Tag Archives: Mars

In the Sky This Week – January 28, 2020

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This entry is part 133 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

The handle of the “Big Dipper” asterism points nearly straight down toward the northeastern horizon at midnight this week. The waxing crescent Moon appears near at dusk on Jan 29th & 30th. The Moon appears near the star Aldebaran at dusk on the evenings of February 2nd-4th. Jupiter appears low and Mars appears high above the southeastern horizon at dawn this week. M 47 Messier 47 (M47 or NGC 2422) is an open cluster in the constellation Puppis. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 and independently discovered by Charles Messier on February 19, 1771. It was later independently discovered again, under the current name NGC 2422. There is actually no cluster in the position indicated by Messier, which he expressed in terms of its right ascension and declination with respect to the star 2 Puppis. However, if the signs of Messier’s coordinate differences are changed, the position matches that of NGC 2422. Until the equivalency of M47 with NGC 2422 was found, M47 was considered a lost Messier Object. The discovery that M47 and … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – January 14, 2020

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This entry is part 131 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

We’re running a membership drive this month – our goal is 150 new members. Please subscribe and help support this website and VOF education and outreach programs. Mars appears near the star Antares in the southeastern horizon before dawn this week; a waning crescent Moon joins them on January 20th. The Moon appears near the star Regulus at midnight on January 13th, and near the star Spica on January 17th. Venus appears high and bright above the southwestern horizon at dusk this week.   The Moon is a waning gibbous, rising after sunset, visible high in the sky after midnight, and visible to the southwest after sunrise. The third quarter moon occurs on January 17th, rising around midnight, and visible to the south after sunrise. After January 17th, the Moon will be a waning crescent, visible low to the east before sunrise. Moon News Impact craters come in many sizes. In this image, the crater on the top left, called … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – January 7, 2020

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This entry is part 130 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

I am the 2020 outreach officer for the Warren Astronomical Society – this is a position I’ve held several times before; I receive requests from individuals and groups that would like to use our observatory, or have a member come to their location and set up telescopes and/or give presentations about astronomy and space science. I’ve got a great outreach team – several of our members are volunteer NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassadors; we frequently get excellent feedback from the public for our events! One of the things I want to do this year is resurrect a popular Messier observing program that late member Larry Kalinowski ran years before I joined. I’m going to base it off of the Astronomical League’s Messier observing program, and I want to create some “standard” easy-to-use forms for recording and submitting observing logs.   Mars appears above the star Antares in the southeastern horizon before dawn this week The Moon appears near the star Aldebaran on … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 31, 2019

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This entry is part 129 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

By mid-February 2020, I will be a grandparent! Thoughts of what the world might be like when my granddaughter is an adult naturally come to mind. What new things will astronomers have discovered in the cosmos? What new inventions will change society forever, again? I also have to give a thought to my granddaughter’s quality of life, and in this I have to admit to no small amount of trepidation… Before I started writing this post, I was collecting notes about what I wanted to discuss – the list of topics grew WAY past my expectations, and needs to be an article all by itself. Many, but not all of the topics relate to pollution in its various forms: microplastics, air pollution, light/electromagnetic pollution, compromised city water systems, PFAS, space junk – the list goes on and on… Let me condense all those notes into one single question: Do you believe humanity is acting as adequate stewards of this Earth, … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 24, 2019

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This entry is part 128 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

The waning crescent Moon joined Mars and the star Spica in the southeastern sky before sunrise on Dec. 24th – Mercury has vanished from the morning sky, and will return to the southwestern sky at dusk at the end of January 2020. Saturn and Venus continue to move away from each other in the southwestern sky after sunset each evening – Saturn is very low on the horizon; the waxing crescent Moon joins Venus and Saturn on the evenings of Dec.27-29. The red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the Constellation Orion appears high in the southern sky at midnight this week; this last week, I saw numerous tweets from astronomer about Betelgeuse, so I thought highlighting it might be appropriate. Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is generally the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion (after Rigel). It is a distinctly wreddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 17, 2019

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This entry is part 127 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Saturn and Venus move away from each other each evening in the southwestern sky after sunset this week – by early next week, Saturn will be very low on the horizon. Mercury, Mars and the star Spica continue to align above the southeastern horizon before sunrise this week – Mercury is very low, and may be challenging to observe. The waning gibbous Moon appears in the eastern sky around midnight on Dec. 18th, the star Regulus nearby. A waning crescent Moon appears near the star Spica in the eastern sky around 4:00 AM on Dec. 21st. Asteroid Occultations More often than I thought, asteroids and transneptunian objects pass in front of stars, causing them to monetarily wink-out. This observing challenge is a rather more advanced than most, as it is best done with an 8 inch+ telescope, and if you intend on reporting your timings (kinda the point) you’ll need video recording equipment with time-insertion hardware, and the ability to … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 10, 2019

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This entry is part 126 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

I mentioned the Starlink satellite constellation to students in my after-school astronomy and space science club, and afterwards got into a discussion about space junk. I told the students that when I was their age, there were only a handful of man-made objects in Earth orbit. Today, there are thousands of objects in orbit – some useful, many not so much. Many satellites and space probes require multi-stage rockets to get them into orbit and/or to their destination. When a rocket stage is spent, it decouples – and continues in whatever orbit the vessel was currently in at that moment. If the vessel was in a sub-orbital trajectory, the spent stage either burns up, or is guided back to a safe landing – as has been known to happen. If the vessel was in orbit at the moment of decoupling, the spent stage remains in that orbit, becoming space debris. When a satellite or space probe has reached the end … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 26, 2019

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This entry is part 124 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Last week I had students in my after-school astronomy and space science club build and fly rockets in Kerbal Space Program. I had them launch and recover a small pre-made rocket, and build-from-scratch a sub-orbital crewed rocket, similar to a Mercury Redstone. The very next day, I gave the “In the News” report at the meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society – I shamelessly pulled material from my previous “In the Sky” post; I included a slide about the Europa Clipper mission, and a couple about mid-ocean rift ecosystems and extremophiles. There will be a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter low on the southwestern horizon all week; Saturn continues to appear high above the southwestern horizon, and makes for an excellent observing target after Jupiter and Venus have set. Kerbal Space Program has been posting bits of astronomy news and space history on their social media feeds lately – I approve! There's a Venus & Jupiter conjunction on Nov 24th. A conjunction … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 19, 2019

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This entry is part 123 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

In last week’s session of my after-school club, the Endeavour Space Academy, I ran the students through a very quick tour of the solar system using both NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app, and the NASA Solar System Exploration website. Only a couple of the students knew anything at all about the solar system, so I covered the most important points in the 25 minutes available… I wish I had several more hours to cover everything! I asked the students if any of them knew about the Earth’s mid-ocean rifts – one said they were covering that in science class. I asked the student if she heard about the ecosystems that exist around the mid-ocean rifts, and extremophiles? I talked about the students about the possibility that similar sub-ocean rift systems might exist on several of the icy moons in the outer solar system, and what that might mean for the search for life. Saturn appears high above the … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 12, 2019

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This entry is part 122 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

I hope you had better luck than I did seeing the transit of Mercury… a good portion of North America was shrouded in clouds – I got several inches of snow! Even the website I pointed readers to last week to view the transit online was not broadcasting due to clouds. I ended up watching it on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s (SDO) Eclipse website – clouds are never a problem for the SDO. Venus and Jupiter appear very low and Saturn appears  high in the southwestern sky after sunset this week over the week. Jupiter moves slightly towards the horizon, and Venus moves slightly southward toward Jupiter. By the beginning of next week Mercury returns, appearing low and Mars a bit higher above the eastern horizon before sunrise this week. If you are having trouble spotting Mercury, you can use Mars and the star Spica to star-hop in the general direction of Mercury. The Moon appears high in the sky at … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 5, 2019

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This entry is part 121 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Jupiter is low on the horizon, and Saturn is high in the southwestern sky after sunset  this week. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. The Moon appears in the south-southeastern sky after sunset this week – going from first quarter, to a waxing gibbous, to full early next week. The full Moon appears high in the southeastern sky above the constellation Orion at 10:00 PM on Nov. 11th. The Pleiades star cluster (M 45) and the constellation Taurus with the bright red star Aldebaran appear nearly overhead at midnight all week. Venus appears low on the southwestern horizon after sunset   Transit of Mercury Transits occur when a planet or another body moves in between another distant body and an observer; transits of our Sun are rare and fascinating astronomical events, and one is happening on November 11, 2019 from 7:36 AM-1:04 PM EST! You will need a telescope to see Mercury cross the face of … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – October 22, 2019

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This entry is part 119 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Saturn and Jupiter continue to be excellent observing targets in the southern sky after sunset; this last weekend. The Warren Astronomical Society hosted a boatload of girl and boy scouts at their Stargate Observatory this last weekend – I was with the girl scouts before dusk showing them a virtual reality fly-over of Saturn, another member was talking to the girls about meteorites. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. The Moon passes through the constellations Cancer and Leo in the mornings of Oct. 22-24th. A very VERY thin waning crescent Moon appears near to Mars above the eastern horizon before dawn on Oct. 26th. Venus and Mercury appear very close to each other in the southwestern sky at dusk on Oct. 22nd – if you use binoculars, and get Venus in your right field-of-view, Mercury will be in your left. Observing this may be a challenge if you have anything obscuring your view of the horizon. … Continue reading →