MarMOR

In the eastern sky there is a bright distinctly red spot of light that comes out fairly quickly after sunset. I’m sure you’ve guessed already this is the planet Mars! This year Mars has been particularly bright red for a few reasons and is the brightest it will be for fifteen years!

The true color image of Planet Mars, shot by Rosetta in February 2007

Mars takes 2 years to go around the Sun where it takes the Earth 1 year. This means about every 3 years we catch up with mars and pass by it. When this happens it is called ‘opposition’. Opposition means an alignment of the Sun the Earth and one of the outer planets (outer planets are planets that are further from the Sun than us: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). You can see when this happens by watching the sky at sunset, because the Sun, Earth and another planet is in alignment the planet is on the opposite side of the of the sky from the Sun. After you watch the Sun set in the west, turn around and see the planet that is in opposition rise in the east, for that night that planet will be as above the eastern horizon as the Sun is below the western horizon (the same phenomenon can be seen at full moon too). This will happened on October 13th 2020 for Mars. Because opposition is happening this year that means we are closer to mars then we will be for another ~3 years.

Mars will be in opposition on October 13th 2020.

To visualize why this makes Mars so much brighter lets talk about Astronomical Units. An Astronomical Unit (AU) isn't just hyperbole but actually a defined scientific unit that is useful for talking about distances within our solar system. 1 AU is defined as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The distance from Mars to the Sun is 1.7 AU because mars is 70% further from the Sun than Earth is. Now to help visualize this let's shrink the solar system down to something we can manage if we shrink 1 AU to equal 10m (~10 yards) saying the Earth is ~10 yards away from the Sun (Earth would be about 1mm big at this scale, about the size of a grain of sand, The Sun is 110 times the diameter of earth so it would be 110mm about the size of a grapefruit) Mars would be 1.7 AU ~ =17 yards away from the Sun at this scale (Mars is about 1/2 the diameter of Earth so it would be .5mm at this scale, a small grain of sand). So now if Mars was lined up with Earth on the same side Mars would only be 7 yards away, but if Mars was on the opposite side of the Sun Mars would be 27 yards away from Earth. Something as small as a grain of sand would look a whole lot easier to look at if it was only 7 yards (.7AU) away rather than 27 yards (2.7AU) away. That's why years like this year where we are in "opposition" with Mars and on the same side of the Sun as Mars, it becomes much brighter and easier to see in the night sky.

In addition this year we are actually even closer to Mars than usual because both the Earth's and Mars's orbits are not perfect circles but slightly more like an oval meaning sometimes we are slightly closer or further from the Sun. It just so happens this year we are reaching opposition at the same time that both we are slightly further from the Sun than average and Mars is slightly closer to the Sun than average meaning the Earth will be even closer to Mars this year than it was last time we were in opposition. Actually we will be closer this year than we will for the next 15 years worth of oppositions. However I would mitigate expectations here by saying this will be much like the "supper Moon" where it's talked up as being a big deal but it's not exactly easy to tell the difference between the super moon and a normal moon.

NASA image showing comparison of a supermoon (left) and a micromoon (right)

Because we are so close to Mars Astronomers have been planning to do a lot of research on mars this year. You may have seen that this last July three probes were sent to Mars. One from the United States, one from the United Arab Emirates, and one from China. Because we are so much closer to mars this year it's cheaper to send the probes the shorter distance to Mars this year. The one from the US is NASA's Mars 2020 rover (it was named before we knew how much of a disaster 2020 was) and is set to land on mars on 2021 deploying the "Perseverance" rover and a helicopter drone named "Ingenuity" hopefully filling the hole left from when the Opportunity rover died in 2018.

(right) Ingenuity will scout for points of interest for the Perseverance rover to study.

(middle) Perseverance rover with seven scientific instruments labeled.

(left) The cruise stage will carry both spacecraft to Mars taking measurements along the way.

In 2018 there was a major dust storm on Mars which threatened the Opportunity rover by blocking out the sun so that the solar panels could not provide the power the rover needed to operate. The dust storm is well over now but NASA still hasn’t been able to contact the Opportunity rover. NASA suspects that dust has accumulated on rover's solar panels during the storm preventing them from charging the rover. This brought to an end a rover with over 14 years of operation, that had broke many records and made some amazing discoveries in that time. The Curiosity rover however has been operational this entire time as it relies on a nuclear power source which is also true for the Mars 2020 rover.

