Saturday: Some
people in town today for the Yakima River Canyon Marathon may have been looking
for a little running inspiration. While nothing can take the place of a 20 mile
run for marathon preparation (I know), certain objects in the night sky are
inspiring. In the Bible, Job specifically mentions the star Arcturus, or the
bear keeper, to his friend as a sign of God's majesty. He describes God as that
"Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers (constellations)
of the south" (Job 9:9, King James Version). Whatever your religious
beliefs, it is clear that Job was impressed with this very bright star. See the
star that inspired Job about two and a half fists held upright and at arm’s
length above the east horizon at 10 p.m.
Mars and the
Pleiades are neighbors in the evening sky. They are three fists held upright
and at arm’s length above due west at 9 p.m.
Sunday: Where do
art and science mix? How about nearly everywhere? But, more specifically, in
two contests during the Global Astronomy Month of April. There is an art
contest and a poetry contest where people of all ages can compete for prizes or
just create for the sake of expression. This is a great opportunity for a
classroom assignment for creative teachers and students. For more information,
go to
Monday: Venus and
the waning crescent Moon are side by side, low in the eastern sky at 6 a.m.
Tuesday: Hopefully,
you saw Mars near the Pleiades on Saturday night. If you didn’t, look again
tonight. They are still pretty close in the sky. But tonight, while you look,
imagine rivers flowing on Mars. The high-resolution camera on the Mars Express
Orbiter recently took images that show clear evidence of an ancient river bed.
This, along with other evidence including lake beds, outflow channels, and some
minerals that are known to form in liquid water makes scientists very confident
that Mars was once a wet world. For more images of the river beds, go to
Wednesday: Listen;
do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa oh, oh. The
Beatles certainly didn’t write this song about the Barringer meteorite crater
in Arizona. Astronomers are studying this 50,000-year-old impact to learn more
about our planet’s violent history as well as the physics of impacts throughout
the solar system. If you’d like to be let in on some of these secrets, go to http://goo.gl/sqbBe.
Thursday: If the
National Enquirer was around in Galileo’s day, it may have featured the
headline: “Saturn has love handles; Opis leaves him for a much hotter starlet”.
When Galileo first observed Saturn through a telescope, he reported objects
that looked like bulges on either side of Saturn’s midsection. He was actually
seeing Saturn’s rings through less than ideal optics. Saturn is one and a half
fists above the south-southeast horizon at 5:30 a.m. You can see Saturn’s rings
clearly with a small telescope. Move that small telescope to the west to find
Jupiter two fists above the south horizon. The same small telescope that shows
Saturn’s rings will show the four large Jovian moons that Galileo discovered.
Friday: 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 Bruce
Palmquist and STEM Teaching major Katy Shain will give an overview of the night
sky and Solar System. The show is free and open to all ages. Tomorrow’s show is
likely to fill up because the official planetarium dedication ceremony will
follow at 1:15. There will be a show 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.
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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