Thursday, July 14, 2016

Mars, and its Rival

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, there's a spectacular sight near the southern horizon in the early evening. ("Spectacular" here is a relative term when applied to the night sky -- I'm not talking Disney-fireworks-over-Cinderella's-Castle spectacular). If you look to the south, you'll see a very bright, reddish-looking object -- that's Mars. And if you look to the left of Mars, you'll see two other bright objects. The lower one also has a reddish hue. It's Antares, a red supergiant and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpio, the scorpion. (Yes, I know that none of the constellations looks anything at all like its assigned name. Aside from the Big Dipper). Antares actually means "rival of Mars," because of its red coloration, so this is a rare chance to compare Mars and its rival right next to each other. I'm afraid I'll have to go with Mars -- Antares is pretty weak competition.

And the third bright object? It confused me at first, since doesn't look like it belongs in Scorpio.  And it doesn't -- it's another interloper: the planet Saturn. The Moon was in the middle of this grouping last night, which is either a feature or a bug, depending on whether you think it makes the conglomeration look more impressive or just harder to see. But the Moon moves through the sky very rapidly and will be out of the picture in a few more days.

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