A penny the Curiosity rover uses to calibrate its camera. On the right is a photo from about a month after it landed and on the left is a picture 6 years from when it landed, just after the dust storm.

Setting in the south-west sky soon after sunset there is a star Anterries in the constellation Scorpio which is the red heart of the scorpion. I bring Anterries up as Anterries is Arabic and means ‘rival to mars’, this is because like mars it too is red. The rivalry comes when comparing the brightness between Mars and Anterries Mars is truly winning the rivalry currently but this is not always true. Actually usually Mars loses the rivalry 2 years out of 3 (when mars is further away, or on the other side of the Sun, as Anterries is always the same brightness). People will often come to me and point to Anterries or Aldebaran (a red star, currently below Mars and rising late in the night {~10:30p currently} that makes up the eye of Taurus the bull) or Betealgeuse (the red star you might be familiar with in Orion, currently appearing in our sky around midnight) and ask if it is mars and I have to tell them no… This year is different because we are passing so close to Mars, Mars is truly winning the rivalry and being the brightest red point in our night sky, you can't help but to point out as being Mars.

In a telescope or a good pair of binoculars mars appears as a red disk, where any of the red stars I mentioned will still be just a point of light. If you have a good telescope you might be able to see the white ice cap. With a really good telescope and a trick called occulting where you block out the light of mars you might be able to see mars's two faint moons Phobos and Deimos. Phobos and Deimos are small and irregularly shaped leading us to think they are most likely captured asteroids.

Mars in my best telescope.

Mars has captured our imaginations a lot through the ages starting with the Sumerians who likened it's red appearance to blood and saw it as an omen of war and blood shed. the Greeks and Romans went along with this naming it after their gods of war Aries and Mars (Marmor being an alternate name) respectively.

In modern times Mars is often the site of many scifi novels, movies, and art. This is owed in part to a wealthy and influential astronomer Percival Lowell who in 1906 claimed to see canals on mars that he thought were so straight they must of been engineered. Lowell wished to find life on mars so much that he started to. This hallucination was contagious and many other astronomers picked up on the canals. the story took off and inspired two generations of scifi writers and artist (Burroughs, Bradbury, Weinbaum, to name a few) who created works that went on to be inspirations for many artists to this day (Andy Weir, Kim Stanley Robinson, David Bowie and countless more). Lowell's observation was before photography when all astronomy was done by eye which leads many to say the canals were in the eye of the beholder, literally, as the drawings Lowel produced resemble retina of the human eye. We know now that there are no canals on mars but it wasn't until the Viking and Mariner probes of the 60s and 70s that hopes of canals on mars was finally put fully to rest.

Martian canals depicted by Percival Lowell.

Even without canals Mars is still an amazing place that captivates the imagination. Valles Marineris which is a system of naturally formed canyons that reaches 4 miles deep and would stretch across mainland United States if it was on earth. If human eyes ever see Valles Marineris up close I’m sure it will be a jaw dropping sight putting the grand canyon to shame. Mars is also home to Olympus Mons an extinct volcano reaching 72,000ft making it the largest mountain in our solar system (there is a case to be made for Rheasilvia a mountain on the asteroid Vela to be bigger). With science supporting the idea of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) snow storms, some have thought about skiing down Olympus Mons and getting lots of air with Mars’s low gravity (about a third of the gravitational force we have on earth). Along with volcanoes and canyons mars also has many impact craters that scar its surface. Mars is home to the greatest diversity of impact crater types of any planet in the Solar System.

Olympus Mons

Hope you enjoy observing Mars this evening. If you want to see it up close in my telescope I will be holding a tours through October.

Saturnus

Saturn is a favorite among everyone. The days of the week are named after celestial bodies and Saturn’s day (Saturday) is also beloved by all! You’re probably thinking about it so here are the rest: Sunday = Sun’s Day, Monday = Moon’s day, (knowing Spanish helps with the others, English took some Norse gods like Thursday=Thor's day) Tuesday = martes = Mars Day, Wednesday = miércoles = Mercury’s day, Thursday = jueves = Jupiter’s day, Friday = viernes = Venus day. Seems like Earth day got a raw deal only being one day a year...

