Catch a ‘Conjunction Triple Play’ on February 20th as the Moon Meets Venus & Mars

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Catch a ‘Conjunction Triple Play’ on February 20th as the Moon Meets Venus & Mars

Catch a ‘Conjunction Triple Play’ on February 20th as the Moon Meets Venus & Mars:

The Moon passes Mars and Venus last month… this week’s pass is much closer! (Photo by author).

Fear not, the chill of late February. This Friday gives lovers of the sky a reason to brave the cold and look westward for a spectacular close triple conjunction of the planets Mars, Venus and the waxing crescent Moon.

This week’s New Moon is auspicious for several reasons. We discussed the vagaries of the Black Moon of February 2015 last week, and the lunacy surrounding the proliferation of the perigee supermoon. And Happy ‘Year of the Goat’ as reckoned on the Chinese luni-solar calendar, as this week’s New Moon marks the start of the Chinese New Year on February 19^th. Or do you say Ram or Sheep? Technical timing for the New Moon is on Wednesday, February 18^th at 23:47 UT/6:47 PM EST, marking the start of lunation 1140. The next New Moon on March 20^th sees the start of the first of two eclipse seasons for 2015, with a total solar eclipse for the high Arctic. More on that next month!

Looking west on the evening of February 20th. Credit: Stellarium.

And today also marks Shrove Tuesday and the start of Lent, as reckoned 47 days prior to Easter Sunday. In Western Christianity, Easter falls on the first Sunday past the first Full Moon past March 21^st. This is the demarcation date set for the March Equinox, which actually falls on March 20^th this year. Such is the wonderful world of calendars and astronomy, as the struggle to keep recorded versus actual observed time in sync continues.

The dawn crescent Moon paired with Venus on February 26th, 2014. Credit and Copyright: Efrain Morales.

The first sighting opportunities for the slim waxing crescent Moon will come Thursday night on February 19^th. And don’t miss the main event on Friday, February 20^th when Mars, Venus and the two day old waxing crescent Moon all fit within a two degree diameter circle — about four Full Moon diameters — prior to sunset. You can’t miss brilliant Venus, shining at -4^th magnitude as the 3^rd brightest natural object in the sky next to the Sun and the Moon. Through a telescope, Venus presents an 88% illuminated disk 12” in size and growing, while Mars shines at +1.3 magnitude and is just 4.2” in size. The closest conjunction of Venus and Mars actually occurs just 48 hours later, when they both fit within a 30’ field of view on the evening of Sunday, February 21^st.

The Moon, Venus and Mars February 21st at 01:00 UT. (Credit: Starry Night).

The Moon is 2.37 days old and will appear 5 % illuminated during the Friday conjunction, and together, the trio will resemble a skewed emotion smiley face… think ‘:?’. Manage to catch a time exposure of one of the numerous ISS passes near the Mars/Venus conjunction this week and you could nab a unique ‘:/’ alignment!

Venus spends the first half of 2015 as a brilliant dusk object before heading for solar conjunction on August 15^th, after which it once again passes into the dawn sky. 2015 is an “opposition-less” in-between year for Mars, as it reaches solar conjunction on the far side of the Sun on June 14th before making its slow comeback in the dawn sky. Expect the Red Planet to reach a favorable opposition next on May 22^nd 2016.

Getting closer… Venus and Mars as seen from Venezuela on the evening of February 16th. (Credit and Copyright: Jose Rozada @jmrozada).

Notice that this week’s tri-conjunction occurs very near the equinoctial point where the celestial equator and the plane of the ecliptic meet. This is the position that the Sun will occupy a month from now when the equinox total solar eclipse occurs.

Want more? One evening later on February 21^st, the waxing crescent Moon will actually occult the +5.9 magnitude planet Uranus in the dusk sky for eastern North American observers:

The path of the February 21st occultation of Uranus by the Moon. Credit: Occult 4.0

This is occultation number 8 in a current cycle of 19 of Uranus by the Moon. And there’s another pass of the Moon in front of the Hyades on February 25^th as it occults the bright star Aldebaran for a second time in 2015 as seen from Scandinavia.

The path of the February 25th occultation of Aldebaran by the Moon. Credit: Occult 4.0.

Now for the ‘wow’ factor. The Moon lies just over a light second away at 357,000 kilometres distant. This week, Venus sits 1.4 AUs/ 11.6 light minutes away at 217 million kilometres distant, while Mars is 2.2 AUs/ 18.3 light minutes away at 341 million kilometres distant.

And from the surface of Mars, you’d see a brilliant conjunction of -1.3 magnitude Earth and -1.6 magnitude Venus just one degree in separation, with the +2.5 magnitude Moon nearby.

Venus and Earth rising as seen from the surface of Mars. Credit: Starry Night Education Software.

Perhaps Curiosity will nab this extraterrestrial spectacle, as Earthbound sky watchers gaze back this weekend!

About David Dickinson

David Dickinson is an Earth science teacher, freelance science writer, retired USAF veteran & backyard astronomer. He currently writes and ponders the universe from Tampa Bay, Florida.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

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Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Tuesday, February 17, 2015