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Perseid - Blog Posts
What’s Up - July 2018
What's Up for July?
Mars is closest to Earth since 2003!
July’s night skies feature Mars opposition on the 27th, when Mars, Earth, and the Sun all line up, and Mars’ closest approach to Earth since 2003 on the 31st.
If you've been sky watching for 15 years or more, then you'll remember August 2003, when Mars approached closer to Earth than it had for thousands of years.
It was a very small percentage closer, but not so much that it was as big as the moon as some claimed.
Astronomy clubs everywhere had long lines of people looking through their telescopes at the red planet, and they will again this month!
If you are new to stargazing, this month and next will be a great time to check out Mars.
Through a telescope, you should be able to make out some of the light and dark features, and sometimes polar ice. Right now, though, a huge Martian dust storm is obscuring many features, and less planetary detail is visible.
July 27th is Mars opposition, when Mars, Earth, and the Sun all line up, with Earth directly in the middle.
A few days later on July 31st is Mars' closest approach. That's when Mars and Earth are nearest to each other in their orbits around the Sun. Although there will be a lot of news focusing on one or the other of these two dates, Mars will be visible for many months.
By the end of July, Mars will be visible at sunset.
But the best time to view it is several hours after sunset, when Mars will appear higher in the sky.
Mars will still be visible after July and August, but each month it will shrink in apparent size as it travels farther from Earth in its orbit around the Sun.
On July 27th a total lunar eclipse will be visible in Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and South America.
For those viewers, Mars will be right next to the eclipsing moon!
Next month will feature August's summer Perseids. It's not too soon to plan a dark sky getaway for the most popular meteor shower of the year!
Watch the full What’s Up for July Video:
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What’s Up for September 2016
We won’t have a solar eclipse until Aug. 21, 2017, but observers in central Africa will see an annular eclipse, where the moon covers most but not all of the sun, on Sept. 1. Observers always need to use safe solar eclipse glasses or filters on telescopes, binoculars and cameras.
Also this month, there are two minor meteor showers, both with about 5 swift and bright meteors per hour at their peak, which will be near dawn. The first is the Aurigid shower on Sept. 1. The new moon on the first means the sky will be nice and dark for the Aurigids.
The second shower is the Epsilon Perseids on Sept. 9. The first quarter moon sets on the 9th at midnight, just in time for the best viewing of the Perseids.
There are many nice pair-ups between the moon and planets this month. You can see the moon between Venus and Jupiter on Sept. 2, and above Venus on the 3rd, right after sunset low on the West-Southwest horizon. On the 15th the nearly full moon pairs up with Neptune, two weeks after its opposition, when the 8th planet is closest to Earth in its orbit around the sun.
Watch the full September “What’s Up” video for more:
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There’s Going to Be an Outburst!
Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower at Its Peak Tonight
The last time we had an outburst, that is a meteor shower with more meteors than usual, was in 2009. This year’s Perseid meteor shower is predicted to be just as spectacular starting tonight!
Plan to stay up late tonight or set your alarm clock for the wee morning hours to see this cosmic display of “shooting stars” light up the night sky. Known for it’s fast and bright meteors, tonight’s annual Perseid meteor shower is anticipated to be one of the best meteor viewing opportunities this year.
For stargazers experiencing cloudy or light-polluted skies, a live broadcast of the Perseid meteor shower will be available via Ustream overnight tonight and tomorrow, beginning at 10 p.m. EDT.
“Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of Aug. 11-12,” said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama. “Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour.”
Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years. When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus.
Most years, Earth might graze the edge of Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream, where there’s less activity. Occasionally, though, Jupiter’s gravity tugs the huge network of dust trails closer, and Earth plows through closer to the middle, where there’s more material.
This is predicted be one of those years!
Learn more about the Perseids!
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What’s Up for August 2016
What’s up for August? How to spot Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the and the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Here are some highlights in this month’s nighttime skies as picked by astronomer Jane Houston Jones from our Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Spot Venus, Mercury and Jupiter and the moon low on the western horizon about 45 minutes after sunset from August 4 through 7. On August 11, look in the south-southwest sky for a second planetary dance as Mars and Saturn are high and easy to see and they are joined by the moon.
The famous and reliably active Perseid meteor shower peaks in the morning hours of August 12. The moon, which paired up so nicely with Mars and Saturn on the 11, is bright enough to blot out some of the meteors, but lucky for you it sets about 1 a.m. on the morning of the 12, just at the peak time for the best Perseid viewing.
But wait, there are more planets, dwarf planets and an asteroid visible this month! Uranus and Neptune and dwarf planet Ceres are visible before dawn in the southern sky. Uranus is visible through binoculars but Neptune and Ceres require a telescope.
Watch the full August “What’s Up” video for more:
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