[Energetic music]
[Preston Dyches] What's Up for May?
Planets strike a pose with the Moon.
We reach “peak Venus.”
And what's different about the
skies of the Southern Hemisphere?
On the morning of May 13th, find the planet Saturn rising
together with a third quarter or half full Moon.
Find them together in the southeast in the couple of
hours before sunrise.
Then on May 17th, a slim crescent Moon rises about an
hour before the Sun.
And from much of the U.S. and Canada,
the planet Jupiter will appear
very close to the Moon.
But from some southern U.S. states, you'll be able to
observe Jupiter passing behind the Moon
as the pair rise in morning twilight.
And from the western states,
Jupiter will actually be behind the Moon,
in occultation, as the pair rise.
Jupiter will start to emerge from behind the Moon
as the Sun comes up.
Now this will be quite low in the sky,
so you'll need a clear view of the horizon
to observe it,
and a pair of binoculars will be a big help
as the sky begins to brighten.
Next, following sunset on May 22nd through the 24th,
the Moon, Venus, and Mars form a close grouping in the west.
The Moon sits between the two planets on the 23rd.
Venus has been rising higher in the sky each evening
for the past few months.
That begins to change in May
as the brilliant planet reaches its highest point in the western
sky and starts trending lower as we move into June.
It'll disappear from evening skies by late July,
reappearing in the eastern sky about a month later
as a morning object.
There are some key differences between the night sky in the
Southern Hemisphere compared to the North.
To start with, there's no counterpart to the North Star
for the Southern Hemisphere.
The celestial poles shift over time
so eventually there will be a “South Star,”
but not at the moment.
Next, from Orion
to the teapot
to the Gemini twins,
the seasonal star patterns northern observers
are most familiar with appear flipped upside down
when viewed in southern skies.
The Moon also appears the other way around,
and its phases fill up from left to right
instead of right to left as
they do in the north.
Stars near the north celestial pole
including Ursa Major and Cassiopeia
are below the horizon
for much of the Southern Hemisphere.
But there are lots of dazzling constellations easily visible
only from the Southern Hemisphere,
like Crux,
Carina,
Tucana (the toucan,)
and Centaurus (the centaur)!
Next, while observers in both hemispheres
are well acquainted with the brightest star in the sky,
Sirius,
Southern Hemisphere sky watchers get to enjoy
the second and third brightest stars as well.
The second brightest star,
Canopus,
appears about half as bright as Sirius,
but that's still quite bright,
and the two stars are often seen together in southern skies.
The third brightest star in our skies here on Earth
is also the closest star system to our own,
Alpha Centauri.
It's too far south in the sky to be visible
for most of the Northern Hemisphere,
but it's quite well known to sky watchers to the south.
Finally, there are two entire galaxies
easily observed in the southern sky
with the unaided eye.
These are the Magellanic Clouds,
which are dwarf galaxies that orbit our galaxy the Milky Way.
They make for a stunning sight
in night sky photos from southern latitudes.
And that's a really short list
of some of the ways the skies
above the Southern Hemisphere are unique.
Our view of the cosmos
may be different from one part of the planet to the other,
but the insights we gain from looking up and exploring
are something we all can share.
Here are the phases of the Moon for May.
Stay up to date
with all of NASA's missions
to explore the solar system and beyond at nasa.gov.
I'm Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and that's What's Up for this month.