathematical calculations), and then taught astronomy at Vassar College for many years (1865-1888), a women’s college in Poughkeepsie, New York. At Vassar, she was also the director of the Vassar College Observatory. A devoted teacher, she believed that students learn best by doing real research projects. In 1869, she traveled to Burlington, Iowa with six of her students to observe a total solar eclipse.
The Maria Mitchell Observatory was established on Nantucket Island in 1908, and today continues its long legacy of public outreach and undergraduate research.
“When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.”
“We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.”
“Question everything.”
“The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not.”
Thanks to Gaia, many star positions (and proper motions) and minor planet positions (orbits) have improved so much that those of us who try to observe stellar occultations by minor planets have recently seen a vast improvement in our likelihood of success. These occultation events are an excellent way to discover minor planet satellites as well as double stars. At the very least, they provide highly accurate minor planet astrometric positions that lead to more accurate orbits, and if several observers record an event, the size and shape of the minor planet can be more accurately determined.
Perhaps surprisingly, a number of low-numbered (and thus generally larger) minor planets have never been observed to occult a star. Here are the ten lowest-numbered minor planets still awaiting their first-observed stellar occultation event.
To predict future stellar occultation events for any given minor planet (and so much more!), use the latest version of Occult – Occultation Prediction Software by David Herald.
Last Updated: April 25, 2026
228 Agathe Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 9.30 ± 0.8 km. Rotation Period: 6.484 hours Discovered 1882 Aug 19 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Named in honor of the youngest daughter of Theodor von Oppolzer (1841-1886), professor of astronomy in Vienna. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/228_Agathe
262 Valda Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 14.645 ± 0.141 km. Rotation Period: 17.386 hours Discovered 1886 Nov 3 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Any reference of this name to a person or occurrence is unknown. Name proposed by the Baroness Bettina von Rothschild. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/262_Valda
281 Lucretia Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 11.036 ± 0.145 km. Rotation Period: 4.348 hours Discovered 1888 Oct 31 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Named in honor of Lucretia Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), sister of the discoverer (1781) of Uranus, Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), whom she assisted, beginning in 1772. She independently discovered seven or eight comets. After her brother’s death, she returned from England to Hannover, Germany and constructed a catalogue of the nebulae and clusters discovered by him. She received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/281_Lucretia
291 Alice Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 10.456 ± 0.419 km. Rotation Period: 4.313 hours Discovered 1890 Apr 25 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Name of unknown origin. Named by the Société Astronomique de France at the invitation of the discoverer. Independently discovered by A. Charlois at Nice one night later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/291_Alice
296 Phaëtusa Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 8.196 ± 0.100 km. Rotation Period: 4.5385 hours Discovered 1890 Aug 19 by A. Charlois at Nice. Named for one of the daughters of Apollo and Klymene, changed by Zeus into poplars after the death of their brother Phaethon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/296_Pha%C3%ABtusa
299 Thora Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 15.757 ± 0.081 km. Rotation Period: 272.9 hours Discovered 1890 Oct 6 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Named for the Norse god of thunder, weather, and crops. Named by Geheimrat Prof. Scheibler in Berlin. In Norse mythology this name repeatedly exists as spouse of Helge, spouse of Ragnar Lodbrok, and as a girlfriend of Gudrun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/299_Thora
311 Claudia Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 26.300 ± 0.378 km. Rotation Period: 7.532 hours Discovered 1891 Jun 11 by A. Charlois at Nice. The name was suggested to Charlois by the amateur astronomer Arthur Mee of Cardiff, Wales, to commemorate Mee’s wife, Claudia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/311_Claudia
315 Constantia Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 6.534 ± 0.068 km. Rotation Period: 5.345 hours Discovered 1891 Sep 4 by J. Palisa at Vienna. A Latin word meaning constancy and perseverance, a quality Camille Flammarion considered essential to a good astronomer, who suggested the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/315_Constantia
321 Florentina Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 27.974 ± 0.103 km. Rotation Period: 2.871 hours Discovered 1891 Oct 15 by J. Palisa at Vienna. Named in honor of the daughter of the discoverer, Florentine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/321_Florentina
367 Amicitia Main-belt Asteroid. Diameter 21.243 ± 0.632 km. Rotation Period: 5.05538 hours Discovered 1893 May 19 by A. Charlois at Nice The name is the Latin word for friendship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/367_Amicitia
When our Sun formed 4.6 billion years ago, it almost certainly was a member of an open star cluster. Over several hundred million years, most of the stars in this cluster would have dissipated. Is there any hope, then, of finding some of our solar siblings?
I ran a query against the Gaia DR3 database to find stars with radial velocities and proper motions that are zero, within the measurement uncertainties. In other words, their space motions appear to be similar to that of the Sun. Could some of these stars be our long lost solar siblings?
First, some caveats.
4.6 billion years is a lot of time, and dynamical evolution may lead to solar siblings no longer having comparable space motions to the Sun.
Error bars for the radial velocities, proper motions, and distances of many of these stars are large enough that subsequent more precise measurements may show that they are not co-moving with the Sun.
Though radial velocities are not affected by increasing star distance, proper motions are; therefore, proper motion in right ascension and declination will approach zero with increasing stellar distance
Some co-moving stars will be coincidental, especially if they are at large distances
I found 230 candidate stars in Gaia DR3 that appear to be co-moving with the Sun. They are listed in the table below.
Gaia DR3 Zero Space Motion
wdt_ID
wdt_created_by
wdt_created_at
wdt_last_edited_by
wdt_last_edited_at
Gaia DR3 SOURCE_ID
Other Catalog
RA (2016)
Dec (2016)
G Mag
Distance (ly)
1
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
5534600793005666944
TYC 7663-2637-1
08 05 30
- 40 05 11
10.63
2,100
2
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
4044381556633823232
HD 321719
18 25 18
- 34 39 16
10.91
3,776
3
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
5933186123279263872
TYC 8323-81-1
16 15 34
- 52 29 35
11.30
2,930
4
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
4069457877771166464
18 00 01
- 22 47 10
11.33
5,673
5
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
5926323972473953792
TYC 8349-1491-1
17 19 13
- 50 14 57
11.85
999,999
6
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
1816548038377615872
TYC 1639-1018-1
20 22 27
+ 20 06 07
11.86
1,208
7
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
3403073120299336960
UCAC4 557-018920
05 44 22
+ 21 14 45
12.00
1,720
8
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
5316984970605614208
08 46 50
- 54 57 33
12.08
1,192
9
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
2224937958644193920
V898 Cep
22 38 02
+ 67 27 58
12.19
1,998
10
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
do18559252
30/04/2024 09:51 AM
4103489613769523712
18 42 09
- 14 55 00
12.21
2,988
Gaia DR3 SOURCE_ID
Other Catalog
RA (2016)
Dec (2016)
G Mag
Distance (ly)
Please note that a distance of 999,999 ly (light years) indicates a Gaia parallax that is negative, meaning that the star is so far away that a reliable parallax cannot be measured. In other words, it is zero. Also, the farther away the star is, the more uncertainty there is in the distance.
19 of these 230 stars are bright enough, important enough, or lucky enough to have entries in the SIMBAD database. The nearest of these is TYC 8312-3134-1 which is 518 ly away in the constellation Norma.
We can do a simple BOTEC to determine how fast TYC 8312-3134-1 would have to be moving relative to the Sun to travel 518 ly in 4.6 Gyr. The answer is just 0.03 km/s = 30 meters/second. This is much less than the typical space motion of stars in the solar neighborhood relative to the Sun, which is on the order of many kilometers per second. It is therefore completely plausible that solar siblings could now be at a distance of at least 500 ly and even many times further than that.
Reference
SELECT TOP 2000 gaia_source.source_id,gaia_source.ra,gaia_source.dec,gaia_source.parallax,gaia_source.pmra,gaia_source.pmdec,gaia_source.ruwe,gaia_source.phot_g_mean_mag,gaia_source.bp_rp,gaia_source.radial_velocity,gaia_source.radial_velocity_error,gaia_source.phot_variable_flag,gaia_source.non_single_star,gaia_source.has_xp_continuous,gaia_source.has_xp_sampled,gaia_source.has_rvs,gaia_source.has_epoch_photometry,gaia_source.has_epoch_rv,gaia_source.has_mcmc_gspphot,gaia_source.has_mcmc_msc,gaia_source.teff_gspphot,gaia_source.logg_gspphot,gaia_source.mh_gspphot,gaia_source.distance_gspphot,gaia_source.azero_gspphot,gaia_source.ag_gspphot,gaia_source.ebpminrp_gspphot
FROM gaiadr3.gaia_source
WHERE (gaiadr3.gaia_source.radial_velocity-gaiadr3.gaia_source.radial_velocity_error <= 0)
and (gaiadr3.gaia_source.radial_velocity+gaiadr3.gaia_source.radial_velocity_error >= 0)
and (gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmra-gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmra_error <= 0)
and (gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmra+gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmra_error >= 0)
and (gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmdec-gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmdec_error <= 0)
and (gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmdec+gaiadr3.gaia_source.pmdec_error >= 0);
The coldest temperature ever reliably recorded on the surface of the Earth occurred on July 21, 1983, when a temperature of -128.6° F was recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica (φ = 78° 27′ 52″ S, λ = 106° 50′ 14″ E, elevation 11,444 ft.). Located at the center of the East Antarctic ice sheet, Vostok Station is prone to extremely cold temperatures given its high elevation and location far inland (~868 miles) from the moderating influence of the ocean. Other contributing factors to the low temperature are the extremely low humidity (water vapor retains heat near the surface) and the high albedo of the snow and ice which reflects much solar radiation back out into space.
