A Leap of Science

by Alfonso Cejudo (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Ecuador

Two stories. One from the solar system, one from me. I posted a farewell picture on Instagram addressed to Brazil, the South American destination being the latest fling in a year-long parade of cultural samplings around the world. It had been 11 months since I left the U.S. My mom commented, wondering if this meant I was coming home. --- An exact 360 degree rotation of the Earth around its axis is not the common definition of a day. Such a rotation would, in fact, result in the sun appearing in a different part of the sky as 360 degrees ago. This is because the Earth also travels around the sun—if the Earth just stood in place in front of its home star, then yes, the sun would realign reliably after every terrestrial twirl, marking a full day. Alas, a complete rotation actually only takes 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds. For the sun to appear in the highest part of the sky from one noon to the next, Earth has to spin a bit more, and once we’ve observed the sun return to position as the day before, then we say 24 hours have elapsed. As for Earth’s own celestial journey, we again sneak in a correction to the calculations so that one Spring Equinox to the next circuits 1 calendar year, as the revolution around the sun takes an inconvenient 365.24 days. There’s a solar clock at the Intiñan Solar Museum 25 kilometers north of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It experiences the most consistent exposure to the sun as any time-telling device on Earth, bathing in 12 hours of sunlight everyday, year round. The characteristics of its shadow hand towards its hours is essentially the same in January or June. It's possibly the best vertical sundial in the world, with a sunrise astonishingly east, a sunset exquisitely west, and a noon impeccably overhead. If deciphering sun time is your thing, Intiñan’s clock is your Pietà. --- I planned to travel straight from São Paulo to Bogotá. While perusing flights just a week before my Airbnb check-out, I figured I’d examine the State Department’s webpage for Colombia. Visa-wise, we’re in business, as expected. Travel advisories? “Level 2: Exercise increased caution… due to crime and terrorism.” Also as expected. Then a section to which I never pay attention. “Yellow fever vaccine… is required for travelers coming from Brazil… must have been administered at least 10 days before arrival in Colombia.” Whoops. Looks like I’ll need a pit stop country, as disrespectful as that sounds (and was it ever, turns out). After checking airfares for several other South American travel hubs, I decided Quito was the move. The price was reasonable, and then it’d be a quick flight over the border to my original ambition. It wasn’t until I sat down for lunch at a traditional Ecuadorian eatery, reveling in what I’m pretty sure were the best sweet plantains I’d ever had, that I started to look up fun things to do in the city. A decorative line following the exact path of latitude zero? That’s absolutely in my wheelhouse. Tomorrow’s plans set. Of course a top attraction of a country named for the equator is the imaginary line made tangible by paint and an entrance fee. But today at Intiñan, we also learn about the solar clock. We’re reminded about how we humans invented systems of measurement not to celebrate mathematical precision but to describe the things we experience every day and every year in nature and in the stars. We realize that to live a day isn’t to wait for the world to spin 360 degrees, but to see the sun rise again to a familiar place. And as amazing as it is to be where such things are revered when I wasn’t even planning to be there—let alone aware of its existence before yesterday—it’s almost unthinkable that I find myself learning about the sun on the 1 day every 4 years that we impose a correction on the calculations to make sure spring is still spring next century. Today is February 29. Sorry mom, I can't come home just yet. The solar system has more stories to tell.