Rishi Shah

As it darkens, the night skies of this spring month would fascinate sky-gazers with the planets, stars, constellations and other cosmic wonders that are spreading spectacularly all over the heavens.
The celestial dance conducted by three planets in southeastern sky shortly just before the wee morning hours before daybreak could enthrall planet-hunters. The ringed planet Saturn together with elusive planet Mercury and mighty gas giant planet Jupiter would be seen exchanging places exclusively in the predawn sky. They would be portraying polished pretty patterns in the northern expanse of sky belonging to the classy constellation Capricornus (sea goat). The cute crescent moon would join the planets after the first week of the month to magnify the mesmerizing moments of planetary performance.

Mars Missions
Mercury would reach the greatest western elongation from the Sun on 06 March. It would be staying low in the eastern sky before sunrise. The ruddy planet Mars could be marveled in the western sky after sundown till before midnight. It would be gliding gracefully through the stunning stellar field of charming constellation Taurus (bull). The three latest missions to Mars from USA (NASA’s Mars 2020), China (Tianwen-1) and United Arab Emirates (Hope) have arrived amazingly at Mars to commence carefully and correctly their allocated assignments.
The stupendous star Aldebaran (Rohini) has been deemed the most scintillating star in Taurus. It would be sparsely sixty five light-years from the Sun. Aldebaran could be basically believed to be hosting a peculiar planet Aldebaran-b several times the mass of Jupiter. Aldebaran has been postulated to be cooler than the Sun with a surface temperature of sheer 3627 degrees Celsius but its radius would express to be perhaps fourty four times that of the Sun's. It would swirl slowly to require paltry 520 days to complete one turn.
NASA’s planetary exploration probe Pioneer-10 launched in March 1972 has been bolting boldly in the general direction of Aldebaran and would trek to its closest point in intriguing two million years. The traditional name Aldebaran has been derived from the Arabic meaning the follower, because it would seem to be running after the Pleiades.
On March 509 AD a lunar occultation (one object hidden by another entity) of Aldebaran had been witnessed in Athens, Greece. English astronomer Edmund Halley had concluded that Aldebaran must have altered its locality since then. It had drifted to the north. It has been argued now that Aldebaran has moved in the last two thousand years roughly a quarter of the diameter of full moon.

Earth's Wobbling
Due to precession of the equinoxes resulting from the wobbling motion of earth, solely five thousand years ago the position of the vernal equinox had been comfortably close to Aldebaran. The Crab Nebula (catalogue designation of Messier Object M1) has been a sensational supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula nestled in Taurus. It was identified by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731 and would correspond with a shimmering supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054. It could be perceived in the Perseus Arm of our Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of whopping 6500 light-years from earth. It has been expanding at a rate of plainly fifteen hundred kilometers per second. At its center the startling neutron star Crab Pulsar would be spinning at surprisingly thirty times per second emitting radiation-pulses from gamma rays to radio waves.
The obviously opulent open star cluster the Pleiades (Kritika) alias the Seven Sisters (M45) could be wowed in the northwest of Taurus. It would be at an average span of 444 light-years away. The cluster has been dominated by beautiful hot blue and luminous stars that have existed within one hundred million years.
Ravishing reflection nebulae around the brightest stars could be manifested in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. It has been opined that the cluster would survive for another 250 million years, after which it would dramatically disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.
Located around the vicinity of V-alike terrain of Taurus at meagerly 153 light-years from Sun another overtly outstanding open star cluster the Hyades would consist of special spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, their origin, chemical characteristics and shift through space. The far-flung greenish planet Uranus could be glimpsed in western sky after sunset for few hours. It could be discerned as discreet diminutive dot in the relatively barren southern region of the constellation Aries (ram) and above the pentagon-shaped asterism of confounding constellation Cetus (sea whale) with its veraciously variable star Mira.

Venus Not Noticeable
The romantic planet Venus and the outlying planet Neptune would not be noticeable this month as they would be wandering very close to the Sun across the capacious constellation Aquarius (water bearer). Scientists responsible for NASA’s Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) have newly released unprecedented awe-inspiring image captured during WISPR‘s third fly-by out of seven in total in July 2020. WISPR had been deployed in August 2018 for undertaking seven year mission for studying Sun sedulously from the immediate possible vicinage. The craft had zoomed past Venus recently for the fourth time ensuring the planet’s gravity assist for pulling it tighter towards the Sun.
Asteroid 4-Vesta could be chased from the nightfall in the eastern sky till early in the morning before day-begin in western sky. It would be mingling with the sparkling stars like Regulus and others as Denebola that would sketch serenely the hind-quarters of the comely constellation Leo (lion). The resplendent star Regulus (Magha) which would appealingly appear singular would actually bear testimony to its queer quadruple star system containing four stars that have been organized into two pairs.
Regulus with five dimmer stars would draw the asterism depicting the sickle or inverted question mark that would even indicate the head of Leo. It would be approximately seventy nine light-years from the Sun. The coruscating Denebola (Uttarfalguni) with two complex components of double star would be varying slightly. It would be fairly thirty six light-years away. Spellbinding spiral galaxy M66 has been prominent part of so-called Leo Triplet with two other members M65 and NGC 3628. They would be purely thirty seven million light-years away. With median diameter of 525 kilometers Vesta would be the second largest asteroid after dwarf planet Ceres. It would be larger than 2-Pallas.
It was ascertained by the German astronomer Heinrich Olbers in March 1807. NASA's Dawn spacecraft had examined Vesta in 2011 for one year and then cruised towards 1-Ceres. Vesta would revolve around the Sun once in circa 3.63 years. Its quirky ellipsoidal-resembling sphere would declare diameter of 526 kilometers. It would rotate reluctantly once in resolute 5.3 hours.

New Moon
The new moon would befall on 13 March, while the full moon would be celebrated cheerfully on 28 March with colorful Holi festival. Furthermore, the full moon’s popular moniker would be the full worm moon, because during this time of the year the ground would begin to soften and the earthworms would reappear.
The venerated Maha Shivaratri would be revered respectfully on 11 March 2021. The enchanting March Equinox would occur on 20 March 2021. The Sun would shine directly on the equator and there would be nearly equal amounts of day and night throughout the world. It would herald the first day of spring (vernal equinox) in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of fall (autumnal equinox) in the Southern Hemisphere.

(Shah writes about astronomy)