No Bull — Mars Double-Aligns in Taurus Tonight

Mars shines from Taurus, an ancient constellation that represents the Greek god Zeus disguised as a bull. Tonight, April 3, Mars, Aldebaran and Elnath will form a straight line at the same time the planet, Aldebaran and the Pleiades outline a right triangle. Stellarium

I've had my eye on Mars the past two weeks. The planet is passing through the constellation Taurus the bull, which dominates western sky at nightfall in early April. This zodiac constellation is host to two of the brightest and most familiar star clusters in the sky, the V-shaped Hyades, located 151 light-years away, and the dipper-shaped Pleiades, 444 light-years distant.

Taurus also boasts the first magnitude, orange giant star Aldebaran, which appears to belong to the Hyades but in truth is a foreground star. The bull's fiery eye lies just 65 light-years from us along the same line of sight as the cluster. Straight up from the Hyades, which outlines the bull's face, you'll find two stars representing the tips of the bull's horns — Zeta (ζ) Tauri and Elnath, also known as Beta (β) Tauri. 

I've been keeping track of Mars, anticipating the night it will form a perfectly straight line with Aldebaran and Elnath. I love stellar and planetary alignments and can't resist the sight of three bright celestial objects in a row. There's so much randomness in the starry sky I enjoy when the occasional straight line or right triangle appears. Both happen tonight!

Aldebaran, Mars and Elnath will appear to lie along a line this evening (Saturday, April 3). At the same time, Mars, Aldebaran and the Pleiades make a right triangle. I never did well on geometry proofs when I was a sophomore in high school but am still fond for triangles, parallelograms and polygons wherever and whenever they pop up.

China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft took this amazing crescent Mars photo on March 18, 2021. The orbiting craft was 6,850 miles (11,000 km) away from the planet at the time. CNSA

If your sky is clear tonight, you can look up and enjoy these arrangements, too. Of course, they're temporary. Mars, being a planet, is on the move. If you look again tomorrow night (Sunday) the line will be broken and the magic somewhat less. Use this opportunity to become more familiar with planetary motion and the outline of Taurus, a constellation figure you may not have seen before. 

It's also fun to compare Aldebaran and Mars. Both have nearly the same color (or do they?) and vary fractionally in brightness. Aldebaran's the brighter at the moment with a magnitude of 1. Mars is three-tenths of a magnitude fainter at 1.3. Can you see the difference?

Every time you spend a few minutes looking up, the knowledge gained by observation adds up to a greater familiarity and a deeper appreciation of the greatest wilderness of all — the night sky. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Joy at Northern Nights Star Fest 2021

Image
A participant at Northern Nights Star Fest uses a filtered computer to monitor the progress of a photo taken through his telescope. Red filters preserve night vision. No white lights are allowed on the observing field during the event. Ben Huset   Last weekend I attended the 10th annual Northern Nights Star Fest  (NNSF) held by the Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS). Members flee light-polluted backyards and head north to Long Lake Conservation Center in north-central Minnesota to revel in dark skies. I spoke at the event and had the time of my life. We've all been a little starved of company the past year and a half because of COVID-19 fears. Getting together with other amateur astronomers for face-to-face conversation and to share the night sky was balm for all. I'm grateful the MAS provided the opportunity. MAS member Jerry Jones speaks Friday night about the work of Edward Pickering and the women at Harvard College Observatory to elucidate the properties of stars throug...
Read more

Inspiration4 an 'Early Bird' Last Night, Lands Today

Image
The Inspiration4 ship and crew pass beneath the bright star Altair around 8:42 p.m. Friday night, September 17. At the same time, Object-B, a rocket stage from an earlier Japanese satellite launch, crosses the same part of the sky.  Bob King Sometimes satellites and spacecraft don't show up at their predicted times. One of the main reasons this happens is when mission control decides to raise or lower the object's orbit by firing the ship's thrusters.  Last night, unbeknownst to most, SpaceX lowered the orbit of historic Inspiration4 space capsule sometime before or during its pass over the U.S. When a spacecraft's altitude is lowered, it appears lower in the sky and moves more quickly. A faster speed also means it will arrive in view earlier than the original time. The higher the orbit the more slowly the satellite travels, the same way Earth takes more time to circle the sun compared to Mercury.  I set up the camera a little more than 10 minutes in advance just to tes...
Read more

Last Minute Guide to Tonight's Lunar Eclipse and Aurora

Image
  The seven phases of the eclipse are listed at left with time zones across the top — EDT (Eastern Daylight); CDT (Central Daylight); MDT (Mountain Daylight); PDT (Pacific Daylight); Alaska Daylight (AKDT) and Hawai'i-Aleutian Standard Time (HAST). Find your time zone, then read down the column for your local times. Blank boxes indicate parts of the eclipse that won't be visible from that time zone. Here's a last quick look at the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will grace skies across the Americas Wednesday morning, May 26th . From most locations it occurs as night gives way to dawn. The table shows the local viewing times for six different time zones from the East Coast to Hawai'i. If you live in Denver, for example, the partial eclipse begins at 3:45 a.m. local time, with the moon entering total eclipse at 5:11 a.m. shortly before sunrise. Only folks living in the Pacific Time Zone and points west will see totality in a dark sky. Wednesday's dawn eclipse will r...
Read more