Saturday: The moon is almost directly between the Earth and the Sun today. That means you won’t be able to see it. But that does not mean it doesn’t exist. Contrary to the belief of toddlers and immature politicians, just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (Note a double negative statement followed by a triple negative statement. I’m not unsorry about that.) Now, back to the science. What would happen to the Earth if the moon really didn’t exist? In that 2013 blockbuster Oblivion, aliens destroy the moon and Tom Cruise survives. In real life, the long-term effects on the Earth would be devastating to life as we know it. The moon stabilizes the spin axis of the Earth keeping the seasons fairly uniform over time. For more information on what would happen to the earth if the moon were destroyed, go to https://www.popsci.com/what-would-happen-if-moon-suddenly-disappeared/. For more information on Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise.
Sunday: School starts soon. One of the most important
lessons to learn in science class is to always save your data. Even if the data
looks “wrong” or you don’t think it contains essential information, you never
know what future researchers might find in it. Two years ago, Kepler space
telescope scientists reanalyzed older data and discovered an Earth-sized planet
orbiting in the habitable zone of its host star. It turns out the previous
computer algorithm misidentified it. Maybe there are other Earth-cousins hiding
in the data somewhere. Read more about it at https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/earth-size-habitable-zone-planet-found-hidden-in-early-nasa-kepler-data.
Monday: Mars is a half a fist above the western horizon at
8:45 p.m. Soon it will be lost in the glare of the Sun’s light.
Tuesday: “The sky is black (or light polluted), the stars
are white (or red or orange or yellow or blue), the whole world gazes upon the
sight (except where there are too many city lights or people are lazy.” Wow. It
is difficult to write a flowing set of lyrics when there are so many
parenthetical thoughts. Most people think of the sky’s blackness as a lack of
stars. But dark patches in the Milky Way are actually massive clouds of dust
that are blocking the stars behind them. Two of the most prominent are dark
nebulae B142 and B143 in the constellation Aquila the eagle. These are easy to
find and enjoy with binoculars. First find the bright white star Altair, five
fists above due south at 10:30 p.m. Then move your binoculars up and to the
right a little bit to the next bright star Tarazed, about one fifth as bright.
B142 and B143 are to the upper right of Tarazed. They make an “E” shape in the
sky; fitting because American astronomer E. E. Barnard first proposed that
these were dust clouds and not simply big spaces between the stars. For more
information about dark nebulae, including many more to look at with binoculars,
go to https://goo.gl/9tiqdh.
Wednesday: Saturn is two fists above the east-southeastern
horizon at 11:00 p.m.
Thursday: The star FG Sagittae, in the constellation Sagitta
the arrow, is changing before our eyes. Over the past 60 years, FG Sagittae has
turned from blue to white to orange, indicating that it has puffed up and
gotten cooler. The star is too dim to be seen with the naked eye, but the
constellation looks like a small, horizontal arrow six fists above due south at
10:30 p.m.
Friday: Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury make a line in the early
morning sky. At 5:15 a.m., Jupiter is three fists above due east. Venus, the
brightest of the three, is one and a half fists to the lower left of Jupiter.
Mercury is right above the east-northeastern horizon.
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.
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