Skyward for April 2021 by David H. Levy January 6, 2021 Just one day after the Earth passed its closest point to the Sun in its orbit, its perihelion, the American Astronomical Society was having its annual meeting online, the United States Congress was validating the results of the 2020 national election, and Wendee and I were settling in for a civics lesson about the way the United States Government works. The day did not turn out that way. Shortly before noon, on our television set a news ticker appeared. It announced that two buildings in Library of Congress (LC), the James Madison, and quickly afterwards the Adams and Jefferson buildings, were being evacuated. That news sent a chill through me. The LC is one of the finest libraries in the entire world. It contains more than 170 million books, of which more than thirty are books I wrote entirely or at least a foreword. It also includes all of the more than two hundred “Star Trails” columns I wrote for Sky and Telescope magazine between 1988 and 2008, and dozens more I wrote for other magazines and journals. Only the British library, with over 200 million books, is larger […]
