The blood moon meets the red planet – the knowledge

Hamburg. Our land reaches the sunniest point of its annual orbit on July 6: 152 million kilometers now separate us from the overabundance of the sun, while in winter the distance is "only" 147 million kilometers . Nevertheless, we have been there now, because it is not the distance to the sun, but the altitude and the length of the day changing, caused by the tilt of the sun. axis of the earth, which causes the seasons. It is only after 22 hours that the sun goes down quite low under the northwest horizon and that the first stars shine. But the two bright spots of the west and the south are planets illuminated by our sun: Venus and Jupiter.

The brilliant Venus plays her role of "evening star" in July, but her appearance is noticeably shorter. At the beginning of the month, Venus is 16 degrees high at sunset and descends just before midnight. At the end of the month, it is only eleven degrees and less than one hour of visibility. On July 15th, the fine sickle of the growing moon joins Venus. This is the prelude to a grandiose relay race of the Moon along the planets: night after night, our Earthbrab will continue its journey through the zodiac – from Leo to Virgo and Libra to Sagittarius.

On the night of July 20 to 21, our moon pbades Jupiter. As a surprisingly bright and calm point of light, this giant planet strikes us in the twilight towards the south. But Jupiter is only visible in the first half of the night. It seems better with his "little brother" Saturn because the ring planet was at the end of June in opposition to the sun. Saturn lies at dusk in Jupiter's "left" south, about the same height as the bright yellowish star and much weaker. Saturn walks on the backdrop of the shooter, whose rather faint stars glitter below Saturn in the mist of the horizon. They form a formation that looks like a teapot, which is why in the Anglo-Saxon countries this part of the shooter is also called "Teapot". On July 24, the Moon approaches Saturn and crosses the gunner

The highlight of the month is the moon meeting with Mars. The glowing glowing planet drops us from about 23 clock hours on the southeast horizon. Mars is the "superstar" of summer. It shines much more than the "right" of Saturn that stands behind it and brighter than Jupiter, because we were not so close to Mars for 15 years: July 31, our neighboring planet with only 57.6 Millions of kilometers, Every two years and two months, our world exceeds Mars in its fastest inner orbit, but this time near its closest point to the Sun, making it a particularly close rendezvous between Earth and March.

Already on July 27 in opposition to the sun and is in the sky all night. This "March Night" is also a "Night of the Moon". Because it's in the sky like a full moon next to Mars and that it even gets into the shadow of the Earth. It is the total lunar eclipse, which is good to see in Europe, Africa and Asia. Since the Earth-Moon and Sun-Earth distances are particularly large and the Moon pbades through the Earth's shadow in the center, it becomes the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century.

Wega, Deneb and Atair form the Triangle Summer

23:14 Central European summer time, the full moon remains in the shadow of the earth. But it is not very dark because our earthly atmosphere directs the reddish part of the sun in the shadow of the earth: so we can experience a pair of extraordinary "Moon of Blood" and "Red Planet" around 11 pm the boundary of Capricorn and Sagittarius constellations. A few minutes past midnight, the lunar star leaves the shadow of the earth and shines with a silver glow in the sunlight for the rest of the night.

There are some stars that can be easily recognized even in the summer sky. Wega, Deneb and Atair. Obviously, they shine like a "summer triangle" isosceles in the summer nights. Wega in the lyre, the brightest star in the summer triangle, has almost reached its zenith, while Atair in the eagle at half past midnight shines halfway to South. To the northwest, the Big Dipper sinks towards the horizon – to the northeast, the Zigzag line of Sky-W, the Cbadiopeia, rises. After midnight, the "autumn quadrilateral" is already visible over the eastern horizon. Mars, the "superstar" of the summer, can still be seen in the morning sun in the southwest.

The full star planetarium map can be downloaded with the featured podcast at: "abendblatt.de/sterne" [19659015] © Hamburger Abendblatt 2018 – All rights reserved.