Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday January 17th to Sunday January 23rd.
The moon is full on Monday the 17th and then we’ll have a waning gibbous moon for the remainder of the week. This full moon is known as the Old Moon, The Moon After Yule, and the Wolf Moon. This full moon occurs shortly after apogee – the moon’s farthest point from the Earth in its orbit – so this full moon will have the smallest apparent size in our skies for this year.
Saturn is very low in the west-southwest and is setting just an hour after the sun, so it will soon be lost in the twilight. Jupiter is higher in the west-southwest and is setting at 8:35 p.m. at midweek.
In the morning skies, Mars is rising at 5:15 a.m. at midweek, followed by Venus at 6:00 a.m.
Mercury is at inferior conjunction on Sunday the 23rd and will pass between the Earth and the Sun from the Earth’s perspective. After conjunction, Mercury will slowly emerge in our early morning skies over the following weeks.
In space anniversaries, this month marks the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the first exoplanets, which are planets around other stars. What was unusual about these first confirmed exoplanets were that they are in orbit around a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star that is the remnant of a massive star that has died. The planets are thought to have formed from the debris left after the star exploded in a supernova. In 1995, the first planet discovered around a star like the sun was confirmed around the star 51 Pegasi. In the following years, nearly 5000 planets have been confirmed around other stars, included numerous multi-planet systems.
Due to the COVID surge, the start of spring semester viewing will be delayed as we continue to monitor the situation, so please continue to check our website outreach.as.utexas.edu for details about when we will be able to resume the telescope public nights.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
