Saturday: Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour tonight for the annual ritual called daylight savings. Daylight savings originated in the United States during World War I to save energy for the war effort. But a recent study by two economists shows that switching to daylight savings time may actually lead to higher utility bills. When the economists compared the previous few years of energy bills in the section of Indiana that just started observing daylight savings, they discovered that switching to daylight savings cost Indiana utility customers $8.6 million in electricity. In an even more important consequence of daylight savings, Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia discovered a 7% jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after we "spring ahead". Blame it on the lost hour of sleep. And sky watchers will lose even more sleep because the sky stays light for an additional hour.
Sunday: The bright planet Venus is about a half a fist held
upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 8:00 p.m. Mercury is a
half a list to the lower left of Venus.
Monday: Avast ye matey. Swab the poop deck. Pirates love
astronomy. In fact, the term “poop” in poop deck comes from the French word for
stern (poupe) which comes from the Latin word Puppis. Puppis is a constellation
that represents the raised stern deck of Argo Navis, the ship used by Jason and
the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Argo Nevis was an ancient constellation that
is now split into the constellations Puppis, Vela and Carina. The top of Puppis
is two fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south and about a fist
and a half to the left of the bright star Sirius at 9:45 p.m. Zeta Puppis, the
hottest, and thus the bluest, naked eye star in the sky at 40,000 degrees
Celsius, is about a half a fist above due south at this time.
Tuesday: “Oooo, they’re little runaways. Orion’s stars moved
fast. Tried to make a getaway. Ooo-oo, they’re little runaways,” sang Bon Jovi
in his astronomical hit “Runaway. At least that’s what I hear when I listen to
the song. After all, it fits the recently calculated trajectory of AE Aurigae,
Mu Columbae, and 53 Arietis. Extrapolating the actual motion of these three
stars back in time, they were all in the location of the star-forming region
called the Orion Nebula a few million years ago. What kicked these stars out?
Not paying rent? Excessive partying? No, it was simply gravitational
interactions with near-by stars. Find out more about the eviction at http://goo.gl/UeLwKQ. The Orion Nebula is
visible with the naked eye from a very dark site, about two and a half fists
above the southwestern horizon at 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday: At 9:00 p.m., Jupiter is five fists above the
southwestern horizon and Mars is nearly seven fists above due south.
Thursday: There is a total lunar eclipse tonight. Total
lunar eclipses are not as noticeable as total solar eclipses because light
still reaches the Moon even when it is completely blocked by the Earth. That is
because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens and bends rays of light toward
the Moon that would normally miss the Moon. However, that doesn’t mean the Moon
looks the same during a total lunar eclipse as it does during a normal full
moon.
Sunlight is white. White light is the sum of all the colors
in the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet).
Our atmosphere scatters the blue component of the Sun’s white light. That is
why our sky is blue. (If our atmosphere consisted of different gasses, we would
likely have a different colored sky.) When the Sun or Moon is near the horizon,
the light passes through a lot of the atmosphere meaning more of the blue end
of the spectrum is scattered and the Sun or Moon looks redder than when it is
high in the sky. During a total lunar eclipse, sunlight passes through a large
slice of the Earth’s atmosphere. The remaining light that reaches the Moon is
reddish. Some people say the fully eclipsed Moon looks Blood Red! These people
exaggerate. It appears a dull reddish color.
From the perspective of Ellensburg in the Pacific Time Zone,
the partial eclipse stage will start at 10:09 p.m. The Moon will slowly move
into the Earth’s shadow and get dark from left to right. By 11:26 p.m., the
Moon will be fully eclipsed. The total eclipse lasts until 12:31 a.m. The moon
will be moving out of the earth’s darkest shadow or umbra until 1:47 a.m. After
that, the moon will look white, just like a normal full moon. Thus, during the
entire eclipse, the moon looks white, then black, then red all over. For more
information about the eclipse, including information about the specific times
for your location, go to https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2025-march-14.
Friday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number
one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one
exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the
constellation Corvus the crow.” This bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you
that Corvus had a bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god
Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case
of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow
black. The box-shaped Corvus is one fist above the southeastern horizon at 9:30
p.m.
The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up-to-date information
about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
All times are Pacific Time unless noted.
