THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet
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70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
Julian Date: 2458849.16
2019-2020: LXXVII
"We think we have a perfect vision of the new year."
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
January 2020 Night Sky Calendar
Part I
2020!
MMXX!
A new decade begins and we can't wait to experience every second: while we
don't know what will transpire in the roaring 20's as the war weary
doughboys foxtrot with their sweethearts, we can predict most of the
decade's upcoming celestial events, apart from solar flares, aurora
exhibits, new comet apparitions, and other tricky cosmic matters that show
us that nature remains annoyingly dominant. (We are almost four years
away from the mega event: the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse that will
darken New England's skies, or, at least, darken the pervasive cloud cover
we generally experience that time of year.)
However, the night sky never rests and the stars soaring above our heads
know nothing of our calendar reckoning: what care those soarers for the
New Year's ring? The Universe is merely and miraculously doing what the
Universe does best: existing and working through its myriad motions while
allowing all possibilities to slowly hatch out. We pick those events we
smugly consider to be of the greatest interest and include them in our
monthly calendar.
*FRIDAY, JANUARY 3: FIRST QUARTER MOON*
What? Does it seem a rather inauspicious way to usher in a new decade:
something as quaint and quotidian as the quarter moon? It isn't We're
beginning a new decade with the sight of a half moon: a lunar disc bisected
by a razor sharp light-dark border that divides Earth's attendant world
into a scorched land 200 degrees hot and a frigid one 200 degrees below
zero. As the moon rotates only once every 27.4 days, the day-night line,
called the terminator, creeps along at ten miles per hour at its equator
(slightly less than five miles per hour at its equivalent of the Arctic
Circle.) A biker could outpace the sunset at the equator as a jogger could
close to its poles. Unlike Earth's sunrise, preceded by a gradual
transition from subtle gray to vibrantly scarlet skies, the sun rise on the
airless moon is immediate: a light switch quick jump from dark to light.
Sunlight moving slowly but inexorably across an asteroid battered moonscape
that bares its bruises for many millions of years. As you watch the first
quarter moon, you'll see the deepest crater valleys awaken from a two week
deep chilled night into a furnace hot morning. So, a first quarter
moon isn't a boring way to start a decade. It is just a reminder that the
only thing that doesn't exist is the cosmos is the ordinary.
*SATURDAY, JANUARY 4: QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER PEAKS*
Meteor showers are generally named for the constellation from which the
meteors appear to originate: for instance, the Perseids in August emanate
out of Perseus the Geminids in December originate in Gemini. But the
Quadrantids? That doesn't sound like any constellation in our sky. Well,
it isn't. The Quadrantids appear to emerge from a region once known as
Quadrans Muralis, a nifty little constellation crafted by uber-brilliant
French astronomer Lalande in 1795. It depicted a wall mounted quadrant
Lalande and his nephew used to chart the heavens. While Johann Bode
included the constellation in his 1801 Uranographia star atlas, it was
eliminated in the early 1930's when the International Astronomical Union
conquered the heavens, formalized the list of 88 constellations and
immediately punished dissent with oxygen deprivation.
[image: Quadrans_muralis_map.png]
An admittedly unimpressive image of Quadrans Muralis: an 18th century
constellation depicting a wall mounted Quadrant. The now obsolete
constellation resides in an area that the Big Dipper and Bootes now occupy.
The Quadrantids begin around December 28th and end around January 13th.
They peak tonight. Look for the meteors to emerge from the area around
northern Bootes. Unfortunately, the peak lasts only a few hours and the
meteors tend to be fainter than most: dimmer than Polaris, the north star.
Even though the peak should produce about 40 - 70 meteors an hour,
this rich shower won't be as spectacular as it would if its meteors were
brighter or if the peak lasted longer.
*SUNDAY, JANUARY 5: EARTH AT PERIHELION*
There is nothing to see here, unless you stare at the Sun (extremely bad
idea) and measure its angular diameter. Were you able to do so, you would
notice that the Sun is slightly larger in our sky now than at any other
time of year simply because Earth is closer to it: about 91.5 million miles
as opposed to the average distance of 93.5 million. Earth travels around
an elliptical orbit, which, in our planet's case, is a slightly elongated
circle. Consequently, Earth's distance from the Sun continuously changes
from a minimum (perihelion) in early January to a maximum (aphelion) in
early July. Today, we are as close to the Sun as possible in this
orbit. As you might have noticed if you're standing outside listening to
the blood in your ears congeal, this closer proximity to the Sun has little
effect on our weather. However, our planet is revolving more quickly
around the Sun now than it does in the summer due to this reduced distance.
(The closer a planet is to the Sun, the faster it moves in accordance to
the conservation of angular momentum.) For this reason, our winter isn't
as long as our summer: something to buoy up our spirits as we warm our
bodies over roasting mammoth carcasses.
*FRIDAY, JANUARY 10: FULL MOON AND A PENUMBRAL LUNAR ECLIPSE (NOT
VISIBLE IN EASTERN US)*
The moon is full tonight! A bright, beautiful lunar disk looming
majestically over the glistening snowsc....yeah. yeah, great...but, what
about the eclipse we're not going to see? Tonight, the full moon will move
through Earth's penumbra, the outer part of its shadow. Such an eclipse
is noteworthy principally for not being noteworthy: a penumbral eclipse
causes the moon's brightness to diminish slightly, or more correctly,
imperceptibly. It won't be visible here, but, then again, even if it
were visible, it would be largely invisible, so we're not seeing something
we probably wouldn't have seen, anyway.
January's full moon is curiously called the "Ice Moon," or "Snow Moon" or
"Moon after Yule." We also know of it as the "Wolf Moon."
*FRIDAY, JANUARY 10: MERCURY AT SUPERIOR CONJUNCTION*
Let's play with our minds for a moment. Now, you are not sitting at your
computer in rapt attention. Instead, you are poised "above" the solar
system plane so you can see the Sun and its retinue of attendant worlds
revolving around it. Since you're up here, I would recommend that you
accelerate the planetary motions, make them appear brighter while at the
same time dimming the Sun a bit so what you're observing doesn't actually
blind you. Ok. What do you notice? The planets are all moving around
the Sun at a steady clip. Granted, the closest planet, Mercury, is moving
the fastest because it is closest to the Sun. Notice the third world:
the bluish one? We're living there and as we move around, we notice that
the planets occupy different positions relative to the Sun. These
location changes are tricky because we're seeing moving objects from a
moving platform. (It is for this reason that mathematical astronomy is not
for the faint-hearted.) Now, in your mind, stop the motion when you see
the clock read 10 January 2020. You will observe that Mercury is on the
far side of the Sun relative to Earth. We refer to this configuration
as "Superior Conjunction." Mercury is moving behind the Sun and won't be
visible. Mercury will then move into the western evening sky.