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Jubilee: Balcony Moment Tells UK Monarchy’s Story over Years

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, surrounded by members of the family, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the fly past after the Trooping The Color parade, in central London, Saturday, June 14, 2014. (AP)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, surrounded by members of the family, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the fly past after the Trooping The Color parade, in central London, Saturday, June 14, 2014. (AP)
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Jubilee: Balcony Moment Tells UK Monarchy’s Story over Years

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, surrounded by members of the family, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the fly past after the Trooping The Color parade, in central London, Saturday, June 14, 2014. (AP)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, surrounded by members of the family, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the fly past after the Trooping The Color parade, in central London, Saturday, June 14, 2014. (AP)

As a 9-year-old girl, Princess Elizabeth appeared with her family on Buckingham Palace’s balcony to mark her grandfather George V’s Silver Jubilee, an excited grin on her face as she gazed at the crowds below.

The better part of a century later, the former princess — now 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II — is expected to take to the same balcony this week to smile and wave at millions celebrating her 70 years on the throne.

The balcony appearance is the centerpiece of almost all royal celebrations in Britain, a chance for the public to catch a glimpse of the family assembled for a grand photo to mark weddings, coronations and jubilees. Every June, the extended royal family put on their finest uniforms, hats and frocks and gather to mark the queen’s birthday, celebrated with an extravagant military parade known as Trooping the Color and concluding with the balcony moment after the Royal Air Force flies past.

Balcony images through the decades chronicle the changing faces of the monarchy, and offer snapshots of many milestones in Elizabeth’s life. As a young woman, the princess donned her military uniform and stood alongside Winston Churchill to celebrate the end of World War II in 1945.

Eight years later, she wore the Imperial State Crown and regal robes to greet a sea of ecstatic subjects after her own coronation.

This Thursday, the family’s Platinum Jubilee balcony appearance will be notable for those who will be absent. Palace officials announced earlier this month that “after careful consideration,” the queen decided that only working members of the royal family and their children will gather on the balcony.

That means that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who stepped away from frontline royal duties and moved to California in 2020, and their young children will be excluded. So will Prince Andrew, who has been disgraced by a sex scandal and his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I think the decision to only have current working members of the royal family on the balcony was a very sensible one because it avoids any awkward situations,” said Emily Nash, royal editor at HELLO! magazine.

“People are watching the family dynamic to see if there are tensions, and there would be a huge outcry, I think, if we see Prince Andrew on the balcony. So it resolves all those issues in one fell swoop,” Nash added. “But the palace had made it clear throughout that Harry and Meghan remain very much loved members of the family and they will be here.”

Harry and Meghan, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have said they will fly to the UK with their two young children and that they look forward to joining the long weekend of festivities. The trip will be the family’s first visit to Harry’s home country, and any appearance they make at Jubilee events — including a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral and a possible second balcony gathering on Sunday — will be closely watched.

Andrew, meanwhile, will be kept out of the public spotlight after he recently reached a multi-million-pound settlement with a woman who filed a US lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault when she was 17 years old. The queen’s second son was stripped of his honorary military titles in January amid the scandal.

Some royal watchers say the limited balcony lineup this Thursday is also consistent with a longstanding desire by Prince Charles to slim down the monarchy.

The decision means the queen will be flanked Thursday on the balcony by her 73-year-old heir, Charles, and his wife Camilla; Prince William, the second in line to the throne, with his wife Kate and their three children; and Charles’ siblings, Princess Anne and Prince Edward, along with their spouses.

Several other less recognizable working royals will join the group, including the queen’s cousin, the Duke of Gloucester and his wife, as well as the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra.

While some past balcony gatherings have included a large contingent of royals — including the queen’s distant cousins — the Diamond Jubilee celebration in 2012 saw the queen accompanied by just five close family members: Charles, Camilla, William, Kate and Harry.

“It was making a point, it’s saying -- this is the future, folks,” said Robert Hardman, the monarch’s biographer and author of “Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II.”

For this week, “it’s not a case of Andrew or Harry or Meghan being barred from the balcony,” Hardman added. “They have withdrawn from royal duties, so they’re not part of the operational unit. That’s what it’s all about.”

The tradition of a balcony appearance began with Queen Victoria, who transformed Buckingham Palace into the monarch’s official residence and a royal family home in the 19th century. Victoria made the first royal balcony appearance during celebrations marking the opening of the 1851 Great Exhibition.

It’s a symbolic moment of the crown and people coming together, said Ed Owens, a royal historian and author of “The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public 1932-1953.”

