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[Preston Dyches] What's Up for March?
Some close pair-ups with the Moon and Mercury
makes an appearance, a subtle lunar eclipse
and a chance to catch a comet.
In March, you'll find Jupiter shining brightly in the west
during the early evening hours, all month long.
And on March 13th, it's joined by a crescent Moon
so close
that the pair will be visible together through binoculars.
On the following evening, the Moon visits the Pleiades.
This is another close pairing with the five-day-old
lunar crescent hanging right next to the bright
star cluster that will look great
through a small telescope or binoculars.
Near the end of March, observers in the Northern Hemisphere
will have the best opportunity of the year
to catch a glimpse of Mercury in the evening sky.
Look for it shining brightly low in the west following sunset.
Overnight on March 24th and into the 25th,
the Moon will pass through the outer
part of Earth's shadow,
creating a faint lunar eclipse called a penumbral eclipse.
Now, the more spectacular variety of lunar eclipses
happens when the Moon passes through Earth's inner shadow
or umbra.
That's when we see a dark “bite” taken out of the Moon, or,
in the case of a total lunar eclipse,
a reddish so-called “blood moon.”
Penumbral eclipses cause only a slight
dimming of the Moon's brightness.
So if you're not looking for it,
you might not know there was an eclipse happening.
But if you glance at the Moon early in the night
and then later around the peak of the eclipse,
you might notice the difference in brightness.
Even faint lunar eclipses like this one are always accompanied
by a solar eclipse,
either a couple of weeks before or after.
And on April 8th,
a total solar eclipse will sweep across the U.S.
We'll tell you more about that in next month's video.
There's a comet making its way into the inner solar system
that's already visible with a telescope
and might start to become visible
to the unaided eye by late March or in April.
It's a mountain of rock, dust and ice several miles wide
named 12P/Pons-Brooks.
It has a stretched-out, 71-year long orbit
that carries it as far from the sun as the orbit of Neptune
and as close as the orbit of Venus.
Fortunately, because this orbit is tilted,
it doesn't cross our planet's path,
so there's no chance of a collision.
Comet 12P has been observed on several
of its previous appearances, going back hundreds of years.
And one thing it's known for is its occasional outbursts.
Sometimes this comet suddenly brightens
by quite a bit due to bursts of gas
and dust being released from beneath its surface.
If this happens in the March-April timeframe,
as the comet nears the Sun,
it could become bright enough to observe with the eye alone.
But even without additional brightening from outbursts,
the comet is predicted to peak at a brightness
that should make it easy to see with binoculars and possibly
just naked-eye visible under dark skies by the end of March.
Now, comets are notoriously unpredictable,
so it's hard to know for sure how bright Pons-Brooks will get
as it nears the sun, but it's certainly worth a look.
You can find it low
in the west-northwest part of the sky
at the end of evening twilight.
Comets, along with asteroids, are leftover
pieces of the materials that formed the Sun and planets.
So catch a comet and glimpse one of the building blocks
of our solar system with your own eyes.
Here are the phases of the Moon for March.
Stay up to date on NASA's missions
exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov.
I'm Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
and that's What's Up for this month.