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<< Previous   of   Next >> (click to enlarge)   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, November 16, 2008 Starwatch: The celestial hug of Venus, Jupiter By Mike Lynch Special to The Herald An impending celestial rendezvous involves two bright planets in our evening skies. Venus and Jupiter are rushing to each other in the low southwestern sky, toward the end of sunset. You need to have a fairly low horizon in that direction, or the merging planets may be blocked from your view by trees or just the lay of the land. They are the brightest starlike objects in the sky right now. Venus is the brighter of the two, just to the lower right of Jupiter. There's certainly not going to be any cataclysmic collision late this month. The planets are nowhere near each other physically, but by the end of this month they will be nearly in the same line of sight from Earth, and it should be a wonderful show. Astronomers call it a conjunction, but I like to call it a celestial hugging. Right now the planets are about 13 degrees apart, a little over the width of your fist held at arm's length against the sky. By the end of the month they'll only be separated by two degrees, and a new crescent moon will be joining them. It will be quite a sight. It's fun to watch them get closer and closer from evening to evening, and a great thing to show the kids. Make sure you look for the celestial couple by 7 p.m., because shortly after that, Venus sets below the southwest horizon. Jupiter hits the deck around 9 p.m. A second impending rendezvous will result in a huge collision. I'm talking about the colossal galactic merger of our home Milky Way Galaxy and our next door neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. This is something you probably don't want to wait up for, because it won't happen for another 4 1/2 to 5 billion years, but without a doubt, it will happen. In fact, with every minute that goes by, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are 50 miles closer to each other. In about 2 billion years they'll start dancing a tango around each other and eventually become one behemoth galaxy. Right now the two galaxies are separated by 2.5 million light-years. One light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles, so you're not getting to Andromeda in a weekend. Both the Milky Way and Andromeda are considered spiral galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars arranged in disks with spiral arms that coil around their respective galactic cores. The Milky Way spans about 100,000 light-years in diameter and is about 10,000 light-years thick. The central core of the Milky Way, though, is about 30,000 light-years thick. Andromeda's dimensions are a little larger. Even though Andromeda is well over 2 million light-years away, you can easily see our approaching neighbor galaxy in the sky this time of year. You can even see it with your naked eye if you're out in the countryside, well outside of urban light pollution. In fact, it's the farthest away object that can be seen with the naked eye, and even if you're stargazing from a more urban setting you can spot it with a decent pair of binoculars or a small telescope. You just have to know where to look. The place to look this time of year is in the high southeastern sky right in the neighborhood of the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda. The best thing to do is first find what's known as the Square of Pegasus, which is the torso of the giant flying horse. As you see in the diagram, the square is actually orientated in the sky as a giant diamond. Off the left hand corner of the diamond you'll see a fairly bright curved line of stars. If it's dark enough where you are, look for another faintly curved line of stars just above it. Both of these lines outline Andromeda. As you can see, the Andromeda Galaxy lies just above the constellation, a little above the midway point of the two lines of stars. Start with the star Alpheratz, on the left hand corner of the square of Pegasus, and follow down the brighter line of stars. The second star down to the left of Alpheratz is the fairly bright star Mirach. Scan your eyes or binoculars about 7 degrees, or about a half a fist width, above Mirach, and you should find it. When you do find it, you won't be all that wowed by its appearance. All it really looks like is a little fuzzball patch of light, but that little fuzzball is a whole other galaxy, 2 1/2 million light-years away. Another thing to remember is that since it's two and half million light-years away, you're not seeing it as it is, but as it was two and half million years ago. It's taken that long for the light to get here. Remember, T-minus 5 billion years until the Milky Way and Andromeda merger. Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the book, "Washington Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members and puts on public star parties. The Web site is members.tripod.com/everett_astronomy. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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