What's Up?
By Bernie
Reim February used to be
the last month of the year and the word is related to
rites of purification, which are februa. We are in the
middle of winter already, which is officially marked by
Ground Hog Day on the second, but it has not been
consistently winter-like yet. There will be several
interesting highlights to take in this month, and it may
not even be as cold as it usually is in February. All
five of the brightest planets will be visible in the
evening sky at some point this month, a large near-earth
asteroid makes its closest approach in 37 years, and
Comet Garradd should reach its brightest this month in
Hercules. Notice that
Venus and
Jupiter will keep
getting closer together at the rate of almost one degree
per day all month long. They will start this month 40
degrees apart, and end up just 12 degrees apart. One fist
at arm's length measures 10 degrees of the sky. They will
keep getting closer next month. Brilliant Venus continues
to get brighter this month and setting a little later
after sunset each evening. Even though it is getting less
illuminated, similar to a waning gibbous moon, it is
getting closer to Earth and larger in the sky. Venus is
about 6 times brighter than Jupiter now. The king of the
planets continues to fade a little as it gets farther
away, but it is still fairly bright and it will already
set by 10:30 pm by the end of this month. You should be
able to see at least two of its four large Galilean moons
with just a pair of binoculars. Astronomers recently
found evidence for subsurface lakes just below the crust
of Europa, Jupiter's third largest moon. One of them has
the volume of all of North America's Great Lakes. They
are caused by tidally warm spots in Europa's crust, which
hides a deep ocean with more water than all of the oceans
on Earth combined. Mars
is starting to make a real impression in the eastern
evening sky. It is already rising by 8:30 pm in Leo
starting the month and by the end of February it will be
rising by 6pm, right after sunset. The red planet
dramatically doubled in brightness last month and it will
double in brightness again this month. Look for it just
to the left of a nearly full moon in Leo around 8 pm on
the ninth. It will reach opposition early next month, but
it will not be nearly as close as it was back on August
27 of 2003, when it reached it closest to Earth in nearly
60,000 years. You should be able to start seeing some
detail in average telescopes like dark markings and
possibly an ice cap on its surface this month.
Saturn
now rises by 11:30 pm and by the end of the month will
rise two hours earlier. It continues to brighten and rise
earlier each evening until its opposition in mid-April.
Its rings are now open at 15 degrees, which is the best
angle it had for many years. The fifth and smallest
of the brightest planets,
Mercury,
makes a brief appearance in the evening sky towards the
end of the month. Look for our first planet low in the
western sky half an hour after sunset on Wednesday the
22nd, when it will be just a few degrees to the left of a
slender waxing crescent moon. Then keep looking for the
crescent moon during the next four evenings as it passes
right by Venus on Saturday evening the 25th, and Jupiter
on Sunday evening the 26th. As a bonus, the moon will
even pass between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters
in Taurus again on the 28th, just before it becomes a
first quarter moon the next evening, on the 29th.
There will also be a
rare flyby of the first near-earth asteroid ever
discovered, back in 1898, named
433
Eros. It will get
as bright as 8.6 magnitude in early February, but you
will still need a good pair of binoculars or a telescope
to see it. It already passed through Leo, just to the
west of Saturn, and continues south into Hydra the sea
snake this month. This asteroid already made history
twice and it may make history again in the distant
future. When it was first discovered it enabled an
accurate measurement of the astronomical unit, using
parallax, and the scale of our solar system. Then it was
visited by NASA's NEAR-Shoemaker probe in the year 2000,
which then landed on its surface exactly 11 years ago on
Feb.12 of 2001. This is a strange, potato-shaped, slowly
rotating chunk of rock that is 21 miles long by 7 miles
wide by 7 miles thick. It is now in a safe, Mars-crossing
orbit, and it will pass 0.18 a.u., or 70 times the moon's
distance from us this time, its closest approach since
1975. However, Eros has a 50% chance of having its orbit
evolve into a very dangerous earth-crossing orbit in as
little as 2 million years. If it did hit the earth then
in the distant future, it would cause more damage than
the comet or asteroid that hit us and probably caused the
extinction of the dinosaurs and most of our other species
65 million years ago. The last major
highlight, barring any new discoveries this month, will
be Comet
Garradd. Try to
get a good look at it on Friday the third, since it will
pass right by the nice globular star cluster named M92 in
Hercules that evening. Then it will continue north
through Hercules. You will need binoculars or a small
telescope to see it. Feb.4.
Clyde Tombaugh was born on this day in 1906. He
discovered Pluto just 24 years later, on February 18,
1930. Feb.7.
Full moon is at 4:54 p.m.EST. This is also called the
Hunger, Snow, or Wolf Moon. Feb.9-23.
The zodiacal light will be visible in the western evening
sky 80 minutes after sunset from dark-sky locations this
month. Look for a haystack or pyramid-shaped glow of
diffuse light centered on the line connecting Venus and
Jupiter. This eerie, ephemeral light is caused by
sunlight bouncing off tiny, individual particles of comet
and asteroid dust all through the ecliptic plane of our
solar system. This ring of dust is always there, but we
can only catch a glimpse of it twice a year, now, and
again in November about 80 minutes before sunrise in the
east. Feb.14.
Last quarter moon is at 12:04 p.m. Feb.15.
Galileo was born on this day in 1564. He first saw the 4
large moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the phases
of Venus, sunspots, and many more things never seen
before by any human being. He proved that the laws of
nature are mathematical. 2009 was the International Year
of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of his
telescope. Feb.19.
Nicolas Copernicus was born on this day in 1473. He was a
Polish priest and astronomer who said that the sun
instead of the earth was actually the center of our solar
system. This was later proven by Galileo, but many still
did not believe it until much later. Feb.21.
New moon is at 5:35 p.m. Feb.22.
Look for a very thin crescent moon just to the right of
Mercury 30 minutes after sunset this evening. You may
need binoculars to spot it. Look for Venus above the
pair. Feb.25.
The moon passes just to the right of Venus this
evening. Feb.26.
The moon passes
just to the right of Jupiter this evening. Feb.29.
First quarter moon is at 8:21 p.m.
Northern Stars
Planetarium and Educational Services
Feb.1.
The waxing gibbous moon is between the Pleiades and
Hyades star clusters in Taurus.
Bernie Reim
berniereim@masiello.com
Bernie Reim is an amateur astronomer who writes a monthly
astronomy column for several newspapers throughout Maine.
Including: The
Portland Press Herald,
The
Kennebec Journal,
The
Morning Sentinel,
and the York Weekly. He also teaches astronomy lab courses
at the University of Southern Maine.
Fairfield, ME
(207) 453-7668
info@northern-stars.com