This is true wherever you are in the world, so I hope for you it is a clear and dark night sky. the moon and Venus will appear close together in the night sky on 24 March.
Look west just after the sun has set and the two bright objects you see are Jupiter and Venus. Jupiter is below and closer to the horizon and will be setting shortly after sunset. Venus will be brighter and higher in the sky. Look above Venus and you will see the crescent moon. They will both be sitting in between the constellations of Pisces and Taurus.
If you have binoculars or a small telescope, you can point them at Jupiter to look for three of its four largest moons, called the Galilean moons. Callisto will be too close to the planet to see, but you might be able to make out Europa, Io, and Ganymede, which will appear extending in a line in this order.
The conjunction that appears as a “star” – Image: NASA
Popularly known as the “Christmas Star,” at this time of 2020 you can observe this “star” that is actually the planetary conjunction of the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn. The conjunction culminates on the night of December 21, but is visible in the evening sky now.
We know that Galileo Galilei in 1610 discovered the four moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. He also saw in his telescope a strange oval surrounding Saturn. Later that halo would be seen in better telescopes as Saturn’s rings.
In 1623, our solar system’s two giants, Jupiter and Saturn, moved together until Jupiter caught up to and passed Saturn. This astronomical event is known as a “Great Conjunction.”
The planets regularly appear to pass each other in the solar system. Jupiter and Saturn align in the sky about once every 20 years.
You can imagine ancient skywatchers seeing this conjunction as a bright star at this time of solstice or Christmas as something miraculous.
But this year has several additional celestial wonders. First, it has been almost 400 years since the planets passed this close to each other in the sky. Astronomers tell us that it has been nearly 800 years since the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter occurred at night so that people around the world can see this conjunction.
The 21st is also the Winter Solstice. These two planets will be so close (a tenth of a degree apart) and will appear on the long solstice night to be one “star.” No telescope needed to observe the conjunction. Actually, the naked eye will blur the two together more than an optical view.
If you believe in coincidences, this is an interesting one. If you don’t believe in coincidences, this is more interesting.
Like many celestial events when viewed from Earth, these giants will appear close together, but they will remain hundreds of millions of miles apart in space.
On this snowy night, I will venture out to an unobstructed view of the sky, an hour after sunset, and look to the southwestern sky. Jupiter will look like a bright star and Saturn will be slightly fainter and will appear slightly above and to the left of Jupiter. At the solstice, Jupiter will overtake it and they will reverse positions in the sky. If you do have a telescope or good binoculars you might see Jupiter’s four large moons. The Moon will be at its First Quarter tonight with 45% of it illuminated.
You might want to watch the NASA Science Live episode on the conjunction live at 3 p.m. EST today on NASA Television and the agency’s website, along with the NASA Facebook, YouTube, and Periscope channels.
If you were up early this morning you would have seen a lineup in the morning sky of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter on a line with the morning crescent moon. The lineup will be around for the next few mornings, so if there is a clear sky and you are up more than an hour before sunrise, it will be easy to spot.
Look east to the sunrise and the Moon will slide its way up past the three planets.
This morning the waning crescent moon was right next to Jupiter. (This is best viewed from North America.)
Saturn and Venus are east of Jupiter and the line they seem to all be on is the ecliptic, or Earth-sun plane. This is the plane on which the other planets in our solar system and the moon all orbit, so we view them as being on this line.
Geminids in the northern hemisphere by Asim Patel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, via commons.wikimedia.org
The Geminid meteor shower is a very reliable annual meteor shower that will visit us again this week.
The next several nights are probably the best nights for watching with the peak morning is likely to be December 14, 2018, but the morning of December 13 might offer a good display, too, and meteor watchers have been catching Geminids for some nights now.
You can watch in the late evening, but the best viewing hours are typically around 2 a.m., no matter where you are on Earth. And this year there will only be a waxing crescent moon, so moonlight won’t wash out the darkness.
The meteors appear to come from (radiate from) the constellation Gemini, which rises around sunset and moves overhead into morning. The best views are usually between midnight and 4am.
The Geminids are slow-moving dust particles when they hit the Earth’s atmosphere. “Slow” is relative here – they are only moving at 22 miles per second. The friction with air molecules will burn them up and make a nice glow for us to watch.
These showers are caused by the object 3200 Phaethon, which is an asteroid. That is unusual and this is one of the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. This asteroid has an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid. And that is how the asteroid got its name.
Gustave Moreau: Fall of Phaéton (Chute de Phaéton) watercolor study, via Wikimedia
Phaethon is a name from mythology. Phaethon was the Ancient Greek name for the planet Jupiter, a planet whose motions and cycles were observed by the ancients and often used in poetry and myth.
In mythology, Phaethon’s father was the sun god Helios who granted his son’s wish to drive the sun chariot for a day. Phaethon was unable to control the horses and to prevent the chariot from hitting and destroying Earth, Zeus knocked it out of the sky with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed.
Of course, meteors are not falling stars, and they are not coming from the chariot of the Sun, but it does make for a good story.
Tonight, July 20, that bright “star” near the moon is no star. It is Jupiter.
Jupiter is shining more brightly than any star now (though Mars is even brighter). The moon and Jupiter are particularly close tonight and during this weekend.
Venus and Mars are the other starlike objects that outshine Jupiter in the evening sky, but you can tell the difference. Venus is in the western sky as darkness falls. Mars is in the southeast horizon at nightfall. Jupiter will be near the moon for this weekend.
This past Memorial Day Weekend, we had some clear skies and some rainy ones. On one clear evening in Paradelle I was able to see a very bright “star” near the moon. It looks like a star, but it is Jupiter.
Venus sets in the west not too long after the sun sets, and the Moon and Jupiter were the two brightest objects in the sky.
I knew to look for a fainter true star. It is fainter but still one of the brightest stars, even in the moon’s glare. This is Spica. It is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. I’m not very knowledgeable about the zodiac, but I know it is a key star in that study.
Spica is a first-magnitude star, but it appears much fainter than Jupiter. That is because Jupiter is relatively close (or at least nearer)to Earth. This is what draws me to gazing at the night sky is my semi-knowledgeable way: the idea that Spica is about 262 light-years away, and I am looking at its light.
The universe makes me think about the original meanings of words like WONDERful and AWEsome.
Spica is the easiest star to spot in Virgo. There is a saying to find Spica you can “follow the arc of the Big Dipper to Arcturus and speed on to Spica.” But that probably doesn’t make it any easier for the average Earthling to find because most people know very little about the night sky.
Besides Spica, other bright stars in Virgo include many I had never heard of: β Virginis (Zavijava), γ Virginis (Porrima), δ Virginis (Auva) and ε Virginis (Vindemiatrix). Other fainter stars that were also given names are ζ Virginis (Heze), η Virginis (Zaniah), ι Virginis (Syrma) and μ Virginis (Rijl al Awwa).
Again, the wonder and awe of all this is discovering that one of the stars, 70 Virginis, has one of the first known extrasolar planetary systems and it contains a confirmed planet 7.5 times the mass of Jupiter. I can’t even really grasp the size of my own Earth. And the star Chi Virginis has one of the most massive planets ever detected, at a mass of 11.1 times that of Jupiter. And there are 35 verified exoplanets orbiting 29 stars in Virgo.
All this makes me feel like such a small part of the universe. But i also makes me feel part of the universe.
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Weekends in Paradelle 