Astronomy - Starry Night

[BullNBear52]

In the Sky Above


Sometime in the next few nights, if the sky is clear, go out and find the western horizon just after dark. Look for the Moon and the two bright objects below it — the planets Jupiter and, closer to the horizon, Venus — all in a rare moment of alignment. Mercury will have just set, and in the east, Mars will be rising. If you’re able to watch the sky for several nights in a row, into early March, Jupiter and Venus will appear to be getting closer and closer to each other while the Moon drops behind, even as it swells toward full moon on March 8.

These are glorious nights for realizing just where we are, for looking out upon our neighboring planets and recognizing that we all do, indeed, belong to a system: the solar system. Watching Jupiter and Venus converging in the night sky, you can easily imagine the plane in which the planets lie as they orbit around the sun. Yet it’s also easy to imagine the pre-Copernican view of things, as though we were the fixed point in the sky and all those celestial objects were revolving around us.

With a little help, you can puzzle out just how these celestial movements work — why Jupiter and Venus appear to be approaching each other now, why the Moon lags farther and farther behind them. But, even if you don’t, you can still look up at a remarkable night sky that reminds us how infinitesimal human affairs are against the celestial scale. And, by the middle of March, when the Moon is growing wan and rising later and later in the evening, you’ll be able again — from the darkest places — to glimpse the uncanny depth of the stars, the uncanny minuteness of the planet we call home.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/planet-gazing-in-the-sky-above.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print