“It was popularized as this moment where the nation came to look up to the royals,” Owens said.

It’s a formal occasion, though mischievous royal children often steal the scene. Harry, at 3 and still in his mother Diana’s arms, made an impression when he stuck his tongue out at photographers.

Royal watchers are hopeful that the queen, who has trouble getting around now and recently missed out on several major public engagements, will be present for Thursday’s balcony moment and at least one or two of the events planned for the four-day Platinum Jubilee weekend. But there are no promises.

“We can’t take anything for given at this point — at the age of 96, you have good days and bad days,” said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine. “The palace is very much taking it one day at a time.”

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Varieties

Saturn's Moon Titan May Not Have a Buried Ocean as Long Suspected, New Study Suggests

This image made by the Cassini spacecraft and provided by NASA on March 12, 2006, shows two of Saturn's moons, the small Epimetheus and smog-enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the frame. (NASA via AP)
This image made by the Cassini spacecraft and provided by NASA on March 12, 2006, shows two of Saturn's moons, the small Epimetheus and smog-enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the frame. (NASA via AP)
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Saturn's Moon Titan May Not Have a Buried Ocean as Long Suspected, New Study Suggests

This image made by the Cassini spacecraft and provided by NASA on March 12, 2006, shows two of Saturn's moons, the small Epimetheus and smog-enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the frame. (NASA via AP)
This image made by the Cassini spacecraft and provided by NASA on March 12, 2006, shows two of Saturn's moons, the small Epimetheus and smog-enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the frame. (NASA via AP)

Saturn's giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all.

Titan instead may hold deep layers of ice and slush more akin to Earth’s polar seas, with pockets of melted water where life could possibly survive and even thrive, scientists reported Wednesday.

The team led by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenged the decade-long assumption of a buried global ocean at Titan after taking a fresh look at observations made years ago by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around Saturn.

They stress that no one has found any signs of life at Titan, the solar system’s second largest moon spanning 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) and brimming with lakes of liquid methane on its frosty surface, The AP news reported.

But with the latest findings suggesting a slushy, near-melting environment, “there is strong justification for continued optimism regarding the potential for extraterrestrial life,” said the University of Washington’s Baptiste Journaux, who took part in the study published in the journal Nature.

As to what form of life that might be, possibly strictly microscopic, “nature has repeatedly demonstrated far greater creativity than the most imaginative scientists," he said in an email.

JPL’s Flavio Petricca, the lead author, said Titan’s ocean may have frozen in the past and is currently melting, or its hydrosphere might be evolving toward complete freezing.

Computer models suggest these layers of ice, slush and water extend to a depth of more than 340 miles (550 kilometers). The outer ice shell is thought to be about 100 miles (170 kilometers) deep, covering layers of slush and pools of water that could go down another 250 miles (400 kilometers). This water could be as warm as 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius).

Because Titan is tidally locked, the same side of the moon faces Saturn all the time, just like our own moon and Earth. Saturn’s gravitational pull is so intense that it deforms the moon’s surface, creating bulges as high as 30 feet (10 meters) when the two bodies are closest.

Through improved data processing, Petricca and his team managed to measure the timing between the peak gravitational tug and the rising of Titan’s surface. If the moon held a wet ocean, the effect would be immediate, Petricca said, but a 15-hour gap was detected, indicating an interior of slushy ice with pockets of liquid water. Computer modeling of Titan’s orientation in space supported their theory.

Sapienza University of Rome’s Luciano Iess, whose previous studies using Cassini data indicated a hidden ocean at Titan, is not convinced by the latest findings.

While “certainly intriguing and will stimulate renewed discussion ... at present, the available evidence looks certainly not sufficient to exclude Titan from the family of ocean worlds," Iess said in an email.

NASA’s planned Dragonfly mission — featuring a helicopter-type craft due to launch to Titan later this decade — is expected to provide more clarity on the moon’s innards. Journaux is part of that team.

Saturn leads the solar system’s moon inventory with 274. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is just a little larger than Titan, with a possible underground ocean. Other suspected water worlds include Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa, both of which are believed to have geysers of water erupting from their frozen crusts.

Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, orbiting the ringed planet and flying past its moons until deliberately plunging through Saturn’s atmosphere in 2017.

Varieties

Catch the Ursid Meteor Shower as it Peaks just before Christmas

People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)
People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)
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Catch the Ursid Meteor Shower as it Peaks just before Christmas

People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)
People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)

The last major meteor shower of the year, known as the Ursids, peaks soon, bringing glowing streaks to nighttime and early morning skies. Compared to other meteor showers, it's more subdued, but experts say it's still worth a glimpse.