Vostok Station is the most isolated of all the established research stations on the Antarctic continent. Only about 30 scientists and engineers reside at Vostok Station during the summer months, but during winter that number dwindles to about 15.
The monthly average temperature at Vostok is as follows: April -84.6°F, May -86.4°F, June -85.5°F, July -88.1°F, August -90.2°F, September -86.8°F, October -70.8°F, November -44.7°F, December -25.2°F, January -25.6°F, February -47.7°F, March -72.2°F. The warmest temperature ever recorded at Vostok was +6.8° F on January 5, 1974.
Vostok is a desert, averaging just 0.9 inches of snowfall each year. Does any non-dormant indigenous life exist at Vostok Station? No. Except for the human presence there, on the surface it is lifeless. But, fortuitously, Vostok Station sits above a giant freshwater lake called, appropriately, Lake Vostok, 13,100 feet under the ice. Scientists believe that life exists there, but they want to be very, very careful not to biocontaminate the lake as they begin exploring it in earnest.
It is interesting for us to ponder the possibility that sub-surface life exists on Mars and some of the satellites in the outer solar system. Though far more difficult than Lake Vostok to explore, someday we will.
Incidentally, at higher elevations along the Eastern Antarctica Plateau (specifically, along the ridge between Dome Argus and Dome Fuji), satellite measurements between 2010 and 2013 indicate that even colder surface temperatures than at Vostok Station have been reached, perhaps even as low as -144°F. However, since these are not surface temperature measurements, the current Vostok Station record of -128.6° F still holds as the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. And with anthropogenic global warming, that record is not likely to be broken anytime soon.
Factino: Did you know that it takes a lot more energy to cool down humid air than to cool down dry air? Air conditioners cool much more efficiently in Arizona and New Mexico than they do in Florida and Louisiana. Moreover, evaporative coolers in desert areas can reduce energy use by 80% or more over refrigerative air conditioning, but they only work well in dry climates.
The first (and only!) sunset1 this year at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica occurs on March 22 at 0615 UTC (using “astronomer’s time” as time zone has no meaning so close to the South Pole).
The year’s first and only end of civil twilight (when the geometric center of the Sun lies 6° below the horizon) occurs on April 4 at 1153 UTC. That’s 13d05h38m after sunset.
The year’s first and only end of nautical twilight (when the geometric center of the Sun lies 12° below the horizon) occurs on April 21 at 0409 UTC. That’s 16d16h16m after the end of civil twilight.
The year’s first and only end of astronomical twilight (when the geometric center of the Sun lies 18° below the horizon) occurs on May 11 at 0521 UTC. That’s 20d01h12m after the end of nautical twilight, and 49d23h06m after sunset. That’s one heck of a long twilight!
Night lasts from May 11 at 0521 UTC until astronomical twilight begins on July 31 at 1916 UTC. A duration of 81d13h55m.
Nautical twilight begins on August 21 at 0024 UTC. That’s 20d05h08m after the beginning of astronomical twilight.
Civil twilight begins on September 6 at 2121 UTC. That’s 16d20h57m after the beginning of nautical twilight.
The first and only sunrise of the year occurs on September 20 at 0945 UTC. “Morning” twilight lasts a total of 50d14h29m.
The Sun remains above the horizon continuously until sunset on March 22, 2025 at 1100 UTC. Daylight “hours” last 183d01h15m.
Strange place!
1Sunrise and sunset. For computational purposes, sunrise or sunset is defined to occur when the geometric zenith distance of the center of the Sun is 90.8333 degrees. That is, the center of the Sun is geometrically 50 arcminutes below a horizontal plane. For an observer at sea level with a level, unobstructed horizon, under average atmospheric conditions, the upper limb of the Sun will then appear to be tangent to the horizon. The 50-arcminute geometric depression of the Sun’s center used for the computations is obtained by adding the average apparent radius of the Sun (16 arcminutes) to the average amount of atmospheric refraction at the horizon (34 arcminutes). [Reference: https://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/RST_defs, but see here: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/etdr/697/]
Note: SkySafari 6 Pro, Version 6.8.2 (6820) for MacOS was used to determine these dates and times. The location coordinates used for Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station were 89° 58′ 59.9″ S, 139° 16′ 01.2″ E, 2835 m.
