Skywatching: Planets, A Solar Sail And Observe The Moon Night
Skywatching: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Also, a solar sail streak across the night sky and more!
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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TechTranscript
00:00What's up for September?
00:04Five planets and a supermoon eclipse, a NASA solar sail that you can spot from the ground,
00:11and a global night for the Moon.
00:14Stick around till the end to view some highlights shared in last month's video.
00:19Starting with the visibility of the planets this month, you'll notice Venus sitting
00:23very low in the west in the hour following sunset.
00:26Over the next several months, it will rise higher, increasingly becoming a fixture of
00:30the early evening sky for the rest of the year.
00:34Saturn's in the southeastern sky early in the evening.
00:37From there, it'll be visible overhead all night, and you'll find it setting in the
00:40west as dawn approaches.
00:42As for the ongoing pair-up of Jupiter and Mars, Jupiter's rising around midnight or
00:47soon after, with Mars rising an hour to an hour and a half behind it.
00:51So it's best to look for them high in the south, southeastern sky in the early morning
00:54before sunrise.
00:56And in morning twilight during the first week of September, if you can find an unobstructed
01:00view toward the east, it's a decent opportunity to spot Mercury for those in the northern
01:05hemisphere.
01:06Turning now to the Moon, the full moon on September 17th is a supermoon, meaning it's
01:11just a little bit closer to Earth in its orbit than your average full moon.
01:15It looks ever so slightly bigger and brighter, though in practice the difference is hard
01:19to see.
01:20It really is super, though, as the September full moon is often called the Harvest Moon
01:25given its association with harvest time in the northern hemisphere.
01:28Plus, it's going to show us a partial lunar eclipse.
01:32You'll see a little bite taken out of one side of the Moon over about an hour.
01:36Check the timing of the eclipse for your local area using your favorite sky-watching app
01:40or website.
01:41In Europe, the eclipse takes place in the early morning hours, while in the U.S. it's
01:45in the evening, and that's while the Moon's rising for the west coast.
01:49As for moon-planet pair-ups, the Moon leads Saturn across the sky on the 16th.
01:54Look for the pair in the southeastern sky following sunset.
01:58For those in the U.S., the pair will appear very close together early the next morning
02:02on the 17th as they get lower in the western sky.
02:05In fact, those in the western half of the U.S. can actually watch the Moon start to
02:09occult or pass in front of Saturn before they set.
02:13On the 22nd, the Moon rises a couple of hours after dark, sitting super close to the Pleiades.
02:19This is kind of a special pairing if you're in the U.S., as the Moon will actually pass
02:22right through the Pleiades over the course of the night.
02:26So if you have binoculars or a small telescope, you can look periodically over the course
02:30of the night as the Moon crosses directly in front of the bright star cluster.
02:35On the 23rd, the Moon rises in the late evening hours with giant Jupiter.
02:39They climb high into the southeast sky as dawn approaches.
02:43And then on the morning of the 25th, the crescent Moon appears near Mars.
02:47This last full week of September is really lovely before the sky brightens as you have
02:51the Moon and two bright planets together with the bright stars of the winter constellations.
02:56So don't miss it!
02:59There's a new opportunity to observe a bright NASA spacecraft sailing across the night sky.
03:05NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS-3, is a small satellite that's testing
03:10new technologies in low-Earth orbit.
03:13It recently deployed its 30-foot-wide solar sails.
03:17These are a means of propulsion that could allow small spacecraft to sail on sunlight.
03:22The ACS-3 solar sails are highly reflective and make the spacecraft appear nearly as bright
03:28as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
03:31You can find out when the solar sail spacecraft will pass over your location using the NASA
03:36app on your mobile device.
03:39International Observe the Moon Night is September 14th.
03:43It's an annual event when fellow Moon enthusiasts come together worldwide to participate in
03:47events and, you guessed it, observe our nearby natural satellite.
03:52You can join from wherever you are, attend or host a virtual or in-person event, or simply
03:57observe the Moon from home.
03:59On the 14th, in addition to many lunar maria and all six of the Apollo landing sites, this
04:04year offers an opportunity to see the Marius Hills, volcanic domes and cones that are notoriously
04:10difficult to observe even with a telescope unless sunlight is streaming across them nearly
04:15horizontally.
04:16Fortunately, that will be the case on International Observe the Moon Night 2024 when we'll get
04:21to watch a lunar sunrise across this knobby terrain.
04:25So, however you pronounce it, grab your telescope or find an event near you and join this annual
04:31celebration of observation.
04:35Here are a few views of highlights in last month's sky.
04:49And here are the phases of the Moon for September.
04:53Stay up to date on NASA's missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov.
04:59I'm Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and that's What's Up for this month.
05:05NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology