Skylights featured three times on Earth Science
Picture of the Day: 1
, 2
, 3
, 4
.
Photo of the Week.. The southern sky with its bright
Milky Way rises in morning twilight, the
Southern Cross below,
followed by Beta then Alpha Centauri. Taken from southern Madagascar during
the total lunar eclipse of November 9, 2003, the sky backlights the
spiny forest unique to the island. Photo by Greg Dimijian.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, February 20, 2004.
The Moon passes its new phase right at the beginning of Skylights'
week, the morning of Friday, February 20. The evening of Saturday
the 21st watch for the thin crescent in twilight low above the
western horizon. As evenings progress, the crescent will fatten
and pull itself ever higher in the sky as it heads toward first
quarter on Friday the 27th. As the Moon moves westward against
the background stars, it takes on the two planets that bracket the
Earth.
The evening of Sunday the 22nd finds our lunar companion to the
west of brilliant Venus (itself unmistakable high to the west
in twilight), while on the night of Monday the 23rd, it will be on
the other side, and nor far to the east of the planet. The night
of Wednesday the 25th, the Moon makes an even closer pass to Mars, standing
directly to the south of it. The two are close enough (in angle,
not in distance) such that in the South Pacific, the Moon actually
occults (passes over) the planet.
Venus,
growing ever brighter, does now not set until around 9:30 PM, while
dimming (but still first magnitude in brightness) Mars lingers
in the sky for another two hours. In the other direction, Jupiter
enters the stage to the east shortly before 7 PM, about two hours
before Saturn
transits the meridian high to the south in southern Gemini, allowing the two giant
planets to be seen nicely at the same time (along with Mars and
Venus). Not to be outdone, Uranus is
in conjunction with the Sun on Saturday the 21st, following brother
Neptune's
conjunction on February 2. Moving ever so slowly to the east,
Neptune is in the direction of Capricornus, while somewhat faster Uranus (along with
the Sun) has moved over into Aquarius.
For those in mid-northern latitudes, the sky's sixth brightest
star, Capella of Auriga, passes nearly overhead in
early evening. This most northerly of first magnitude stars
(technically so bright as to be of "zeroth" magnitude, and just
beating Deneb for northerliness)
falls just short of spring's Arcturus and summer's Vega. Mid-southern latitudes are
similarly graced by Canopus in Carina, the sky's second brightest
star (after Sirius, which can be
seen easily from both locales). While closer to the southern
celestial pole than Capella is to the northern pole, it is still
not the record, which is taken by Achernar at the end of the River Eridanus. Canopus is seen low above
the southern horizon from the deep southern
continental US (Florida, Texas, Arizona), and of course from
Hawaii.
