Tag Archives: Saturn

In the Sky This Week – May 22, 2018

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This entry is part 44 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

Jupiter has almost left the morning sky; Mars and Saturn are slowly making their way southward. I was a bit surprised to catch a flyover of the International Space Station when I copied this image from Stellarium! Jupiter is in the southeastern sky after sunset, and is a great observing target. The Moon The Moon is at first quarter on the 22nd, and then a waxing gibbous until full on the 29th. This whole week will be great for observing the moon through telescopes. The Moon is in the southwestern sky after sunset for the next few days. The Sun We have a spot! Active Region (AR) 2710 is rotating into view on the Sun – it’s so small it may be difficult to see through telescopes for a few days. AR2710 has a lot of coronal loop activity above it (left side of video), and coronal holes remain at both poles. Surprisingly, there are no Earthward facing coronal holes along … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – May 15, 2018

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This entry is part 43 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

Mars and Saturn agree that they rather like the early morning sky, and have decided to stay there forever… or so it seems… Jupiter just past opposition, is slowly leaving the morning planets and making its way towards being visible only in the evenings. I was playing with the equatorial grid feature of Stellarium and noticed how close Polaris was to the North Celestial Pole. So, of course, I HAD to see how the South Celestial Pole looked… and I noticed the the southern hemisphere doesn’t have a convenient star near the pole – which led me to find this article on the One-Minute Astronomer about how to find the South Celestial Pole. The Moon The Moon is new on the 15th, and joins Venus in the western sky near sunset as a thin waxing crescent on the 17th. The Moon will be high in the western sky after sunset on the 20th &21st. The Sun Although there is some impressive coronal loop … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – May 1, 2018

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This entry is part 41 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

The Moon appears in the southwestern predawn sky near Jupiter on May 1st, and makes it way between Mars and Saturn in the southern sky on May 5th. Ursa Major (and the Big Dipper) are in the northwestern predawn sky, and Arcturus is bright in the western sky. Venus remains low in the western sky near sunset. Jupiter can be seen rising the in the eastern sky after sunset. Jupiter will be at opposition on May 9th – its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun, and it will be visible all night long! Sidewalk astronomers from around the world do a collective dance of joy! The Moon The Moon is a waning gibbous just past full; the Moon will be at third quarter on the 8th; May 7-10th would be good days to do some early morning sidewalk astronomy at schools! The Sun The Sun has been spot-free for 2 days. There are coronal holes at both poles, and a small … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – April 24, 2018

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This entry is part 40 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

Mars, Saturn, Antares and Jupiter are splashed across the southern predawn sky. Over the next year and a half, Jupiter will slowly make its way closer to Saturn; From Earth’s perspective, Jupiter and Saturn will appear near each other in the sky for the next several years. Venus is low in the western sky near sunset; Venus is catching up to Earth in its orbit (see Inner Solar System image below), and will remain in the western sky at dusk until the end of September. The constellation Gemini can be seen above Orion, which is setting in the west shortly after sunset. The Moon will be near the star Regulus in Leo on April 25th around midnight.   The Moon The Moon is a waxing gibbous heading towards full on the 30th – the next few days will be great for doing some sidewalk astronomy! While I was at the NASA website where I get these Moon images, there was … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – April 17, 2018

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The southern predawn sky has been interesting to watch over the last several weeks; each morning, everything in the southern sky has moved slightly towards the west – except Mars. Mars continues its retrograde motion – causing it to move west but at a much slower pace. The distance between Mars and Saturn will continue to grow well into the summer. A thin crescent Moon joins Venus is low in the western sky near sunset for the next couple days.   The Moon The Moon is a waxing crescent visible in the western sky at dusk. The Moon will be at first quarter on April 23rd, making it a great observing target this weekend. The Sun The Sun has been spot-free for 2 days. There is a coronal hole at the Sun’s south pole, and a large oddly-shaped coronal hole along the equator. There is also a lot of coronal loop activity just north of the equatorial hole. SpaceWeather.com says: “G1-class geomagnetic storms and … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – April 10, 2018

