Saturday: Red is a popular Christmas color. It is also a popular star color. And R Leporis, also known as Hind’s Crimson Star, is one of the reddest stars in the sky. It is a star near the end of its life that has burned its helium nuclei into carbon. Convective currents, like those in a pot of boiling water, bring this carbon to the surface. There it forms a layer of soot that scatters away the light from the blue end of the visible spectrum leaving the light from the red end of the spectrum to reach our eyes. For more information about Hind’s Crimson Star and a list of other deep red stars, go to https://utahdesertremote.com/hinds-crimson-star/. Hind’s Crimson star is one fist held upright and at arm’s length to the lower right of Rigel, the brightest star in Orion. You’ll need binoculars or a small telescope to see Hind's Crimson star. But you can easily spot Rigel two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due southeast at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday: Saturn is three fists above the southeastern horizon
and Jupiter is two and a half fists above the eastern horizon at 8:00 p.m.
Monday: Mercury is just above the southeastern horizon at
7:15 a.m.
Tuesday: The moon, the planet Uranus, and the open star
cluster called The Pleiades make a small equilateral triangle, six and a half
fists above due south at 9:00 p.m. The Pleiades has about two dozen stars
easily visible with binoculars. It is to the left of the moon. Uranus is to the
lower left of the moon.
Wednesday: Aside from the Big Dipper, the northern sky
doesn’t get enough love. Vega, the bright star in the constellation Lyra, is
one fist above due northwest at 8:00 p.m.
Thursday: Today is the day we celebrate the anniversary of
something new – a new classification of celestial objects. Giuseppe Piazzi
discovered Ceres [pronounced sear’-ease], the first of what are now called
“asteroids”, on January 1, 1801. Ceres is the largest asteroid in the belt
between Mars and Jupiter. At first, Piazzi thought it was a star that didn’t
show up on his charts. But he noted its position changed with respect to the
background stars from night to night. This indicated to him that it had to be
orbiting the Sun. The International Astronomical Union promoted Ceres to the
status of “dwarf planet” in August of 2006.
Friday: The first prominent meteor shower of the year occurs
this weekend. Meteor showers are tiny rocks that mostly burn up in the
atmosphere. Do you wonder what would happen if larger rocks hit the surface of
the Earth? Well, wonder no more. The browser-based app called Asteroid Launcher
will simulate the collisions. You select the asteroid type, size, speed, and
angle of impact. The most common impactor material is stone, and the typical
speed is 40,000 miles per hour, in case you want to introduce some realism into
your simulation. Go to https://neal.fun/asteroid-launcher/,
click on the map where you want the asteroid to land and then launch your
virtual asteroid.
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.
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