In the early evening of Tuesday, 23 February, the rising waning gibbous Moon — one day after full Moon — lies just 3½ degrees from magnitude -2.5 planet Jupiter low in the eastern sky. Jupiter is closest to Earth on Tuesday, 8 March, so now is the time to get acquainted with the solar system’s largest planet.
The total solar eclipse of Wednesday, 9 March 2016 is of relatively long duration — 4m 9s at greatest eclipse — which occurs at 1:57 UT. Totality is visible from Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and the North Pacific Ocean, while the partial phases can be seen from East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean. See the event unfold in these new NASA timelapse visualisations.
At 6am GMT on the mornings of 3 and 4 February, around the onset of astronomical twilight for the centre of the British Isles, the old waning crescent Moon brushes by ringed planet Saturn low to the south-southeast horizon. As a bonus for telescope users, the Moon occults globular cluster M9 shortly after 6am GMT on 4 February too.
As avid skywatchers will already know, all of the bright naked-eye planets are currently visible in the pre-dawn sky — the first time in eleven years that such an alignment has occurred. At 6am GMT on Monday, 1 February, the last quarter Moon in the constellation Libra lies just 2½ degrees from magnitude +0.8 planet Mars low in the south for UK observers.
When the Moon is high in the sky, it produces bulges in the Earth’s atmosphere that create measurable changes in the amount of rain that falls below, according to new research. But no-one should carry an umbrella just because the Moon is rising — even in the tropics, average rainfall rates are only increased by 1/10,000 of an inch per hour.
The Moon was formed by a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a “planetary embryo” called Theia (pronounced THAY-eh) approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, UCLA scientists reveal. This new research also refutes the work of a team of German scientists who, in 2014, reported that the Moon also has its own unique ratio of oxygen isotopes, different from Earth’s.
Observers in the British Isles and western Europe with a clear sky low to the east around 10pm local time on Wednesday, 27 January can see the rising 18-day-old waning gibbous Moon in a close conjunction with Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet. Jupiter draws steadily closer to Earth and grows in apparent size over the coming weeks.
All five of the bright naked-eye planets are observable in the pre-dawn sky from about the third week of January 2016, particularly if one lives south of the equator. But even from the UK, you can get to view the spectacle if you time it right — and the weather obliges! The last time that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn appeared in the same sky was 11 years ago.
On the night of 19—20 January, the 10-day-old waxing gibbous Moon glides in front of the loose open star cluster known as the Hyades that represent the bull’s head in the constellation of Taurus, culminating in the occultation of bright star Aldebaran an hour or so before moonset for observers in the British Isles.
On the morning of Thursday, 7 January, observers in the UK with a clear sky and an unobstructed view low to the southeast at 7am GMT (central British Isles) can see a close conjunction between the old crescent Moon, Venus and Saturn — all three encompassed by the field of view of a typical binocular.
© 2019 Pole Star Publications Limited