Saturn and its rings taken over a period of three hours by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA)

Saturn is currently appearing in the south next to Jupiter in our evening sky it is much dimmer than Jupiter but it is brighter than the stars that surround it. It makes almost a flat straight line in the sky with Jupiter (the brightest 'star' in the Southern sky after sunset) currently at sunset and will get more angled later in the night and later in the year. This line actually goes across the whole sky surrounding the Earth and is the line of the ecliptic (the only place you find the planets, the sun, and the moon is on this line because it denotes the plane of our solar system. Late at night (currently about 10p) going along this line due east you will see a bright red 'star' rise, Mars!

Diagram showing the Celestial sphere with ecliptic and equinoxes

Saturn is currently visiting the constellation Capricorn which can be seen below it. Saturn is a true treat in binoculars or a telescope. When you first see it you might see an oval resembling a batman symbol but once you focus your eyes in to it you should see Saturn's rings resolve. Saturn never fails to get an “oh wow!” from anyone looking at it up close, the large planet suspended perfectly in the rings is a magical sight to observe with your own eyes. If you really want to test your eyes and equipment you might see ‘the Cassini Division’ which appears as a dark region that separates the bright ring in to 2 rings. The rings are made up of countless water ice particles ranging in size from the smallest speck to the size of a house.

common view of Saturn in a telescope.

Saturn like the Earth has solstices and equinoxes, and you can see them by observing the rings from year to year. Saturn takes 30 years to go around the Sun meaning 30 earth years = 1 Saturn year. every 30 earth years Saturn has 2 solstices (i.e. summer & winter) and 2 equinoxes (i.e. spring, & fall). We see Saturn's solstices by seeing the rings tip towards us and appear to open up and we see Saturn's equinoxes by observing the rings edge on, where it’s difficult to notice the rings at all. Saturn’s last solstice occurred in 2018 this means Saturn was tipped towards the Sun opening it’s rings as wide as can be seen. Over the next 5 or so earth years we will watch Saturn's rings tip away getting smaller and smaller until it reaches equinox where we will see the rings edge on.

How Saturn will look at opposition (when closest to Earth) for the next nine years

When Galileo first saw Saturn's rings he of course didn’t know what he was looking at, some of his first sketches depict it with two moons (he had already discovered the moons of Jupiter making this a reasonable guess). After he caught his first glimpse he got clouded out and wasn’t able to see Saturn again, then once the clouds left Saturn was no longer in the sky (Saturn was too close to the Sun to be observed). Galileo knew about the movements of the planets by now so he waited till he could see it again and when he did the rings were no longer visible (Saturn had gone into equinox where the rings were edge on) this lead Galileo to think he had hallucinated when he first saw the rings. Saturn’s Greek god name is Κρόνος, Krónos who was a Titan that ate his children. Galileo knew this story so when he saw the “moons” next to Saturn disappear he thought just like in the myth Kronos had ate his children. He checked back over the next few years to see them open up again he never truly realized what they really were, later calling them "arms".

After taking in the rings of Saturn if you look around just of next to Saturn somewhere you should see the moon Titan (yes this is where Thanos is from) . Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system (after Jupiter’s moon Ganymede) and slightly larger than even the planet Mercury. Titan is really exciting for planetary researchers as it is rich in geological processes that are alien to anything seen on Earth yet somewhat familiar. I’ll give you an example much like Earth Titan has clouds in its atmosphere and lakes on its surface however Titan’s lakes and clouds are not made of water but made of methane. It is thought that methane on titan acts much like water acts on Earth. Because Titan is so far from the sun it is much colder but these cooler temperatures make it possible to have methane as a solid, liquid, and gas. When heated methane lakes evaporate into clouds that when cooled then rain and/or snow methane back down to the surface.

The Huygens probe that was sent with the Cassini spacecraft landed on the surface of titan in 2005 and proposed missions want to go further some with a submarine to be deployed in a methane lake. Just imagine what a feat of engineering that could be to have a submarine in a methane lake on a moon of one of the most distant planets in our solar system.

My new Bumper stickers are in! come to a tour to pick yours up for free!

By Jove!

If you have been out at dusk lately You may be noticing the brightest star that appears over the southern horizon just after sunset. This “star” is actually the planet Jupiter!

Infrared view of Jupiter

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system at 11.6 times the size of Earth in diameter (86,881 miles), making it 1,322 times the size of earth in volume, you could fit over a thousand earth's inside Jupiter. Being so massive has made Jupiter a solar system within our solar system, as it's extreme gravitational pull captures lots of objects as moons of Jupiter.

