{"id":56681,"date":"2015-07-20T00:09:50","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T07:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=56681"},"modified":"2015-07-20T00:09:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T07:09:50","slug":"three-ys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/56681","title":{"rendered":"three Ys?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tHere’s a brain teaser for you …<\/p>\n

What’s the only word in the English language containing three Ys?<\/p>\n

Yeppers, I said three … count ’em, THREE.<\/p>\n

Even if you’re an ace Scrabble player, you probably haven’t come across this word … because Scrabble only has 2 Ys to work with. And a good thing that is, because this word also contains a Z.<\/p>\n

Well, the word with 3 Ys also describes a rare astronomical event involving three heavenly bodies …<\/p>\n

Syzygy [siz-i-jee]: the alignment of three celestial bodies in a straight line, the Sun, the Earth, and either the Moon or a planet.<\/p>\n

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Three Planets Dance Over La Silla.
Photo by Beletsky via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lunar and solar eclipses\u00a0are both examples of\u00a0syzygy, when the Earth, Sun, and Moon fall in a straight line. Check out this video from One Minute Astronomer<\/a> showing a\u00a0dramatic example of\u00a0syzygy when the Moon passes between the Earth and Sun in a total solar eclipse.<\/p>\n