Fun Fact: Did you know that there is a seismic station near the south pole, and that it has been operating since 1957?
I recently completed teaching a six-week course on the Ukraine-born Russian/Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), a course I am eager to reprise in the not-too-distant future. His story is by turns both fascinating and tragic, and he wrote a lot of great music—much of it seldom performed. I am amazed that no one has yet produced an English-language documentary on Prokofiev, nor even a biopic.
Since my primary interests are classical music and astronomy, I am naturally curious about significant classical composers who were also interested in astronomy. Prokofiev was one of those composers.
Prokofiev kept fascinating and extensive diaries between 1907 and 1933, a practice which sadly ceased as soon as he began seriously contemplating a return to the Soviet Union and the increasingly repressive regime of Joseph Stalin.
Here are Prokofiev’s astronomy-related entries from those diaries.
26 September 1913 Visited the Andreyevs and showed them my old song “There are other planets”. I love this song, and the other day, inspired by the example of Maddalena, made some revisions to the vocal line. It is now a good song, and Anna Grigorievna liked it very much. She wants to include it in her recital programme in December.
The song Prokofiev is referring to here is Two Poems for voice and piano, op. 9, no. 1. The text is a poem by Russian poet Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942). Here is that poem in an English translation:
There are other planets. The skies are clear and completely calm there, the mimosa blossoms are softer, and sweet grasses grow higher. The clarity that plays there, it is less changeable than here, we cherish it always and can always smile.
There are other planets for another existence. We will return there, but later, but much later, when a day we have lost cannot be returned to us unchanged, when we don’t like anything in this world where the herbs grow grey and without fragrance, funereal herbs.
The sweet grass trembles sadly under the stars, seeking peace in the mournful places, and pushes on our tombs, so calmly, so calmly, so sad and calm, under the serenity of the moon.
16 March 1914 In the evening Mama and I went to hear Zherebtsova-Andreyeva, who had included my song “There are Other Planets” in her programme. I was extremely interested to hear my song, never having heard it performed before. Rather good, although naturally not for the wider public (although actually it was very well received). Anna Grigorievna sang wonderfully, except for her habit of clearing her throat when she finishes singing, but Dulov accompanied drily and he played some wrong notes in the bass.
In this first performance, Anna Grigorievna Zherebtsova-Andreyeva was the singer, and Dulov (first name unknown) was the pianist.
Here is a performance of this work by Andrey Slavny (baritone) and Yuri Serov (piano), recorded at St. Catherine Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg in 1995.
October 1916 I have become deeply interested in the stars. I have always felt drawn to astronomy, and now that I have got hold of Ignatiev’s little book I have begun to study the stars in the night sky, committing their names to memory and tracing out the constellations on paper. But alas, every night last week was cloudy.
The astronomy book Prokofiev was referring to is The World of the Heavens [Nebesny Mir], An Illustrated Astronomy for the General Reader by E. I. Ignatiev, published in St. Petersburg in 1916. Hardly a “little book” at over 400 pages!
7 November 1916 Coming away from Balmont’s, I feasted my eyes on the stars. The layer of cloud had finally dispersed, and what joy it was to see the beauty of Orion, red Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, and the wonderful green and white diamond of Sirius. I gazed at them with newly opened eyes recognizing them from the astronomical maps I had been studying—and felt as though invisible threads were connecting me to the heavens! It was four o’clock in the morning, I should have been asleep, but white Sirius stood directly in front of my window and I could not take my eyes away from him! I took a copy of Sarcasms round to Balmont, with the inscription: “To our Sun, a few fragments of darkness”.
When Prokofiev writes “the green and white diamond of Sirius” he must be referring to the impressive scintillation of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, since at the latitude (50° N) of Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he was at the time, Sirius never reaches an altitude higher than 23° above the horizon.
February 1917 I…read a book about astronomy (I am deeply interested in this subject)…
May 1917 As spring continued my astronomical interest deepened. Naturally, in the perpetually cloudy skies over Petrograd it was a rare gift to be able to see the stars, even so by the time I moved out to my dacha I knew the main stars well enough to distinguish them not merely by their relationship to other heavenly bodies but in their own right, so to say, each one face to face. I decided to buy a telescope and set it up on the balcony of the dacha so that I could look at the stars by night. Wartime conditions in Petrograd meant that the choice was down to two, one of which was a splendid three-inch Fraunhofer (i.e. one of the best makes) refractor, which I bought for 200 roubles. It is quite portable, about two arshins in length mounted on a high tripod base and a lens giving a magnification to the power of seventy. I was incredibly pleased with my purchase and awaited with the greatest impatience a chance to point it at the heavens.
What’s an arshin, you might be wondering? An arshin is an antiquated Russian unit of length equal to 71.12 cm, so “two arshins” would be a little less than 5 ft. in length.
