Saturday: Don't
forget to set you 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 last three 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 does not get dark for an additional hour.
Sunday: Comet
watchers haven’t had much to cheer about recently. But this year is looking up
(pun intended) because astronomers think there will be two comets visible to
the naked eye. The first one is called Comet C/2011 L4 after the year and date
of its discovery or Comet PanSTARRS, after the Panoramic Survey Telescope
and Rapid Response System that discovered it. It
reaches maximum brightness today but it will be too low in the sky for most
observers in the northern United States. It will be just above the west
horizon, a little north of due west, right after sunset. You’ll need binoculars
to pick it out. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/e875P.
Monday: Mars
is a half fist above the west horizon at 7:15 p.m., just after sunset. Its two
small moons, Phobos and Deimos, are not visible in typical backyard telescopes.
But they are an interesting study. The prevailing view among most astronomers
is that they are captured asteroids. That makes sense given Mars’ proximity to
the asteroid belt. But resent findings by European astronomers indicate that
Phobos is very porous and made of material similar to the surface of Mars. This
implies that Phobos may consist of chunks of Martian debris that was blasted
off by numerous impacts and gravitationally bound together. Unfortunately, the
Russian Phobos-Grunt probe launched late 2011 to collect material from Phobos
crashed to Earth after malfunctioning. For more information about this new
model of Phobos’ formation, go to http://goo.gl/g4cdp.
Tuesday: If
you had trouble finding Comet PanSTARRS earlier in the week, you’ll have a
great marker tonight. The comet will be less than half a fist to the left of
the crescent moon just after sunset. Probably the best time to look will be
about 7:30 p.m. The Sun will have set 30 minutes earlier but the moon and comet
will still be a fist above the west horizon. The comet’s tail will still be
pointing away from the sun, which is right under due west. Throughout the rest
of the month, the comet will be getting higher in the sky but dimmer.
Currently, the comet is about magnitude 2, similar to the brightness of the Big
Dipper stars.
Wednesday:
Jupiter is four and a half fists above the southwest horizon at 9 p.m.
Thursday: If
you want to put somebody off, tell her or him to wait until Deneb sets. At
Ellensburg’s latitude of 47 degrees, Deneb is a circumpolar star meaning it
never goes below the horizon. At 10:13 tonight, it will be as close as it gets
to the horizon, about two degrees above due north. Watch it reach this due
north position about 4 minutes earlier each night.
Friday: Saturn
is about a fist above the east-southeast horizon at midnight. If you are more
of a morning person, you’ll see Saturn two and a half fists above the southwest
horizon at 6 a.m.
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week.
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