Saturday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the constellation Corvus the crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had a very bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow black. The box-shaped Corvus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.
Sunday: March to-do list: 1) Move clocks ahead an hour for
daylight saving time, 2) Start spring cleaning, 3) Discover exoplanets. Hmm.
One of these is not like the other. NASA has set up a program through which you
can learn about exoplanets, observe exoplanets, analyze their data, and submit
it to a repository for astronomers to use for their research. Exoplanets are
any planets outside our solar system. For more information about this project,
go to https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-watch/.
Monday: Did you get binoculars for the holidays? Like for
President’s Day or Martin Luther King, Junior Day? If so, start using them on
some top binocular targets found here: http://tiny.cc/5d4rtz.
The first item on the list, the Moon, is a great choice this week because it is
full tomorrow, meaning it is out all night. One of my favorite binocular
objects is the Hyades Open Star Cluster. It is a V-shaped set of stars four
fists above the western horizon at 8:00 p.m. The bright star Aldebaran is in
the upper left hand portion of the V, just below Aldebaran is the double star
system Theta1 and Theta2 Tauri. Theta2 Tauri is a blue giant star and Theta1
Tauri is an orange giant star. Through binoculars, you should get a hint of
their color. In the mythology of the Maya, the Theta Tauri pair is known as
Chamukuy, meaning “small bird” in the Yucatec Maya language.
Tuesday: Deneb is two and a half degrees above the due north
horizon. You can barely fit your thumb between them.
Wednesday: If you ask an astrobiologist for the three most
likely places to find evidence of life in the Solar System, other than Earth,
they’d probably say Mars, Europa (“Didn’t they sing “The Final Countdown”?”),
and Enceladus. Mars makes sense because you know scientists have sent a lot of
probes there. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is an up and coming interest
that first piqued astrobiologists’ interest a few years ago when NASA’s Cassini
probe discovered jets of water containing organic materials shooting out.
Between the pop culture alien hot spot of Mars and the new favorite is
Jupiter’s moon Europa. Astronomers first discovered strong evidence of a large
water ocean on Europa in 1989 during a Galileo flyby. In the next five years,
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will be sending spacecraft to Europa.
For a preview of the ESA JUICE mission and the NASA Europa Clipper mission, go
to https://youtu.be/dAW2uPPS2A4. For
a preview of Mars, look nearly seven fists above the southern horizon at 7:00
p.m. Jupiter is one fist above the western horizon, right below the much
brighter Venus. Saturn is currently lost in the glare of the Sun and won’t be
visible in the sky until the mornings of early April.
Thursday: The bright star Spica is about a finger-width
below the moon and about two fists above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.
Friday: The bright star Arcturus is nearly three fists above
due east at 10:30 p.m.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment