Saturday: Do
you want to learn more about what goes on at night in the natural world? You
can at a free event called Nature of Night on the CWU campus, today from 10
a.m. to 2 p.m. Go to the Science Building at the intersection of Wildcat Way
and 11th Avenue, J-9 on the map found at http://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map. There will be
planetarium shows, fun nighttime projects, animals, cookies and much more. The
College of the Sciences and the Kittitas Environmental Education Network (KEEN)
are putting on this event. Go to cwu.edu/sciences for more information.
If you missed the
Leonid meteor shower early this morning, you can still catch the peak tomorrow
morning. These meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Leo the
lion. This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the
east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight. You can follow this point
throughout the night and into the morning, as it will remain about one fist
above the bright star Regulus. Go to https://earthsky.org/?p=29831 to read everything
you need to know about the Leonid meteor shower. But read quickly because these
meteors travel at up to 150,000 miles per hour.
Sunday: Are you
disappointed because you are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving? Why not take
a (virtual) trip to outer space using Google’s new visualization tool called
100,000 Stars. It shows the stars in our neighborhood in a very good 3-D simulation.
The Sun is initially at the center. If you zoom in, you can click on
neighboring stars and learn more about them. Go to http://stars.chromeexperiments.com/ for the
simulation. It works best on a Chrome browser.
Monday: Saturn is
one fist above the southwest horizon and Mars is three fists above the
south-southeast horizon at 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday: So, you
are not into virtual vacations like the Google Simulation, hmmm? How about a
vacation to the recently discovered Super Earth sized planet orbiting the
closest single star to our Sun? Astronomers working with the European Southern
Observatory discovered that Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star only 6 light-years
away, has a planet about three times the mass of the Earth. Even though
Barnard’s Star is very dim, it is heavily studied because it is the star with
the largest proper motion. It moves through the night sky more than any other
star. Don’t expect a warm vacation. This planet receives only 2% of the
energy from its star as we receive from the Sun. For more information about the
discovery, and to possibly book a trip, go to http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/news/view/658855/. Barnard’s
Star is about one fist above the west horizon at 7 p.m., just above the fairly
bright star Cebalrai.
Wednesday: Are you
thankful that you live in a solar system with multiple planets? You should be.
A giant planet like Jupiter cleans up planetary debris that could have collided
with Earth and hindered the formation of complex life. Any inhabitants of the planets
orbiting Upsilon Andromedae are thankful for this, as well. Upsilon Andromedae,
a star in the constellation Andromeda, was the first Sun-like star discovered
to have multiple planets orbiting it. So far, all of its planets are giant
planets like Jupiter. But, the system is likely to also contain smaller
planets. The dim star, but certainly not its planets, is barely visible
straight overhead at 9 p.m. Jupiter is lost in the glare of the setting
Thursday: Some of
us have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. But, probably not as much as
Andromeda had to be thankful for. According to Greek mythology, the beautiful
princess Andromeda was chained to a rock next to the ocean. Cetus the sea
monster was about to devour her in order to punish her family. Her mother Queen
Cassiopeia and her father King Cepheus didn’t know what to do. It seemed that
all was lost. But, along came Andromeda’s boyfriend, the great warrior Perseus.
Even though Perseus’ standing as the son of King Zeus and the slayer of Medusa
was probably enough to win Andromeda under normal circumstances, Andromeda’s
impending death-by-sea-monster was not a normal circumstance. So, Perseus drove
his sword into the sea monster’s neck and killed it. This was the first time in
recorded history that a set of parents actually welcomed an uninvited
Thanksgiving visit from the boyfriend. Perseus is about five fists above the
east-northeast horizon and Andromeda is about seven fists above the east
horizon at 7 p.m.
Friday: Venus is
one and a half fists above the southeast horizon at 6:30 a.m. The bright star
Spica is about a thumb-width to the right of Venus.
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.
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