Steve Bevan's Night Skies

Hexagon on Saturn

Photo:  NASA, ESA

This unusual hexagon is a weird atmospheric feature of the planet Saturn.  The picture was taken by the Cassini space probe, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).  Scientists used the on-board Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer to peer 47 km into the atmosphere.  The blue area is electrically charged due to the interaction of the solar wind with Saturn's magnetic field.  The result is similar to Earth's Northern Lights (and Southern Lights for those of you in the southern hemisphere).  The red areas indicate heat from below while the dark areas are clouds blocking the heat. 

Oddly enough, experiments with spinning pails of water here on Earth have been able to replicate this sort of shape.  Cool!

That Bright Star in the West...

It's the number one question I get right now.  Often confused with the bright landing lights of an airplane, the planet Venus is extremely bright in the early evening.  Look for the brightest star-like object setting in the west after dark.  If you have a telescope, you can see that the planet Venus goes through phases, just like our moon does.  This is due to the changing position of the planet vs. the sun as seen from our location.  Watch it over a period of weeks.  As with the moon, Venus goes through a crescent phase to full and back to crescent.   It's a beautiful sight.  Unfortunately that beauty doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.  Venus has a corrosive atmosphere that is hot enough to melt lead and the atmospheric pressure is about ninety times that of Earth.  It's definitely not a vacation paradise...but I do enjoy the view from a distance, don't you? 

(Note-at times the direction we look to see Venus is extremely close to the sun.  Never point a telescope at the sun, or close to the sun. You can cause serious and permanent damage to your eye!!)

Star Chart by Starry Night Pro copyright IMAGINOVA

Vernal Equinox -Go Balance an Egg!

You know it's not true.  As the legend goes, an egg can be made to balance only on the Spring Equinox, also known as the Vernal Equinox.

It's great for keeping the kids occupied with something other than video games.  I take great joy in giving the kids something to do that keeps them quiet and busy at the same time.  As long as everyone can be hosed down afterwards, its all fun!

The Vernal Equinox is the moment when the sun is positioned directly above our equator, giving us all an equal period of day and night. The Spring Equinox is great for us lucky folk in the Northern Hemisphere because the days are about to get longer than the nights (yay!) If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, March 20th marks the Autumnal Equinox and the beginning of fall.

At 8:07 Eastern Daylight Savings Time, the opportunity exists to send our kids to the kitchen to try and balance an egg without any props.  No forks, spoons, knives allowed.  Only eggs.

May you enjoy the ensuing omlette.

Meteor Lights Up GTA Skies

Stock Photo Credit:  Nasa

Sunday March 11th at about 8 PM -People throughout the GTA witnessed a fireball moving across our sky towards the west.  Police switchboards from the Regions of Durham, York and Toronto started to receive the calls of the curious and the concerned.  Was it a plane in distress?  A meteor shower?  A UFO?  Maybe even "space junk" such as a spent rocket booster finally making it back to Earth after years in orbit.

What people likely saw was the blazing trail of a little rock burning up in our upper atmosphere as it traversed the sky.  Usually with such events, it's unlikely that anything actually makes it to the ground.

What's happening here?  In a word -compression.  As the object enters the atmosphere, it compresses the air in front of it.  The air heats up to extremely high temperatures, consuming the unfortunate object in the process.  You can experience something similar -on a smaller scale of course- when you pump up a bicycle tire with a manual air pump.  The pump gets hotter and hotter as you compress the air in the tire to a higher pressure.

Will we find any physical evidence of last night's sky show?  Not likely but if we do, I'll keep you posted.

Jupiter and the Moon

Images created in Starry Night Software, copyright IMAGINOVA

Sunday March 11th and Monday March 12th, early risers have the opportunity to see our closest neighbour, the Moon as it approaches and passes Jupiter in the early morning sky, just before sunrise.  The moon slowly moves to the left in our sky and its position is noticeably different each day.  In relation to this movement you will see the Moon transform from one phase to the next.  Currently, it's close to "last quarter" and in about a week will disappear as it is lost in sunlight.  Take a look at the sky map for Sunday and then Monday.

Sunday's map shows the moon just a little below and to the left of Antares, the red supergiant star in the constellation Scorpius -yes it's a scorpion.

Jupiter is visible about a hand span to the left and a little bit up from the Moon's position.

One day later, you can see that the Moon has changed its position, now in the lower left of our sky map.  The moon has moved closer to the sun's position in the sky.  In a couple more days it will be rising as a sliver in the daylight, all but impossible to find until after it moves past the sun.  Once past the sun you can start to see it as a sliver setting in the western sky as our lunar cycle starts anew.

Eclipse of the Moon, Saturday March 3rd

Photo Credit: Doug Murray, NASA

If the weather holds on Saturday, those of us on the eastern side of North America have a chance to see an eclipse of the moon.  It will be under way as the moon rises in the east Saturday evening.  As the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow it will turn a reddish colour.  What you will be witnessing is the refracted light coming from around the edges of the Earth.  Imagine the light of all the sunsets on Earth.  That's what is being reflected off the moon's surface.  As the Moon moves out of the Earth's shadow, you will see the brightness increase to its usual brilliant white in the uncovered portion, gradually being exposed.

Happy viewing!