Saturday: Mars
is four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southwest
horizon at 6:30 p.m.
Sunday: Venus and
Jupiter will be neighbors in the morning sky all week. This morning they are a
half a fist apart, with the much brighter Venus to the left of Jupiter. As the
days go by, Venus will move away from Jupiter.
Monday: At 10:30
p.m., the blue giant star called Adhara is one and a half fists above due
south. It is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Currently over 430 light
years away, Adhara was only 34 light years away five million years ago. That
proximity made it the brightest star in the nighttime sky at the time.
Tuesday: On these
cold mornings, it is difficult to get going. You just want to plop into a chair
and sit still. But, are you really sitting still? You’re moving at about 700
miles per hour due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis and 66,000 miles
per hour due to the revolution of the Earth around the Sun. If that’s not
enough, the entire solar system is orbiting the center of the galaxy at a
whopping 480,000 miles per hour! So while you may be sitting still with respect
to your living room (and all of the overachievers in your house), you are NOT
sitting still with respect to the center of the galaxy. For more information
about this concept, go to http://goo.gl/lPVPS.
Wednesday: If
someone gives you a ring and says, “this ring symbolizes our eternal love, just
like the rings of Saturn are eternal”, don’t doubt their love. But do doubt their astronomy knowledge. According to data recently analyzed from the Cassini
Mission, Saturn’s rings may be only 10 to 100 million years old. As Cassini
passed between Saturn and the rings, it was able to get the best estimate yet
of the mass of the rings. Saturn’s rings are made mostly of ice and are still
very bright and clean. Older rings would be darkened by debris. Also,
collisions over time pulverize the ring particles. If this relatively low mass
of ring particles were older, they would have been destroyed by now. For more
information about the lifespan of Saturn’s rings, go to Saturn’s rings https://www.universetoday.com/141272/saturns-rings-are-only-10-to-100-million-years-old/.
Thursday: Venus is
about a finger’s width to the left of the Moon at 7 a.m. this morning.
Friday: Tomorrow is
Groundhog Day, an important day for pop culture astronomers and Bill Murray
movie fans. If you don’t want to travel to Pennsylvania to see Punxsutawney
Phil, travel to the CWU campus to see a planetarium show. The CWU Physics
Department and the College of the Sciences is hosting its monthly First
Saturday planetarium show tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. CWU professor Cassie
Fallscheer will give a presentation about star formation and evolution. The
show is free and open to all ages. There will be a show at noon on the first
Saturday of every month of the school year hosted by different CWU astronomers
and astronomy educators. The CWU Lydig Planetarium is room 101 in Science Phase
II, just off the corner of 11th and Wildcat Way, H-11 on the campus map found
at https://www.cwu.edu/facility/campus-map.
If Punxsutawney
Phil doesn’t see his shadow tomorrow morning, he is telling us that he follows
the Chinese calendar and that spring starts early. On the Chinese calendar,
equinoxes and solstices occur in the middle of their respective seasons. In
order for the vernal equinox to occur in the middle of spring, spring must
start on February 3 or 4, depending on the year. Thus, if Phil doesn’t see his
shadow, legend is that spring will start on February 3 or 4 as on the Chinese
calendar. If Phil sees his shadow, he is telling us he agrees with the western
calendar and that there will be six more weeks of winter meaning spring will
start near March 20.
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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