An editorial footnote indicates that “Presumably, Prokofiev’s Fraunhofer was looted or destroyed in the Petrograd flat after his departure in 1918. It would be worth a fortune today.”
Prokofiev continues,
On the 6th I gathered up my telescope, my suitcase and all my things and departed for my country estate. The weather was marvellous, everything was green, but no sooner had I arrived, installed myself, pleasurably inspected my six rooms, corridor, balcony and attic than the thermometer started falling rapidly and it came on to snow, at first mixed with rain and then in earnest, so that the following morning everything around me was as white as if it were January, and not a green leaf anywhere was to be seen poking through the blanket of snow.
My desire to pursue my astronomical activities was so great that when, that first evening, the great clouds scudding across the sky parted just enough to reveal a patch through which stars sparkled, I rushed to mark the place and set up the telescope, huddled in overcoat and scarf and freezing with cold, so that should that part of the sky clear again I would be able to capture the star in my 3-inch refractor. After several unsuccessful attempts I dismantled the telescope and went to bed. My “first telescope night” had not been very successful! After two more days the weather reverted to spring and on the 9th I went to Petrograd to attend the Graduation Concert at the Conservatoire.
I enjoyed myself very much at the concert and even felt a reluctance to return to my “estate” in the evening! I went to Andreyev’s to play bridge, but this was basically an error of judgement because the sky cleared and became very “telescopic”. The planets Mars, Venus and Jupiter were all in conjunction with the Taurus constellation, and I should not have put off viewing them because later on in May Taurus would be in the sky during the day and would not be visible at night.
Prokofiev again continues,
The White Nights are hopeless for the telescope: only the brightest stars (Vega and Arcturus) are visible. I trained the telescope on them but did not derive any great satisfaction; they are simple, uninteresting, stars. But I did observe the moon in her first quarter, studying her empty seas and the craters with which her surface is pitted as though with smallpox.
An editorial footnote indicates that “The White Nights in St. Petersburg are normally regarded as lasting from 11 June to 2 July. During this period the sun does not descend far enough below the horizon for the sky to become dark.”
Now on holiday on the Kama river, a tributary of the Volga, Prokofiev writes,
One evening I had my first sight of the most beautiful and most ancient star Antares. This star is in the southern hemisphere and from our northern lands can be seen only in early summer, appearing so low above the horizon that it is invisible through the roofs and buildings of Petrograd. For several evenings I watched for it on the Kama, and at last it appeared through the clouds precisely in the spot where I was looking for it. This was a great joy to me.
July 1917 I dislike the idea of a whole summer without spending any time in the real south, and gladly fell in with the plan of going for three weeks to Yessentuki. Moreover the black southern sky with its brilliant stars, so unlike those in the pale north, was a seductive prospect for my astronomical passion!
And so the long-desired day finally came, and on the 22nd I was sitting in a comfortable first-class compartment with my suitcase and my telescope speeding to the south.
In Yessentuki I installed myself in a marvellous four-roomed dacha that Boris Verin had rented. In the south again, and full of joy to be there. Sunshine, and at night the southern stars. I can only imagine how bright they must be at the Equator!
August 1917 I took my seat in the local train and went back. Looking through the window at the stars, I saw for the first time my beloved Fomalhaut, a southern-hemisphere star visible to us in the north only in early autumn, and very seldom indeed from the latitude of Petrograd. I have long admired it on the map, where it appears quite on its own, far away from other stars.
When I came back from Kislovodsk to Yessentuki, B. Verin and I trained my telescope, the one I had brought from Petrograd, on Jupiter and found all six of its satellites. As I had just come from my concert I was still in my tails, and so this is how we observed Jupiter—ceremonial dress to honour the splendour of the planet. Also, this evening I learned the disposition of the Hercules constellation, to which our own sun belongs. It is not a simple constellation to master, as its form is complex, the stars are not easily visible, and it is very spread out across the heavens. But Balmont knows it.
Prokofiev would only have been able to see four satellites of Jupiter with his telescope: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The other two “satellites” must have been background stars. If I have figured correctly, Prokofiev would have been observing Jupiter early morning on Friday, August 24, 1917 (New Style date) which would have been Friday, August 11 (Old Style date) in Russia at that time. The two stars he thought were satellites of Jupiter were probably 8th-magnitude stars HD 28990 and HD 28966.
Prokofiev’s reference to the Sun “belonging” to Hercules indicates he knew about the solar apex, the direction the Sun travels relative to the local standard of rest. William Herschel was the first to demonstrate that the solar apex is in the constellation Hercules.
Balmont refers to the aforementioned poet, Konstantin Balmont.
