Whether you are an early-to-bed/early-to rise person or a night owl and turn off the alarm instead of getting up early, Mars will be in your field of view. This week it is already low in the east by midnight. Each night it will be visible a few minutes earlier until it will be up as the sun sets. For the rest of this month, it will be high in the sky towards the south/southwest in the dauncerly light. (dawn’s early light).
To an earth-bound viewer, Mars is a rusty orange point of light and is near a fainter true star, Aldebaran, in the V shape of Taurus, the Bull. And if you are wondering about dauncerly light, a young student I once taught thought that was in the Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem. Our South Texas twang confuses many folks. I thought it was a lovely adjective and wanted to share it with you.
As Major League baseball games continue the Baseball Diamond/Great Square of Pegasus is low in the east at nightfall. Looking more like a window or diamond than a horse, its brightest star is Alpheratz, “the horse’s shoulder.” It is at the left point of the diamond during the evening hours. Another star in this constellation, 51 Pegasi b, is the first sun-like star known to have a planet orbiting around it. The planet is roughly 50 light-years away from Earth and is classified as a “hot Jupiter” – a planet that is Jupiter-size and orbits close to its parent star. Exoplanet hunters spent almost entire careers searching for the elusive beasts before locating one.
All cultures named groups of stars as part of their mythology. Although the Greco-Roman cultures named constellations Cassiopeia and Andromeda, to the Polynesians these same stars were a dolphin they named Kwu. Cassiopeia formed its tail and the brightest stars in Andromeda formed its fins. The fainter stars of Andromeda formed the dolphin’s body.
In case you are a new reader, Cassiopeia is in the north part of the sky and is shaped like a letter W or M-depending on the season. It is a circumpolar constellation, meaning it circles the North Star in a counter-clockwise direction. Andromeda is a bent V group of stars extending from “first base” of the constellation Pegasus, aka the Baseball Diamond.
A different group of stars was the dolphin constellation identified by the Greco-Romans; it is near Pegasus and resembles a delicate kite since it is a trapezoid with a bent trail of stars drifting downward from the lower angle of the kite shape.
The moon reaches last-quarter this week, which means it’s three-quarters of the way through its month-long cycle of phases. Half of the side that faces Earth is bathed in sunlight, while the other half is in darkness. Earth-bound moon watchers never see the actual dark side of the moon because of the geometry of the sun, moon, Earth system.
Remember the Resaca de la Palma will be hosting its night hike the last Friday of the month, weather permitting. The hike starts at dusk but prior to the hike there is often an astronomy activity in the meeting room for early arrivers. The hike ends at the UTRGV Christina Torres Memorial Observatory and there is a chance to look through the telescopes with some of the post-grad folks from the university before you head home.
Until next week, happy FALL Y’ALL as of September 22 and KLU.
