Saturday: February’s full moon is known as the Snow Moon. That name may have been appropriate when I was younger and living in Minnesota. But with human influenced climate change, many northern locations are getting less snow than in the past and it is melting earlier.
Sunday: At 6:10 a.m., Venus and Mars are less than a half
fist held upright and at arm's length above the horizon. Dimmer Mars is a
little to the right of much brighter Venus.
Monday: The weather has been chilly. It will feel good to
think ahead about spring. The spring triangle, the nearly equilateral triangle
of Spica, Arcturus, and Denebola, is called the spring triangle because the
three stars are rising as the Sun is setting near the start of spring. Since
spring is currently a month away, the three stars rise a few hours after
sunset. By 11:00 p.m., the bright star Arcturus is two and a half fists above
due east. Spica is one fist above the southeastern horizon. Denebola, the
dimmest of the three but still the 60th brightest star in the night sky, is
four and a half fists above the southeastern horizon.
Tuesday: Last week we learned that Clyde Tombaugh discovered
the first planet 9. Will you discover the new Planet 9? You and thousands of
others will have the opportunity to comb through images of the sky from NASA’s
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). You’ll view short “flipbook” movies
of the same patch of sky on different nights. Any point of light that moves
could be Planet 9 or another undiscovered Solar System object. Read about how
you can join the search for Planet 9 at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9.
Wednesday: Jupiter is four fists above the west-southwestern
horizon at 7:00 p.m.
Thursday: Today is Leap Day – the day when everyone leaps
for joy because we have an extra day to rest. Well, not everyone leaps for joy
on Leap Day. Frederic, one of the main characters in the play (and movie) The
Pirates of Penzance, wished Leap Day did not exist. As an infant, Frederic was
apprenticed to a group of pirates until his 21st birthday. He started to
celebrate his freedom when he reached the end of his 21st year. However, the
pirates read the rules differently. Frederic was born on Leap Day – February
29. The pirates want him until the 21st celebration of February 29 – when he is
84. Perhaps the pirates would have let Frederic go early if he explained the
need for a Leap Day.
The Earth takes 365.24 days to orbit the Sun. Thus, each
year, our calendar falls about a quarter of a day behind the Earth’s actual
motion. Almost every four years, we add a day to the calendar to make up for
that day. You may have noticed that this correction overcompensates because 4 X
0.24 = 0.96, a little less than a full day. In order to correct for this over
compensation, the years that mark the turn of the century are not leap years
unless they are divisible by 400. 2000 was a leap year. 2100, 2200, and 2300
will not be leap years.
Friday: More celestial evidence that spring is around the
corner. The wintertime constellation Orion is moving towards the western
horizon. Orion’s belt is two and a half fists above the southwestern horizon at
10:00 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.
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