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The distance between Mars and Saturn in the southern predawn sky continues to grow with each passing morning. Jupiter is slowly making its way towards the southwest. Venus is low in the western sky near sunset, getting slightly higher with each evening. At midnight, Ursa Major is almost directly overhead; the “Big Dipper” is an asterism in Ursa Major – a prominent pattern or group of stars, typically having a popular name but smaller than a constellation. The Big Dipper can be used to “star-hop” to other stars and constellations all over the sky. The first star-hop I can remember learning was following the handle of the dipper to Arcturus, and on to Spica. The Moon The Moon is a waning crescent visible in the southeastern predawn sky, and traveling westward across the southern sky after dawn. The new Moon will occur late April 15th / early April 16th. The Sun The Sun has been spot-free for 9 days. There is a coronal hole … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – April 3, 2018

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This week, Mars continues its retrograde-motion conjunction with Saturn in the southern predawn sky. Venus is low and bright in the western sky after sunset all week long. The Moon The Moon is a waning gibbous heading towards third-quarter this weekend. Afterwards, the Moon will be a waning crescent, visible during the morning hours. The Sun The Sun has been spot-free for 2 days. There are large coronal holes at both the Sun’s poles, and a smaller one is rotating into view along the Sun’s equator. The solar wind speed is 401km/sec, with a density of 2.0 protons/cm3. The Sun’s chromosphere has prominences all over the place for the last couple days. You can view the Sun in near real-time, in multiple frequencies here: SDO-The Sun Now. You can create your own time-lapse movies of the Sun here: AIA/HMI Browse Data. You can browse all the SDO images of the Sun from 2010 to the present here: Browse SDO archive. Asteroids Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – March 27, 2018

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This entry is part 39 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

This week, Mars whips past Saturn in the southern predawn sky; the conjunction of the two planets will last into next week. The Moon joins the morning planets after the weekend. Mercury has vanished into the glare of the Sun, but Venus is still low in the western sky after sunset all week long. Shortly after sunset, the winter constellations Orion and Taurus are visible in the southwestern sky. I use Stellarium to generate many of the sky images in this post series; a new version of the app was released on March 25th. One REALLY COOL feature in the new version is the ability to map data from dozens of different sky surveys onto the night sky. The image below shows far-infrared data from the European Space Agency’s  Akari space telescope. When I brought this image up on my computer, I sat there staring at my screen in dumbfounded amazement. I thought: “I’m seeing the Interstellar Medium” – the clouds of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Fire and Ice

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This entry is part of 158 in the series Across the Universe

Originally published in The Tablet in March, 2006, and republished here in 2015. This version is slightly edited. The 2006 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held outside the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was unusually rich. We saw fiery dust from an ice-rich comet; startling images from Mars; a new type of lunar rock… and that was just on Monday morning. By Friday afternoon, I was exhausted. I had already heard the Stardust results (see Across the Universe) at the Sunday welcome cocktail party when one of the mission scientists whispered to me, “We’ve found CAIs!” (Another friend on the team described Stardust Principle Scientist Don Brownlee’s first comment when they finally got the samples: “I can’t believe it actually worked!”) These high-temperature grains of Calcium and Aluminum oxides that appear as Inclusions in certain meteorites are thought to represent the first solid materials to crystallize out from the hot gases that made the sun and planets. How did they … Continue reading →

In the Sky this Week – March 13, 2018

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This entry is part 37 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

A thin waning crescent Moon departs from the planets spayed across the southern predawn skies and heading towards the new Moon this weekend. I got to see yesterday’s morning crescent Moon through my kitchen window. Mercury and Venus are low in the western sky at dusk – a bit higher in the sky than last week, but not much. The Moon joins Mercury and Venus in the western sky at dusk on the 18th; Mercury is fading and will vanish by the 22nd. The bright star Vega in the constellation Lyra is almost directly overhead in the sky before dawn. The Moon The Moon is a waning crescent rising in the southeastern sky around 6 AM, and vanishing in the glare of the Sun shortly after sunrise. The new Moon will be on the 17th. The Moon will reappear in the western sky at dusk as a very thin waxing crescent on the 18th. The Sun The Sun has been spot-free … Continue reading →