Celestial Shine: Venus And Mars Embrace Stars

The night skies of this month would present the sights of planets like Venus and Mars that are pleasantly mingling with stars shimmering all over the heavens. Planet Mercury would be too close to Sun and would be lost in its glare during the beginning of the month. It could be glimpsed briefly in the western sky after sundown during the end of the month. It would be fleeting across the constellations Gemini (twins), Cancer (crab), and Leo (lion). The red planet Mars and planet Venus would mesmerise ardent planet-hunters in the western sky after sunset. They would be sliding towards the western horizon. They could be marveled among the sparkling stars that sketch the confounding zodiacal constellation, Leo. The alluring asterism resembling a baffling backward sickle or question mark that has been turned sideways could be manifested above them. 

The resplendent star Regulus (Magha) would glint gorgeously below them. Regulus has been queer quadruple star system organised in two pairs, lying circa 79 light-years away. 

Planets Venus and Mars would come to a tight tryst on 01 July. Venus would lo ok very bright on 09 July. Planets Jupiter and Uranus could be picked out from late night till early morning before sunrise in the south-eastern sky. 

They could be discerned in the barren-alike expanse belonging to the compact constellation Aries (ram). Planet Uranus could be figured out as a fulgent dot to the east of planet Jupiter. Ringed planet Saturn could be a sheen speck of light in the eastern sky late in the night. It would be ascending the south-eastern sky during the wee hours and then slipping towards the southern horizon across the eastern segment of the sprawling constellation Aquarius (water bearer) by dawn. Planet Neptune could be spotted in the southern sky from late in the night till almost daybreak in the southern section of the constellation Pisces (fishes). The compelling circlet asterism would be hovering above Neptune.

The full moon (Guru Purnima) would betide graciously on 03 July. Its popular moniker has been bucked full moon because the male buck deer would commence growing their antlers at this time of year. This full moon would be recognised as the first of four super moons for 2023. It would be approaching the earth and could be seemingly slightly larger and more aglow than usual. It would be dwelling in the constellation Sagittarius (archer). It would be paltry 359 thousand kilometers from Earth. The new moon would befall on 17 July. 

The new moon would be merrily moving through the constellation Gemini. The earth's annual path around the Sun would push it furthest from the Sun to its so-called aphelion lying at the length of whooping 152 million kilometers. The earth's span from the Sun would vary by around 3 per cent over the year because its circuit would be oval-shaped mirroring an ellipse. This day would happen on 07 July 2023 with Sun traversing through the constellation Gemini. It would mean the moment when the Sun would appear relatively diminutive than at any other time of year and the Earth would receive the least radiation from it. Changes in our weather between the summer and winter have been caused entirely by the tilt of meager 23.5 degrees of the earth's axis of rotation.

Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower would display up to twenty meteors per hour at its peak this year that would occur from the night of 28 July till the morning of 29 July. Delta Aquarids has been deemed as an average meteor shower that would be arising yearly from 12 July to 23 August. The shiny shooting stars have been allegedly produced from the dusty debris left behind by sun-grazing comets Marsden and Kracht, even though the comet of its origin has not explicitly been affirmed. Its suspected progenitor has been currently the small, short-period Comet 96P/Machholz with an orbital period of puny 5.29 years. 

It had been identified by American astronomer Donald Machholz in 1986. Although the waxing gibbous moon could perhaps block the scintillating show of the subdued shooting stars this year, avid sky-gazers could still catch some good fulgurating ones patiently after midnight from dark locations. Meteors would be emanating from their radiant point nestling neatly in the constellation Aquarius. The radiant for the Delta Aquariids would be traced near the faint star Skat (Delta Aquarii). It could be viewed in mid-evening. It would climb highest after midnight and stay low by dawn. Skat would be 113 light-years away. The fascinating star Fomalhaut (Yam Masta) in Pisces Austrinus (Southern fish) would be twinkling to the south of the radiant. It would be merely 25 light-years away.

Dwarf planet Pluto would reach opposition on 22 July, when it would stand opposite to the Sun. It would be visible for much of the night from late in the evening in the south-eastern sky till morning twilight and would go up to the loftiest place in the sky around midnight above the southern horizon. It would then slowly sink towards the southwestern horizon. 

At around the same time of opposition, it would creep closest to the earth at the peculiar position designated as at its perigee. It would emerge very luminous. When Pluto would lie opposite to the Sun, the earth would pass between Pluto and the Sun. In opposition, Pluto could be wowed for much of the night. It would rise at around the time the Sun would set and it would set at around the time the Sun would rise on the next day. Pluto is so far-flung from the Earth that it would not easily be distinguishable as more than a star-like light even through telescopes. 

In opposition, Pluto would be arrant 5.056 billion kilometers away from us and would be plodding through the triangle-mimicking constellation Capricornus (sea goat). It would require rigor 248 earth-years to run around the Sun. Its motion would be quirkily retrograde. It would spin backward from east to west. Pluto’s diameter would measure fairly 2370 kilometers, being less than one-fifth of the earth’s diameter and about two-thirds as wide as the earth's moon. Temperatures here could drop extremely to minus 240 degrees Celsius. Pluto would proudly possess five natural satellites with mythological nomenclatures of Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.

Saturn's icy ocean moon, Enceladus with a mean diameter of sheer 513 kilometers would demonstrate the whitest most reflective topology in the Solar System. Sporting Sub-surface Ocean could harbor life below the frozen shell. The scientific team has recently detected here phosphorus in the form of phosphates originating from the moon's ice-covered ocean using data from NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission in collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA), which had explored Saturn and its rings and moons for over thirteen years. The Cassini spacecraft’s Cosmic Dust Analyser had scrutinised samples of salt-rich ice grains in plumes of gases erupting into space from cracks in the moon's surface.

The presence of sodium phosphates was confirmed. Phosphorus would be considered a key building block vital for all life on earth and essential for the creation of DNA and RNA, energy-carrying molecules, cell membranes, bones, and teeth in people and animals, and even necessary for the sea's micro-biome of plankton. Profound findings in planetary science have perceived planets with oceans beneath layers of ice were common in our Solar System. Ice has been eerily extant on the satellites of the giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, such as on Europa and Titan, and even on those entities afar like Pluto. 

Our earth with oceans has been surviving within a critical gap from our host star Sun within the mind-boggling Goldilocks zone for maintaining the temperatures that would be conducive to supporting liquid water indispensable for the existence of life. ESA’s space telescope Euclid has been dispatched on an ambitious six-year mission from Florida's Space Launch Complex to comprehend the past ten billion years, from when stars and galaxies had evolved and when dark energy had probably started to be dominant. Approximately eighty-five percent of the universe's substance could have been concocted from dark matter, which would constitute a quarter of its total energy density. Dark energy would supposedly permeate through space and accelerate the universe's expansion. 

(Dr. Shah is an academician at NAST and patron of NASO)