Jupiter's size compared to earth, the entirety of earth could fit, with room to spare, in Jupiter's 'great red spot' (an acid hurricane that has been raging on Jupiter for centuries)

Jupiter currently has 79 known moons. This number keeps increasing as recently as July of 2018, we added 10 newly discovered moons to the total. 26 of the moons are so new they are still awaiting official names. We are not done adding to the number of known moons of Jupiter. Astronomers are discovering new moons of Jupiter so frequently the main trick has become making sure the newly observed moons are not the same as a moon we have previously counted.

The number of moons of Jupiter will also be changing further as new moons are likely about to be made and destroyed. Of the known objects going around Jupiter most are going the same direction but, some are going the opposite direction and just like if you go the opposite direction of traffic in a traffic circle collision is likely.

If you look at Jupiter with even just a halfway decent pair of binoculars you will be able to see 4 of Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. These are called the Galilean Moons as they were first observed by Galileo in his small telescope. They are very easy to make out even in small telescopes/binoculars but, telling which one is which takes several observations over a long period of time as they are circling Jupiter and you can only see this movement edge on from Earth. To determine a moon’s true distance from Jupiter you must watch the moons to see when they stop getting further from Jupiter, turn around and get closer. (or you can just cheat and use this web tool)

how Jupiter and it's 4 Galilean Moons appear in a telescope or binoculars (the stripes/spot can be much harder to see than it might look from this picture)to

All of the Galilean Moons are interesting places and studied extensively. Io (the closest) is the most volcanic body in our solar system, Eropa is the smoothest body in our solar system it’s believed to have liquid water and therefore possibly life beneath it’s ice surface. Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury, and Callisto (the furthest out) is the most cratered body in our solar system.

Jupiter’s moons served as one of the first standardized clocks. Jupiter’s moons movement is regular and predictable so the Royal Observatory in Greenwich calculated and published their future locations and local time (as would be shown on a sundial or pendulum clock) at Greenwich, forming the foundations for our time zones based around Greenwich Mean Time.

With a good pair of binoculars you can also see red stripes contrasted with white stripes this is Jupiter’s atmosphere. The change in coloration is caused by different compounds in the atmosphere that change color when exposed to the light of the Sun.

A really good set of binoculars or a decent telescope you can see the red spot which is an acid hurricane more than twice the size of earth that has been observed since at least 350 years ago. This has been the only silver lining of stargazing in Colorado thru the smog/haze from the wild fires in the mountains is that the haze has been increasing the contrast on Jupiter making the stripes and spot easier to see (I've actually been able to make out a personal record number of stripes this year seeing 7). A day on Jupiter last about 10 hrs so over the course of a long winter night you can watch Jupiter do a full rotation by watching the great red spot do a lap around the planet.

close up of the spot on Jupiter

Jupiter is currently “in Capricorn ”. Capricorn doesn't look like much unless you have really dark sky, but you will see Sagittarius to the right, right next to it! If you have decently dark skies and some imagination you might see a constellation that resembles a teapot just to the right of Jupiter. A triangular lid atop a trapezoidal body with a trapezoidal handle on the east side and a triangular spout on the west side. Even better if you are in a particularly dark area you can see the milky way appearing as steam coming out of the spout. This “teapot” was originally seen as an archer, and named Sagittarius. The tip of the spout to the two stars that make the top of the handle are the arrow and the top of the lid and the two stars to the right of the base make the bow for the archer.

The archer's arrow is drawn pointing to the west towards a bright star with a red/orange hue. This star is Antares. Antares is not to be confused with mars which is currently rising in the eastern sky around 10pm ~ish (this is such a common mistake it is where Antares name came from, it's Arabic for 'rival of mars'). The star Antares is the heart of the scorpion or Scorpio. and Sagittarius is protecting others from Scorpio by keeping his bow drawn towards it's heart.

Capricorn, Sagittarius, and Scorpio you might be familiar with from the zodiac over the course of 12 years we can watch Jupiter move across every sign in the zodiac. If you read my post on Jupiter two years ago you have been able to watch Jupiter move from the constellation Scorpio to the next constellation in the zodiac Sagittarius and now to Capricorn! Jupiter takes just a little less than 12 years to go around the Sun, there are 12 signs in the zodiac, therefore Jupiter spends a year in each one! so next year we can be sure to find Jupiter in Aquarius!

Come get a closer look at Jupiter seeing it's stripes (this year better than ever with the haze), moons, red spot and more! On an astronomy tour! Book now for an out of this world experience!