Saturday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot-long hallway on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays twice a year. Every year in November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s alignment is from November 9-11 at about 4:20 pm. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf or visit MIT. While you are at it, challenge yourself to find a similar alignment in your neighborhood.
Sunday: Are you planning to open your Martinmas gifts
tomorrow? Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the world commemorating Saint
Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397. What does this have to do
with astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on November 11 often doubles
as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is halfway between an equinox
and a solstice. Also, according to an agricultural calendar, November 11 marks
the practical beginning of winter.
You can get a BOGO - buy one, get one - solar system gift
tonight. Saturn is right above the moon. They are three fists above the
south-southeastern horizon at 6:00 p.m. They will remain close together
throughout the night.
Monday: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight
around midnight. These are slow moving meteors that result in the occasional
fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors every hour.
The Waning Gibbous Moon will obscure the dim meteors until it sets at about
2:00 a.m. These meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near
the open star cluster called the Hyades. This point is about six and a half
fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southern horizon at midnight.
You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one and a
half fists to the right of the V-shaped Hyades Cluster with its bright star
Aldebaran (pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran). Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in
the atmosphere when the Earth runs into them. The source of this shower is the
asteroid 2004 TG10. Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/taurid-meteors-all-you-need-to-know/
for more information.
Tuesday: The bright planet Venus is about a fist above the
southwestern horizon at 5:15 p.m.
Wednesday: Lieutenant Worf, the Klingon Starfleet officer on
Star Trek: The Next Generation, might say “Today is a good day to die.” But
Deneb, the bright supergiant star in Cygnus the Swan would say “two million
years from now is a good day to die.” This may seem like a long time. But,
compared to the lifespan of most stars, two million years from now is as close
as tomorrow. For example, the Sun will last about five billion years. Small
stars known as red dwarfs may last trillions of years. Prepare your astronomically
short goodbyes to Deneb tonight at 7:00 o’clock when it is seven fists above
the western horizon.
Thursday: Jupiter is four fists above the eastern horizon at
10:00 p.m. Mars is less than one fist above the east-northeastern horizon
Friday: Vega is three and a half fists above the western
horizon at 8:00 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.
All times are Pacific Time unless noted.
