Stellar Phenomena In February

In the night skies of this month the wonders and splendors of plentiful planets, stars and constellations come alive for avid sky-gazers who would fancy them whole-heartedly with panache. The elusive planet Mercury would stay out of sight in the constellations Capricornus (sea goat) and Aquarius (water bearer). It is lost in solar glare during daytime this month. Seeing it in the evening shortly in the western horizon during the end of the month in the constellation Pisces (fishes) would be very challenging. The tiny planet Mercury, with a paltry 4879 kilometres in diameter, is bizarrely the nearest to the Sun. Following it in sunlight is tough. 

After sunset in the western sky, Mercury stands out above the slim waxing crescent moon on 28 February. On 12 March Mercury and effulgent Venus will meet above the western horizon. One solar day on Mercury lasts strangely 176 Earth days, but one year on Mercury is eerily 88 Earth days. It skirts the Sun from 46 to 70 million kilometres. The day and night temperatures on Mercury vary drastically from 430 degrees to minus 180 degrees Celsius, as Mercury is bereft of atmosphere. However, it possesses an exiguous exosphere made up of atoms knocked off the surface by the solar wind and striking meteoroids. 

The European-Japanese spacecraft has beamed back fascinating images of Mercury's North Pole, including stunning close-up snapshots of permanently shadowed craters. The BepiColombo robotic explorer is a joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Despite Mercury being the closest planet to the Sun, the pictured craters are some of the coldest places in the Solar System. Evidence suggests that they are filled with frozen water, one of the mysteries the mission hopes to unravel. The spacecraft holds two orbiters, one for Europe to map the planet and the other for Japan to study the planet’s magnetosphere and circle the planet's poles. 

The spacecraft is named after the late Giuseppe Bepi Colombo, the famed Italian mathematician who contributed to NASA's Mariner-10 mission to planet Mercury in the 1970s and, two decades later, to the Italian Space Agency's tethered satellite project that flew on the US space shuttles. The conjunction, alias tight tryst, of Mercury and Saturn would happen on 26 February. Glimpsing them in the sun’s vicinity and in the constellation Aquarius would be irksome. Never point binoculars or a telescope at an object in the neighbourhood of the Sun to avert injuries with irreparable blindness.

The romantic planet Venus would be vividly visible in the western sky after sundown for a few hours and be evanescent thereafter. It would be gleaming graciously below the conspicuous circlet asterism of charming constellation Pisces. Planets Neptune and Saturn could be relished rejoicing above and below Venus. 

Planet Venus's 225-day trajectory will carry it curiously to its most immediate encounter with the Sun (termed as perihelion) at simply 107.71 million kilometres on 18 February. Venus at the moment at perihelion will be above the western horizon resting in the constellation Pisces, but the Sun would be relaxing in Aquarius. Specified as earth’s sister planet with a diameter of approximately 12.104 thousand kilometres, planet Venus is surrounded by thick clouds of sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) that make it almost impossible to peer at its topology from outside its atmosphere. 

The average temperature is extremely 462 degrees Celsius. The dense atmosphere of appalling 96.5 percent carbon dioxide traps heat and causes a dominant greenhouse effect. It reflects maximum (circa 70 percent) sunlight and consequently scintillates superbly. The red planet Mars can be marvelled at from dusk in the eastern sky till late at night, elevating high in the southern sky. It would sink slowly towards the western horizon, then well before dawn. It would be marked among the tantalising stars and playing below puzzling star Pollux (Punervasu) in the congenial constellation Gemini (twins). Orange-coloured Pollux is quirkily 34 light-years away. Planet Jupiter, with its mesmerising moons, could be jovially admired in the eastern sky after eventide. It would be ascending the southern sky till the wee hours of the night and then descending towards the southern horizon before daybreak. 

It would be hovering above the prominently resplendent red-hued giant star Aldebaran (Rohini) at roughly 65 light-years distance that is residing in the remarkable constellation Taurus (bull). The ringed planet Saturn can be subtly stared at in the western sky succinctly after twilight nightfall. It would be saliently shining in the eastern side of the constellation Aquarius. From the middle of the month, Saturn is unseen for being too low below the horizon. 

Planet Uranus can be cherished in the southwestern sky after it darkens. It would slide towards the horizon by midnight. It is discerned as a grey spot of light in the sprawling southern realm of constellation Aries (ram). Bluish planet Neptune would be missed mostly this month. It would tersely be glanced at in the western sky at crepuscule during the month’s start among the stars in the constellation Pisces.

The full moon would betide blissfully on 12 February. It has been eponymously tagged as snow moon because the heaviest snows usually fall during this time of the year. The new moon would befall on 28 February. Venerated Saraswoti Puja is celebrated cheerfully on 03 February. In the evening of 28 February 2025, our seven planets join Earth all at once and arrange themselves from east to west on the horizon in a perplexing planet parade. Planets Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune line up spectacularly in the sky. Since this event has ignited intense interest in people worldwide for eagerly witnessing them, it is imperative that common misconceptions embracing the planetary alignments be clarified. Such feasts for the eyes can be enjoyed temporarily in all glory in heaven. They do not inflict any harm on anyone on earth or trigger any disasters on our planet. The sequence of involved planets will be noticeable comfortably from anywhere on earth, although ideal viewing times differ according to the venues. 

Numerous academic tools on the internet can be accessed to obtain those times and locations. Though these phenomena might be overhyped as some type of rare queues of planets, they are actually manifested as the regular occurrence in our night sky. Planets appear along an imaginary line because they orbit the Sun on a flat theoretical plane called the ecliptic. Planets scoot with different velocities along their tilted track slightly above or below this plane. But in reality, they are all appreciably on the same level, like grooves on vinyl records. Mercury requires less time to dash around the Sun than the furthest planet, Neptune, from the Sun, which needs a whopping 160 Earth years to traverse around the Sun. The next planetary string for savouring in 2025 will transpire on 15 April with a small morning array of Neptune, Mercury, Saturn, and Venus. On 11 August, large morning processions of Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn could be wowed with verve.

The near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 whizzed by our planet and is heading away from us. It was first divulged in December 2024 in the Chile observatory. It measures 40 to 100 meters across and sprints around the Sun every 4.04 years. Statistically speaking, Earth gets hit by an asteroid this size every few thousand years with the potential for severe damage. The world's most powerful telescopes are incessantly monitoring asteroids accurately to better determine their dimensions and paths. 

Asteroid 2024 YR4 resembles the Tunguska asteroid, which prompted the immense impact in recorded history when it exploded in air over Siberia (air burst) with the blast equivalent to detonating 50 million tons of TNT that flattened an estimated 80 million trees over 2150 square kilometers in 1908. Scientists have traced organic compounds with amino acids in samples of dust, soil, and rock transported back by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe (lifted off in 2016 and returned to earth in 2023) from asteroid Bennu. Amino acids are key ingredients for producing proteins on earth. This finding could allude to essential building blocks of life being distributed throughout the Solar System and further support the hypothesis that life could exist beyond our Solar System. With the title of the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth, 101955 Bennu has a median diameter of a mere 490 meters and jogs around the Sun in just 435 days.

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