January 2, 2022
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Happy New Year! Tomorrow is day when Earth is closest to the sun. The Earth will be just 91,406,842 miles from the sun which is 3.1 million miles closer than Earth will be at its farthest distance from the sun in early July at aphelion. Although we鈥檙e so close to the sun now, our part of Earth is tilted away from sun, so the which reduces the amount of energy absorbed. Angles, not distance, determine the seasons.
Just after sunset you might be able to see four planets lined up within 40 degrees of each other (two ): bright Jupiter will be up highest, then Saturn, then Mercury, and finally Venus. Venus鈥� status as the is just about finished. Even though it is brightest of the planets, Venus is going to be hard to see so close to the horizon. Next week on January 8, Venus will be in between us and the sun at 鈥渋nferior conjunction鈥�. By the third week in January, Venus will visible in the east as the morning star.
Mercury continues climbing up away from the sun and will reach its greatest angle east of the sun on January 6/7. Mercury will get to within 3.5 degrees of Saturn on January 12 and then drop down quickly toward the sun in the following couple of weeks. Mercury will be slightly brighter than Saturn when they鈥檙e next to each other. Mercury will be at inferior conjunction on January 23 and then joins Venus in the pre-dawn sky.
Also in the early morning sky is Mars which is just to the left of at the heart of Scorpius. The name Antares means 鈥渓ike Mars鈥� because the two have similar colors and brightness on our sky. With this month鈥檚 placement of the two, you鈥檒l be able to easily compare their colors. Antares will be the brighter of the two since Mars is positioned on the opposite side of its orbit from us. Antares is a star putting out about 60,000 times the energy as the sun and if placed in our solar system at the sun鈥檚 position, it would easily swallow up the four inner planets. Antares will eventually go sometime within the next million years with any day/night in that timespan being equally likely, so we might see that happen in our lifetime.
The moon is right next to the sun at today. Tomorrow it will be just below Mercury but the crescent may be too thin to see. On January 4, the moon will be to the left of Saturn and the following night, the moon will be a fatter crescent below Jupiter. The moon will be at first quarter phase on January 9.
We鈥檒l be able to experience two this year, the first on and the second on . Those who go to bed early will prefer the May 15 eclipse while night owls will have fun with the November 8 eclipse. There will be no in 2022.
In space exploration, we鈥檒l hopefully begin receiving excellent infrared images and from the by late May. , the culmination of many years work by thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians in the U.S., Canada, and twelve European countries who, combined, gave over 40 million hours of work. Now Webb is in the middle of a of unfolding itself that I鈥檝e described in previous columns. This week, Webb begins the trickiest part of the whole deployment: unfurling its . It鈥檚 a delicate process that will take about three days to complete. The following two weeks will be spent deploying the and unfolding the large 6.5-meter primary mirror. On January 22/23, Webb will fire its rockets to begin of the Earth-sun system. Orbiting around the L2 point will enable Webb鈥檚 solar panels to always be in sunlight and not be in Earth鈥檚 shadow.
After deployment, the Webb team will take about five months of checking, calibrating, and commissioning the for the revolutionary science that is sure to come. Observing in the , instead of visible light, Webb is the scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb is going to see the first stars that formed in the universe as well as surrounding newly-forming stars and planets in our local part of the Milky Way galaxy and take detailed spectra of the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets to see which ones that could only be caused by life.
Other space exploration launches in 2022: a number of moon missions with launching in the first part of the year and then two CLPS landers in December. The to the iron-rich asteroid of the same name launches in August (arriving late May 2023) and the European astrobiology rover mission to Mars, , launches in mid-September (arriving in June 2023).
I hope that you鈥檒l be able to find a time and place sometime in 2022 to gaze up in wonder at a filled with thousands of stars.
鈥�
Director of the William M Thomas Planetarium at 太阳城官网
Author of the award-winning website