November 1917 Elections to the Constituent Assembly. (Venus-Jupiter-Sirius-The Moon).
Prokofiev is referring to the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election during the Russian Revolution, and that he observed Venus, Jupiter, Sirius, and the Moon at Kislovodsk.
18 June [1 July] 1918 At night there is wonderful view of Scorpio and its red Antares. In this region the whole constellation glitters in impressive visibility and does genuinely look like a terrifying mystical beast.
On his way to his first visit to the United States, Prokofiev is spending some time in Japan. At this time he is in Yokohama. At latitude 35° N, he is indeed getting a good view of Scorpius. The date in brackets is the New Style (Gregorian calendar) date, whereas the non-bracket date is the Old Style (Julian calendar) date.
20 July [2 August] 1918 I was allocated a state room on my own, even though I only had a second-class ticket. Lying on my chaise-longue I hardly noticed us slipping imperceptibly away from the shore. The steamship Grotius is a fairly large Dutch boat, 8,000 tons, en route from Java to San Francisco. All evening we stayed in sight of the shore.
That night I slept well, and coming on deck at four o’clock just before dawn, saw the most wonderful sight: in the lightening sky, from which the stars were already disappearing, hung the waning moon and alongside her Jupiter and bright, bright Venus.
Prokofiev is now sailing from Yokohama to San Francisco, by way of Honolulu.
22 July [4 August] 1918 Slept well, rocked by the rolling of the ship. At four o’clock went on deck to see if I could see Venus, but the night was too cloudy.
23 July [5 August] 1918 The night being terribly stuffy, at four o’clock I went on deck. Venus had hidden herself behind clouds, but the dawn was magnificent. I then slept outside in my chaise-longue.
27 July [9 August] 1918 The ocean is calm. The voyage is becoming monotonous. I read Taine, and lack all inclination to compose anything. I cannot concentrate, because round every corner I hear the sound of a Dutchman whistling. I look at the stars and find them absorbing. Mars is in conjunction with Antares: the reddest planet with the reddest star. Which is the brighter and more beautiful I cannot decide, but the light from Antares is alive, while that from Mars is merely a reflection.
27 July [9 August] 1918 bis A remarkable event today: the second Friday in a single week. As we move eastwards, the time moves forward by half an hour in each day, so there are actually only twenty-three-and-a-half hours in every twenty-four. In this way a complete extra day eventually accumulates, which is accounted for when one crosses the 180-degree meridian.
28 July [10 August] 1918 Red Mars changes its position every day, and I observe its progress. Scorpio is already high in the sky, promising many new southern stars, but the lower part of the sky is always obscured by storm clouds.
Prokofiev is now in New York City.
2 [15] September 1918 In the evening I went with Bolm to some sort of American artistic society, where “clever” ladies harangued me with complicated homilies about the stars under whose protection I currently was. But I went on to the attack and proved to them that they lacked even the most elementary knowledge of astronomy. The organization had tenuous links with Postnikov and his enterprise, and along the way I had come into possession of certain plausible information suggesting that Postnikov was a cheat and a swindler. The ladies were much astonished.
28 May 1920 I boarded a bus and went out to relax in Greenwich Park to “visit the meridian”. Having travelled right around the globe I thought it only right to pay my respects to the meridian from which the earth’s surface takes its measurements. At the top of the hill the Observatory towers up, a forbidding-looking, grey building, but all around the park is green and welcoming.
Prokofiev is, of course, referring to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London, England.
1-31 May 1921 Our joy at meeting again was unconfined on both sides, questions seemed inappropriate. After an hour the three of us (with Linette) went to have dinner and drank a bottle of champagne to celebrate our reunion. B. N. declared that it was the fulfilment of an impossible dream that had sustained him through three dreadful years in Petrograd. Looking at the stars, he had associated me for some reason with Deneb, as if I, like Deneb, existed in some other, inaccessible, world.
This takes place in Paris, and B. N. is Boris Nikolayevich Bashkirov, a wealthy amateur poet and friend of Prokofiev whose pseudonym was Boris Verin. “Linette” is Lina Codina, who would become Prokofiev’s wife in two years’ time.
