Mars stages its best showings of the year as it passes closest to Earth. It will spend several nights near Pollux, the brighter twin of Gemini. Venus, the Evening Star, will stage its own spectacle, in the western sky, sliding past the bright planet Saturn. The beautiful constellations of winter stand high, including Orion and Canis Major, which features Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
The full Moon of January is known as the Old Moon, Moon After Yule, or Wolf Moon.
Perigee January 7
Apogee January 20
Moon phases are Central Time
There’s a double burst of color in the sky right now. The planet Mars and the star Pollux stand side by side, in the east at nightfall and high in the sky later on. Mars is the brighter of the two, with Pollux to its left. Both of them shine bright orange.
Two of the eight planets of the solar system highlight the western evening sky. Venus is the brilliant Evening Star. Saturn is directly below it. It looks like a fairly bright star, although not nearly as bright as Venus.
Antares, the bright orange star at the heart of the scorpion, stands low in the south-southeast at dawn. Tomorrow, it will be close to the lower left of the crescent Moon.
Orion and Scorpius are on opposite sides of the sky, yet they share a common mythology. They’re separated because one was always trying to kill the other. Orion is in the east and southeast at nightfall, while Scorpius is climbing into the dawn sky.
Our solar system resides inside one of the Milky Way Galaxy’s shorter spiral arms. It’s called the Orion Arm because the stars of Orion are among its brightest members. The arm wraps only about a quarter of the way around the galaxy.
Individually, the stars of Orion’s Belt don’t look that impressive, but their appearance is deceiving. The stars are among the most impressive in the galaxy. They have to be for us to see them at all, because they are about 1,200 light-years away.
Orion is in the east and southeast at nightfall. Its three-star belt extends upward from the horizon. The Orion Nebula, which is a giant stellar nursery, looks like a fuzzy star to the right of the belt. To the ancient Maya, it represented the hearth of creation.
Lepus, the rabbit, is below the feet of Orion the hunter, in the southeast at nightfall. Its brightest star, Arneb, is only about 13 million years old, yet it’s likely to expire within the next million years or so because it’s much more massive than the Sun.
The planets Venus and Saturn are in the southwest at nightfall. Venus is the brilliant Evening Star. Tonight, Saturn stands quite close to the left of Venus. It’s only about half a percent as bright as Venus, but still easy to find.
Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, the lion, is especially easy to spot tonight. It stands above the gibbous Moon as they climb into good view, around 9 or 9:30 p.m.
