Venus, Jupiter sinks this month in the Kansas night sky – News – The Garden City Telegram

Autumn is accompanied by longer nights, cooler temperatures and good observation of the planet.

October opens with four bright arcuate planets in the southern sky. During the second half of the summer, these planets have featured one of the best planetary screens over the years. This month, one of these planets is landing, but the other three continue the show until the fall.

Venus differs from the glow of dusk very low in the southwest after sunset. The window to observe Venus in October ends quickly, because in the middle of the month, the bright planet is struggling to compete with the brightness of the sun. At the end of the month, Venus left the evening sky. Venus leaves the evening sky very quickly and it has everything to do with the time of the year.

During its annual trip around the Sun, the Earth has recently crossed the autumn equinox, one of the two periods of the year when days and nights are equal and the astronomical start of the fall. The sun sets very fast because of its steep angle to the horizon. This steep angle also means that objects in orbit near the Sun leave the sky quickly as they move from the evening sky to the morning sky. As we lose Venus this month, next month, he is climbing fast into the morning sky.

Just above Venus, in the southwest, look for Jupiter. The largest planet has no difficulty staying in the evening twilight. Like Venus, the time of Jupiter in the sky ends, but you still have at least a month to see the Jovian king.

High in the south, nestled against the dense star fields of the Milky Way, lies the world of Saturn's rings. Although it is not as bright as Jupiter and Venus, Saturn surpasses the neighboring stars and is the brightest object in the south, unless of course the moon is present.

And last but not least, the bright red of Mars dominates the southeast sky. Mars is still shining on the heels of an approach very close to Earth in the summer. As the distance between Earth and Mars increases, the desert world slowly darkens, but the rest of the fall, the show continues.

Brad Nuest is a space science trainer at the cosmosphere. Reach him at [email protected]