22 August 1924 Read some Christian Science. When Christians first began to preach the immortality of the soul, the Romans objected that since man comes into being through birth he is inevitably bound to die, for something that is finite at one end cannot be infinite at the other. In answer to this Christian Science states that it is not the case that man (in the shape of his soul) comes into being through birth, and will not die. But if I was never born, that is to say I always existed but with no memory of my previous existence, how can I be sure that this present existence is mine and not that of some other being? After all, if my birth into this world entails the removal of all my memory of the past, for me the past does not exist. In that case the future cannot exist for me either, for by cutting off my memory death also cuts me off, in the same way as birth brought me in. Christian Science’s explanation is therefore not clear to me. Generally speaking there are fewer difficulties believing in the mortality of man than in his immortality. On the other hand, it is also easier to conceive of oneself as a being created by God than as a wholly godless creature of nature. It follows from this that for man the most natural understanding of the world is that expressed by Wells, whose theory I found so attractive a year ago: God exists but man is mortal. Wells believes that man is no more than a stage in the divine creation, one link in the biological chain extending from the primeval slime that first appeared on the surface of the not yet cooled waters of the infant planet, to the superhuman being into which we will one day develop and which, perhaps, will then be deserving of immortality. In the meantime the role of mankind is to play his part in this onward movement during his lifespan and then to die, that is to say to vanish and become a quantité négligeable, in the same way as half-completed sketches and drafts are discarded along the way. Even though Christian Science regards this theory as erroneous, it cannot entirely condemn it because at its heart lies humility, while its elements conform to almost all the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. Christian Science’s teaching is more optimistic but it is essential, before accepting it, to understand and clarify with much greater precision what this teaching consists of.
An editorial footnote states, “When staying in Les Rochelets in the summer of 1921 Prokofiev every evening read aloud a chapter of H. G. Wells’s The Outline of History to his mother and Boris Bashkirov.”
14 March 1925 I did not read much Christian Science, but I did read some, and thought deeply about certain aspects of it, trying to penetrate to its essence. If God created man, then there must necessarily have been a time when man did not exist. But Christian Science disputes this conclusion, asserting that mankind has always existed. And it is true that, if mankind had a beginning then it must also have an end, which is to say that man cannot be immortal, since nothing that is eternal can be finite at one end. Thus the assertion by Christian Science that man is eternal in the future as he is in the past conflicts with the first proposition, that there was an instant in time when God created man, before which there was no man. Similarly, this proposition is contradicted by the following conclusion: if it is so that there was a moment when God, who is eternal, created man, then eternity must have existed before this moment and after it, which suggests that there must be two eternities, each limited at one end. This is demonstrably absurd, since eternity — illimitableness — that is finite at one end is a contradiction in terms. To reconcile these contradictions it is necessary to conclude that our understanding of eternity as one hour succeeding another and so on without end is incorrect, and that beyond the confines of our own world the laws of time (and therefore doubtless of space as well) are quite other. In all probability our death is the route our consciousness takes to exit from the limits of time and space. But if this is so, that is to say our conception of time is no more than a local conception, then by the same token we are incapable of approaching the question of the creation of mankind. We cannot even pose the question: was there a time (in eternity, which does not contain time) when man did not exist? For this reason, it is impossible to answer yes or no to my first question. In the same way the question asked by some people who, when they contemplate the idea of immortality, become so frightened that they cannot decide which is more terrifying, mortality or immortality, should be hors de combat. Such questioners must likewise have it explained to them that in eternity the concept of time cannot exist.
Interesting that this insightful essay was penned on “Pi Day”, since the transcendental π = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795… has infinitely many digits that neither terminate nor enter a permanently repeating pattern.
My take after reading this is that there may be two realities. One reality (our reality) consist of entities that exist within time and space. But there is another reality, where there are entities that exist outside of time and space (of which eternity and infinity are proxies).
As for immortality, since I have no consciousness of anything before I was born, why should I expect that I would have any consciousness of anything after I die? To me, that is the most tragic fact of human existence. Within a few minutes (or hours, if extraordinary measures are taken) after death occurs, all of our knowledge and experience—our memories—are irretrievably lost, and all that remains of us is what we have left behind (writing, music, art, etc.), and the memories of those who are still living who knew us. After all the people who knew us personally have died, then all that remains of our existence are artifacts. And, eventually, all of those will be gone, too. This truly emphasizes the importance of this life, of this world, of this time. How we live our lives and treat others today, tomorrow, and the next day are of paramount importance. It is all we have, or will ever have.
2 May 1925 Through the Borovskys I was invited to visit the Paris Observatory. I was irritated that the Borovskys had assembled a heterogeneous mob of people to come along, who made things worse by being late. We were welcomed by two astronomers, each of whom was in charge of a tower with a telescope. One of them, Fatou, proved to be a great admirer of my music and was exceptionally pleased that I was there, which astonished and flattered me in equal measure. The other astronomer, no doubt because of his colleague, was equally amiable. His name was Jacobi, and he looks as if he drinks, but he is the discoverer of seven comets and has thus immortalised his name: in five hundred, or perhaps a thousand, years people will observe the return of Jacobi’s Comet. The moon displayed marvellous dark blue reflections, and Saturn its rings. They showed us a double star (Gamma Leo), whose separation could be seen quite clearly, but whose colours (each one is a different colour) I could not make out. Apparently astronomers sometimes cannot themselves distinguish the different colours. Afterwards we went to Mrs. Barbara’s to drink wine, where the astronomers asked me to play, which I was most willing to do; they were delighted.
Fatou refers to Pierre Joseph Louis Fatou (1878-1929), mathematician and astronomer. I am virtually certain that “Jacobi” is actually the French astronomer Michel Giacobini (1873–1938).
Here are my observing notes about Gamma Leonis:
Algieba. Very bright, close double. Primary is orangish-yellow (2.6 K1-IIIbCN-0.5) and secondary is yellow (3.8 G7IIICN-1). Relative color seems to change as you watch.
2 July 1925 I have been reflecting on time, in connection with a thought that struck me earlier: that in that other life, in eternity, there is no conception of time, and consequently time is connected uniquely with our life on earth. This was followed by another thought: that time, as we know it, has only one dimension, and indeed a sub-dimension, in that within this one dimension we can move in only one of its two directions, not both. Even though at first glance it may appear that with the aid of memory we are able to move backwards, this is not in fact so: memory can help us to catch hold of a few fragments of time which lie behind us, but any movement we may make within this fragment can only be forwards. For example, if we recall yesterday’s automobile excursion, we cannot induce our memory to act in such a way that the car retraces its journey back to the place it started from. Is it impossible to conceive of a condition in that “other” world in which time possesses more than one dimension — three, like space, or even where both time and space have four?!
In an attempt to use imagination to go beyond mere scholastic speculation, I started to think what two additional dimensions, width and thickness, could consist of. It is known that the flow of time sometimes leaves no trace: looking back into the past it is hard to say what period has elapsed, a week or a month. And sometimes the opposite is true: a particular hour may contain so many impressions that it would take a whole year to recall them. Is it not legitimate to regard this as a symbol of the greater or lesser thickness of time? And if such a symbolic representation is allowed, then it becomes possible to conceive of moving through time in that dimension. A third dimension of time — width — may be defined as omnipresence, ubiquity. In speaking of omnipresence I am not here confusing time with space, for ubiquity must be understood not only as the ability to be simultaneously in different places in space, but as the ability simultaneously to assimilate multiple different thoughts (God assimilates contemporaneously the prayers of millions of people?). I do not insist that the additional dimensions of time must be those I have suggested, they may be quite other, I submit them merely as examples of the way in which it is possible to imagine time possessing other dimensions.
None of this, needless to say, provides an answer to the question of eternity from the perspective of the infinity of time, just as extending the number of dimensions in space fails to resolve the conundrum of its illimitability. But admitting at least the possible of three-dimensional time, offering the consequent possibility of moving through it in different dimensions, brings with it the obligation to pose many questions in a form not possible heretofore.
18 December 1926 To Gorchakov I expressed the thought that memory of the past is an indispensable constituent element of immortality, because in this life we are cut off from the past when we have lost memory of it. Gorchakov replied that this is an un-Scientific thought because there can be no concept of time in immortality. I objected that it is an error to confuse “time” with “the chronological sequence of events”. If there is no time in eternity, this does not mean that there is no chronology of events; if this were so then chaos would ensue. The characteristic feature of time as we are bound by it in our present existence is its ability to move only in one direction. But it is possible that in eternity the disappearance of our present concept of time may manifest itself precisely in our new-found ability to move in time on both directions, and moreover at any speed we choose. This hypothesis would confirm my proposition that memory is an inseparable part of immortality (equals our own eternal existence) precisely because memory would have the ability to move in either direction and at any velocity.
I think it only fitting to end these excerpts from Prokofiev’s diaries with some of his music. In preparing my Prokofiev course, I came across some noteworthy compositions that were not known to me previously. Most unfortunately, some of these works are almost unknown and seldom played because they were written (under duress, without a doubt) as propaganda pieces. Here is, I believe, his most inspired composition written under such circumstances. It is a cantata for chorus and orchestra that Prokofiev wrote in 1939, called Zdravitsa (literally “A Toast!”), op. 85. It was written to commemorate the 60th birthday of Joseph Stalin. The words are hagiolatry in praise of Stalin (Prokofiev did not write them), but the music is truly divine. Here are three excerpts from a recording by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra and the Russian State Symphonic Cappella, conducted by Valeri Polyansky.
The first excerpt is of the orchestra alone:
Now, choir and orchestra:
And, finally, the glorious finale:
I look forward to the time when Russia will be free from tyranny, and when this gorgeous piece by Sergei Prokofiev gets a new libretto. No longer a toast to the despot Stalin, but a toast to peace-loving people throughout the world!