Meteor showers happen when space rocks hit Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds and burn up, gaining fiery tails — the end of a “shooting star.” Random meteors are visible from Earth on any given clear night, but more predictable meteor showers happen yearly when Earth passes through streams of cosmic leftovers from comets or asteroids, Reuters reported.

The Ursids peak Sunday night into Monday morning and will be visible until Dec. 26 from the Northern Hemisphere. Skygazers usually see five to 10 meteors per hour during the height and there's a possibility for outbursts of up to 25 meteors per hour, according to the American Meteor Society.

How active a shower will appear from Earth depends on the amount of debris and the moon's brightness, which can blot out glowing meteors. The Ursids feature less space debris than other showers like the Geminids, but the narrow crescent moon won't be much of an obstacle when they peak.

No special equipment is needed to view a meteor shower. To see the Ursids, which hail from a comet called 8P/Tuttle, bundle up and get away from city lights.

“The darker your sky, the better the shower is going to be,” said astronomer Peter Brown with Western University in Canada.

The meteors can be seen over the whole sky, but all the streaks will seem to come from a central point near a constellation for which the shower is named. In this case, that's the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper.

Once it gets dark, avoid bright lights from cellphones, which will make it harder for your eyes to adjust.

Varieties

Private Astronaut Jared Isaacman Becomes NASA Chief

NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with its Orion crew capsule perched on top, is seen in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) before it is scheduled to make a slow-motion journey to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, US March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Thom Baur
NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with its Orion crew capsule perched on top, is seen in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) before it is scheduled to make a slow-motion journey to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, US March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Thom Baur
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Private Astronaut Jared Isaacman Becomes NASA Chief

NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with its Orion crew capsule perched on top, is seen in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) before it is scheduled to make a slow-motion journey to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, US March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Thom Baur
NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with its Orion crew capsule perched on top, is seen in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) before it is scheduled to make a slow-motion journey to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, US March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Thom Baur

The US Senate confirmed billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become President Donald Trump's NASA administrator, making an advocate of Mars missions and a former associate of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk the space agency's 15th leader. The vote on Isaacman, who Trump removed and then renamed as NASA administrator nominee this year, passed 67-30, two weeks after he told senators in his second hearing that NASA must pick up the pace in beating China back to the moon this decade, Reuters reported.

Isaacman will lead an agency of 14,000 employees as it invests billions of dollars into its most ambitious space exploration endeavor yet: returning humans to the moon to seed a long-term presence on the surface before eventually sending astronauts to Mars.

NASA WORKFORCE CUT IN EFFICIENCY PUSH

The White House, in its government efficiency push led by Musk, slashed NASA's workforce by 20% and has sought to cut the agency's 2026 budget by roughly 25% from its usual $25 billion, imperiling dozens of space-science programs that scientists and some officials regard as priorities.

Isaacman envisions a revamped focus on sending missions to Mars on top of the Artemis moon effort, as well as a greater dependence on private companies such as SpaceX to save taxpayer money and stimulate private-sector competition.

Of the 67 votes in Isaacman's favor, 16 were from Democrats, joining 51 from Republicans. All 30 votes against his confirmation were from Democrats.

Maria Cantwell, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees NASA, has criticized the Trump administration's efforts to cut NASA's science unit. She supported Isaacman's confirmation on Wednesday.

"During his nomination process, Mr. Isaacman emphasized the importance of developing a pipeline of future scientists, engineers, researchers, (and) astronauts to support the science and technology development and align with NASA's objectives. I strongly agree," Cantwell said.

Some Democratic senators said during Isaacman's hearing on December 3 they are concerned about Isaacman's closeness to Musk, whose company holds about $15 billion in NASA contracts and could benefit from certain policies Isaacman has advocated.

Musk advocated for Isaacman's nomination when Trump was elected in 2024. Musk had sought to realign the US space program with a greater focus on Mars during his stint as a close adviser to Trump.

Senate Republicans and some Democrats, including Cantwell, have also stressed urgency in NASA's moon race with China, which is aiming to send its astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030. NASA faces a shaky target of 2028 using its Space Launch System rocket and SpaceX's giant Starship rocket, under development, as the lander.

Acting NASA chief Sean Duffy, who also leads the US Transportation Department, congratulated Isaacman on X, wishing Isaacman "success as he begins his tenure and leads NASA as we go back to the Moon in 2028 and beat China."