DON'T call me Junior!

~I've received a scholarship from the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Public Library. Normally, I'd attach a link in the previous sentence so you could look up the Friends, but I can't do that, as a website for their activities does not exist...yet. Making it will be my job, along with a number of other projects to assist the library. I'll be interning there over the summer and fall, an experience which I'm looking forward to.

On Saturday, I'll be flying to Prague, where I will stay for two weeks. In case you missed my previous entry about the trip, I'll be touring libraries and other cultural institutions in the Czech Republic as part of a UNC seminar. Afterwards, I'll write a paper about my experiences there so I can receive some course credit. I don't know any of the other students who will be attending the program, although I do know the faculty advisor, who was one of my professors from last semester.

In other news, it would appear that the Jupiter has developed a third Red Spot, a massive storm in the atmosphere of the gaseous planet. The largest of the three Spots, the Great Red Spot, is over three times the size of Earth and has been raging for centuries (it was first observed by Galileo). The second, Red Spot Junior, formed in 2006. The most recent spot (Red III?) was originally a "white" storm that changed to red as it grew in intensity.

Astronomers aren't sure what causes the changes in color; the leading theory is that as the storms increase in strength and speed, they dredge up gases from deeper in Jupiter's atmosphere and pull them to the surface. If you have a reasonably-powerful telescope, you can actually see storm bands on Jupiter, and like Galileo, you may even observe one or more of the now-famous Red Spots.