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The pre-dawn morning sky is now as interesting as the evening sky with super-bright Venus and medium-bright Saturn gracing the eastern sky before sunrise and super-bright Jupiter and medium-bright Mars in the western and south-western sky after sunset. On May 1, last Thursday morning, Venus and Saturn were just from each other, easily fitting within the same field of view of your binoculars. Tomorrow morning, May 4, they will be 4.5 degrees apart. Saturn is to the right of Venus. Saturn is going to appear to climb up higher in the sky away from Venus as the days go by. In two weeks, Saturn will about 12.5 degrees (or about a fist at arm鈥檚 length) farther up in the eastern sky than Venus.

In tonight鈥檚 evening sky, a will be slightly above orange-red Mars in the southwest after sunset. At 8 p.m. when the sky will still have the twilight glow, the two will be just 2 degrees apart from each other (about a knuckle to knuckle at arm鈥檚 length). Use your binoculars to enhance the color contrast between orange-red Mars and the neutral gray moon.  In line with the moon and Mars, you鈥檒l see a dim star of Cancer, (also known as Gamma Cancri). Those in the eastern U.S. will have seen the moon covering the star and then revealing it as the moon moves farther along in its orbit. Just to the lower left of Mars, your binoculars will reveal the at the center of Cancer. Mars will appear to pass over them on Sunday and Monday nights (May 4 and 5). 

The nights of May 5 and 6 will be the peak of the . They are the result of Earth passing through the . The moon will set before the radiant in Aquarius begins to rise at about 2:30 a.m. and you鈥檒l have good viewing until about 4 a.m. when the sky begins to brighten with the upcoming dawn. The meteors from the meteor shower will streak across the sky at 41 miles/second.

The moon will be at full phase the night of May 11/12 but before that on May 9, you鈥檒l see a bright waxing gibbous moon next to the brightest star of Virgo, the star . They鈥檒l be just 2 degrees apart in the evening and just one degree apart by the time they set in the southwest the morning of May 10. On the night of May 13/14, the waning gibbous moon will be right next to the heart of Scorpius, the red supergiant . They will be just one degree apart (about a thumb width at arm鈥檚 length) when you see them rise at about 9:45 p.m. in the southeast. Since Antares means 鈥渞ival of Mars鈥�, see if you can recall the color contrast the moon had with Mars at their conjunction ten nights prior. On the night of the BC Commencement, May 16, the moon will not rise until about midnight, so it won鈥檛 interfere with the fireworks display we鈥檒l have near the end of the program. I believe that this is going to be the largest number yet of students walking across the stage to get their diploma!

In astronomy news there was the in the atmosphere of the . The exoplanet was discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope in 2015 in the 鈥淜2鈥� stage of its mission. The exoplanet is just 124 light years away, which is relatively nearby. It鈥檚 about 2.5 Earth-diameters in size, is a bit more than 8 Earth-masses, and has an overall density of 2.7 times that of water, so it鈥檚 considered a 鈥渕ini-Neptune鈥�. One possibility is that it is a water world with a thin hydrogen atmosphere. However, it鈥檚 also possible that it has a molten rock interior under a very thick hydrogen atmosphere.

What has caused the stir is the possible detection of the molecules dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the exoplanet鈥檚 atmosphere. On Earth, those molecules are produced by phytoplankton and bacteria and they鈥檙e very reactive, so they must be continually replenished. Now a 鈥減ossible detection鈥� is not a 鈥渄efinite detection鈥�. More observations with the James Webb Space Telescope are needed to boost the confidence level. Even if it eventually rises to a 鈥渄efinite detection鈥�, we have found those molecules in lifeless comets and in the interstellar medium in similar amounts, so there are some ways to produce the molecules without life. They might not be as good a as we hoped. Also, some other molecules we鈥檇 expect to find in the atmosphere of a water world with a thin hydrogen atmosphere, i.e., a world that has a good environment for life, have not been found and their absence fits the inhospitable molten-rock, super-thick hydrogen atmosphere scenario. 

鈥淓xtraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence鈥�, so along with a rigorous ruling out of the (as of now very likely) non-biological scenarios in order for us to be sure that life does exist on K2-18b. Whenever you hear in the news media, check out the science news sites to see if they鈥檙e trumpeting the same claims. Check out or before adding fuel to the hype-fire of social media.

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Director of the William M Thomas Planetarium at 太阳城官网

Author of the award-winning website