[ad_1]
Look at Uranus! The ice giant is set to make a rare appearance TONIGHT as it hangs between the moon and Mars
- Ice giant makes rare appearance after sunset on January 20
- To see Uranus, find Mars then slowly scan towards the crescent moon
- You might need binoculars but it should appear as a pale blue disc
- Mercury comes into view in second weeks of January, NASA says
Uranus will be visible to the world tonight.
NASA reports that the ice giant will be visible on January 20 a few hours after sunset.
The seventh planet from the Sun shines on the verge of visibility with the naked eye, especially in areas of light pollution, so it’s notoriously difficult to see.
But astronomers with a telescope or binoculars should be able to spot it suspended in the night sky between the moon and Mars.
Sscroll video
Uranus will be visible from Earth as a faint bluish disc between the Moon and Mars after sunset in January 2020
“ That evening, find the crescent moon and the red planet within two hours of dark, ” advises NASA’s What’s Up sky observation guide.
Mars will stand out in the night sky with an orange and reddish tint near the moon, reports Axel Diaz, Solar System Ambassador for NASA.
“People say you can’t find the planet Uranus – it’s very hard to find, it’s very weak, it’s very small,” Diaz says.
“The best way to find him is to look at the moon. Look at the moon and look at Mars.
Wednesday also sees a first quarter moon that was already well above the horizon at sunset.
In the northern hemisphere of the Moon, craters such as those of Aristotle, Atlas, and Hercules should be easy to spot.
And tonight, Pisces will be visible near the border it shares with the Cetus and Aries constellations.
About 1.82 billion kilometers from us, Uranus has only been visited by one Earth spacecraft so far, NASA’s Voyager 2, in 1986.
Maybe not such a bad thing: A 2018 report from the University of Oxford confirmed that hydrogen sulfide gas swirling around its upper atmosphere made Uranus smell like rotten egg foul. .
“ If an unfortunate human were ever to descend through the clouds of Uranus, he would find himself in very unpleasant and fragrant conditions, ” warned astronomer Patrick Irwin.
Worse yet, NASA says the magnetic bubble surrounding Uranus is directing its noxious atmosphere into space.
The atmospheric loss is due to the planet’s twisted magnetic field causing the magnetosphere to wobble “ like a poorly launched soccer ball, ” the agency said in a statement last spring.
As a result, parts of Uranus’ atmosphere escape in charged plasma bubbles, called plasmoids, which break away from the magnetic field when it is moved by the Sun.
Scientists have determined that the plasmoid around Uranus measures approximately 127,000 miles by 250,000 miles and that it extracted 15 to 55% of the planet’s atmosphere from Uranus.
The seventh planet from the Sun shines on the verge of visibility with the naked eye, especially in areas of light pollution, so it’s notoriously difficult to see. But astronomers with a telescope or binoculars should be able to spot it suspended in the night sky between the moon and Mars.
For a little less smelly astronomy, NASA also indicated that Mercury will be visible during the last two weeks of January.
Mercury has very little atmosphere and would not have much odor.
You will need a clear view to the west to see the planet, as it will appear a few degrees above the horizon after sunset, starting in the middle of the month.
“ This tiny planet orbits much closer to the Sun than to Earth, which means it also circles the Sun much faster, completing its ‘year’ in about a quarter of the time it takes to Earth to go around once, ” according to the agency.
“That’s why we are fortunate to see Mercury in the sky every three months or so, because it seems to come and go from one side of the Sun to the other.
[ad_2]
Source link