Starry: Get up early to see three planets in morning sky, Mars in the evening
Views from space show how the polar vortex covered much of the U.S. with arctic temperatures. USA TODAY
Greetings everyone! After a dark and cloudy January, it’s nice to know that we’ll gain some daylight in February. That may mean a little less time for stargazing but if at least some of the clouds disappear, the time changes won’t make a whole lot of difference.
Our day length changes throughout the year because our spinning spaceship is tilted as it spins. If you live in the northern half of the ball, your days get longer from January to June. If you live on the southern half of the ball, your days get longer from June to January.
We live very close to the equator of that spinning spaceship and our day length doesn’t change as much as it does closer to the spin axis. Our shortest days are 11 hours and 20 minutes long and our longest days are 12 hours and 55 minutes long which means that our day length varies by only about an hour and a half.
Even though winter solstice is over a month in the past, it’s not until this month on the 4th of February that the sun finally starts rising earlier and our days start getting longer at both ends. We’ll gain ten minutes of morning daylight and eight minutes of evening daylight this month.
Enjoy 3 planets in morning sky
And since you still don’t have to get up very early, go out this week around 5:30 a.m. and have a look at the eastern sky. You’ll see four very bright stars in a diagonal line in the southeast and three of them aren’t stars.
The top red one is a star. That’s Antares, the bright red heart of Scorpius the Scorpion. You can see the hooked body of the Scorpion hanging down to the right of the other three ‘stars’.
Number 2 in the lineup is the planet Jupiter and the astoundingly bright ‘star’ below Jupiter is, of course, Venus. Saturn is number 4 in this astounding line and at 5:30, Saturn will be about 10 degrees above the eastern horizon. Enjoy three planets in your personal early morning sky this weekend.
Use Mars to find famous constellation
Since three of the planets are in the early morning sky, we only have one evening planet. Mars is five fist-widths above due west at one hour after sunset which is at 6:21 p.m. this week. Find Mars this week because you can use our red neighbor to find something interesting next week.
After you find Mars, turn around and face east. Look high above the southeastern horizon and you’ll find the sky’s most famous constellation. If you’re a loyal listener of Tropical Skies, you know which one I’m talking about. It’s Orion the Hunter. Orion is world-famous for a very simple reason. He lies on the celestial equator which is the earth’s equator projected into space. That means that virtually every human on earth can see him.
Most cultures in the northern hemisphere called him a man because for them, Orion strides upright across the southern sky in winter and spring. If you find Orion tonight, you’ll discover why the native peoples of the Pacific didn’t call him a man. They called him a canoe with three friends riding in it. However you connect the dots, the three friends or belt stars are probably the sky’s most easily recognizable star group. Colorful planets, famous constellations, warm tropical breezes. Guam’s skies are amazing. Enjoy them this week!