Welcome friends to another astronomy update and “What’s Out This Month.” Jupiter and Saturn are the two planets in our night sky this month.
They are easy to see, just look to the south and east after sunset. Saturn rises a little later and is easy to see just to the left of Jupiter.
In just a couple of days, a total solar eclipse will occur. In South America, the path of totality will cross Chile and Argentina. Here is the map of the eclipse path. Credit to Xavier Jubier for creating this eclipse site.
If you are feeling spontaneous and want to make the trip, don’t forget your eclipse glasses. The next time we see a total eclipse in the USA isn’t that far off, it will happen in 2024.
Some other notable news from NASA — this past week they announced that the next major mission is sending a spacecraft to one of Saturn’s moon Titan. This moon orbiting the planet is believed to have liquid methane oceans with temperatures close to 300 degrees below zero.
It will be interesting to see how they build the Dragonfly spacecraft to handle such cold temperatures.
–Meteorologist Jeff Edmondson
