JANUARY 2012 NIGHT SKIES OVER TANZANIA
JANUARY NIGHT SKIES OVER TANZANIA
The world is waiting with suppressed breath as we await the uncontrolled fall of the failed Russian spacecraft Phobos Grunt that will come crashing to ground. It had been expected to be sent on to Mars after its launch on Nobember 8th, but due to communication failure it could not be commanded to fire its engines. For the past two months has been slowing down due to the drag of the Earth’s atmosphere and destined to fall back to Earth.
Scientists have only recently been able to predict when it would actually fall back to the ground. It is now estimated to crash to earth this Sunday 15th with an error range of two days between Saturday 14th to Sunday 15th. It is expected to fall in the Indian Ocean near the Indonesian island of Java. But the exact location cannot be predicted because of the atmosphere’s drag acts differently on different surfaces of the spacecraft. So the only sure thing is that it will fall in the mid latitudes between 51 degrees north and 54 degrees south latitudes. This is the fourth in a series of recent failures suffered by US, German and Russian spacecrafts. No one on the ground has been hurt in any previous falls. This is because two thirds of the Earth is made up of oceans and with no inhabitants and large area in the continents, such as the Sahara and the Siberia, are uninhabited.
How many moons do we have? We may have more than one! A recent discovery of another moon orbiting the Earth may appear alarming but it is not surprising since the new moon is a tiny piece of rock about a meter across. It is thought that we have always had more than one moon orbiting the Earth. These are captured asteroids from the asteroid belt. The Earth’s gravity keeps them in orbit for several months before they escape from its clutches.
Venus continues to dominate the western skies half way up the horizon at sunset. It is currently in a gibbous (oval shaped) phase and getting bigger and brilliant every day. Jupiter is also extremely bright high up in the western sky.
The Moon is New on January 23rd and Full on February 8th. So a good time to see the craters on the Moon is in between these dates especially around the middle of this period, that is, January 30th or 31st when it will be in half phase. Sunlight casts long shadows on the edge between the bright and dark side of the Moon and hence even small craters become visible through a pair of binoculars or a telescope.
On Thursday 26th January Venus and crescent Moon will set up a stunning sight for us in the west from sunset until 8:30 pm.
Monday 30th January will show a half Moon very close to Jupiter in the overhead skies setting up another eye-catching view that will be visible until midnight.
The dawn skies are also worth waking up early for. Between 9th to 23rd January, there is a line up the planets Mercury, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon across the sky from east to west. During this period, the Moon shifts its position from the western skies and gets close first to Mars on Saturday 14th, then Saturn on Monday 16th in the overhead skies and finally it will be close to Mercury on Sunday 22nd in the eastern horizon. Mars is beginning to brighten significantly and appears clearly orangish in colour.
The stars that adorn the January night skies include two of brightest stars in the whole sky, Sirius and Canopus. The other brightest stars are: Procyon, Rigel and Beltelgeuse in Orion constellation while Aldebaran in Taurus constellation. Beltelgeuse and Aldebaran are red giants, which are stars that are in the final stages of their lives so become bloated and cooler red. Other bright stars are Capella and Achernar.
Canopus is a star well removed from other bright stars so it is often used by spacecraft on route to the outer planets. Six of these stars are among the top ten brightest stars in the sky, so go out and know your stars. The Milky Way contains a dense collection of stars and interstellar dust and nebulae stretching across the sky from the southeast across the sky to the north, grazing Sirius, Orion, Taurus and finally enclosing Perseus and Cassiopeia in the north.
Three visible galaxies can be seen in the early night sky for the next few months. Two of these, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are members of our local group, which form a trio together with our Milky Way galaxy. The two Magellanic Cloud galaxies can be seen only in the southern skies since they are so close to the South Pole. The both have irregular shapes and cover a wide area of the sky with more than 4 to 5 degrees of angular width. LMC lies between Canopus and the South Pole and can best be viewed after 9 p.m. The SMC (3½ deg across) lies similarly between Achernar and the South. These two galaxies are about 50,000 light years away from us. The Andromeda galaxy can be seen in the north above Cassiopeia. It is more than 2 million light years away from us and can be seen as a fuzzy patch of light, making it the farthest object seen with the naked eyes.
The best opportunity of viewing the International Space Station is at the beginning of next month on 4th February when it will rise in south-south-west horizon at 7:39 pm and reaches a maximum height of 64 degrees and is finally lost in the Earth’s shadow in mid-north-east skies at 7:43 pm close to the right stars, Pollux, in the heads of Gemini (the twins) constellation. Exact timing and other satellite views can be found from the website www.heavens-above.com by entering your location.