Science Friday - This January, See A ‘Planet Parade’ In The Night Sky

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Rejoice, amateur and professional astronomers: This January is a fantastic time for looking up at the sky.The flashiest event of the season is also one of the easiest to see without binoculars or a telescope. A “parade of planets”—Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars—will be visible, and recognizable by their incredible brightness against the night sky. Uranus and Neptune will also be visible, but with a telescope. This string of planets will be visible for all of January.Additionally, the ATLAS comet, discovered last year by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, has come close enough to the sun—8.3 million miles away—to be visible with binoculars or a telescope. Be careful, though: looking at sunrise or sunset could hurt your eyes.Astronomer Dean Regas, host of the podcast “Looking Up with Dean Regas,” joins Ira from Cincinnati, Ohio, to discuss the best things the winter night sky has to offer this year, with or without a telescope.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Flor Lichten. And I'm Ira Flato. January is a great month for looking up. We'll talk to astronomer Dean Regis about the best astronomical events to look out for with or without a telescope. We've got Venus. We got Saturn. We got Neptune. Uranus. Jupiter and Mars all visible. I'm asking you to look up and know not at the ceiling, but at the night sky like I did this week, where I saw an awesome display of planets. If you like looking at the night sky, this is a great month to do it. And here to tell us what we can see is a guy who's always, well, he always has his head in the sky.

Dean Regis, astronomer and host of the podcast, Looking Up with Dean Regis. Welcome back, Dean. Oh, happy to be here. Now, let's talk about this being a great month. The flashest event people are really talking about the so-called Planet Parade. Fill us in. Oh, yeah, this is some good marketing. Planet Parade sounds really great.

We're going to have lots of planets up in the world. the sky we've got venus we got saturn we got neptune uranus jupiter and mars all visible sounds wonderful doesn't it but um a little bit bringing people down to earth six planets sounds good before the ones you can see with the naked eye but uh venus and saturn gonna be right next to each other in the uh evening sky right after dark so venus incredibly bright looks suspiciously bright like a plane or a ufo and saturn will be faint but next to it and then on the other side of the sky kind of bordered by the south South East is going to be Jupiter and Mars kind of spread out a little bit. Uranus and Neptune, you need a telescope to see, you're going to see it on social media

with all six of them and the charts and everything. But yeah, I'd say stick with the four. Planet Parade sounds pretty good to me. And I was like you. I thought I was looking at some airplanes and they weren't moving. So is this a rare event for so many of them to be visible at once? We're kind of in the cycle where in the wintertime we're getting this a little bit more often. But it's really just all the planets are on their own tracks going around the sun at different speeds.

And so they tend to line up along this plane called the ecliptic. This is the plane of our solar system. So planets like to line up a lot. Seeing all these kind of in one place is pretty cool. And then in case you were wondering where Mercury is, we haven't talked about that. That's going to come around at the end of February and kind of join the parade for a little bit. But that one's always tough to see too. And how do you tell whether it's a planet or it's a really bright star?

Yeah, really good question because some of the planets stand out. Like Venus and Jupiter are incredibly bright, brighter than any of the stars. The other ones are a little bit tougher. So Mars is pretty bright right now because we're at closest approach to Mars for the year. And so that just looks like kind of this red, bright star. And Saturn's very faint. So it looks kind of like just a normal yellow star out there. But the trick that we always try to tell people is planets twinkle less than stars.

So you look for things that aren't twinkling as much. They still will twinkle a little bit, but not as much. Love it. Yeah, a little more of a disc shape than a point in this kind of like. Exactly right. Yeah. Let's move on to another event that's getting a lot of buzz. And I'm talking about the Atlas Comet.

What's the deal with this? Oh, man. this sounds great again. This is the brightest comet we've seen in a long time. It's brightness is about as bright as the planet of Venus. And so that's hyping up pretty good. Big, big, big problem with this comet is the average person's not going to see it, which you're thinking, well, wait a second, it's bright as Venus.

I should see it. It is right next to the sun. So from your view, it's up during the daytime. So you need special observing techniques and equipment to actually see this comet. So is it going to be visible to the naked eye? Highly unlikely. I'm a little worried about people trying to stare at the sun too much. So this.

Binoculars are something really bad idea. Yeah. So this comet, I, you know, it's got a lot of hype. It's got another good press agent. But I think this one I'm going to pass on looking for it because it's not going to be easy. So you're saying it's never going to be visible in the night sky? It's going to be visible later on. And so Southern Hemisphere, it's more visible from that region.

For us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's going to be really tough because it's going to fade probably pretty fast as it moves away from the sun. So we do have a chance maybe at the end of January to get a glimpse of it. But when it comes to comets, the rule of thumb is they are fickle beasts and you never know what they're going to do. I don't recognize the name of this one. It must not come by very often. Yeah, this is one that they, astronomers just. computed the orbit to be around 160,000 years. So comets live these interesting lives where they're mostly way, way, way out from the sun and their frozen little ice balls. But when they drift

towards the sun, they heat up, create these tails. And that's when you see them. So this comet's going to make a quick skirting of the inner solar system and head back to obscurity for another 160,000 years. You know, when we pass through the dust of a comet, we get meteor shower. We get, Do we have any media showers coming up? Well, we got some minor ones in the winter time. The next really good one that I've got kind of my eye on is the Lyrids. That's in April, kind of late April, April 21, 22, somewhere around there. That's when we're flying through this comet debris.

And every year, there's creating a lot of shooting stars. So that's the next one. I've kind of got my eye on because the moon phase will be favorable. So no moon around. That means more chances seen. fainter meteors. So Lyrids is the one I got circled. And if you're lucky enough to have a telescope or a nice pair of binoculars, what can you see in the night sky now that would be really cool? I think the big thing right now that's shining along with the planets are the brightest stars

in the year, basically. So the winter sky has the brightest stars. Eight of the top 20 brightest stars in the whole sky are visible every night. It's this area of the sky kind of by Orion. And so you think of the belt stars of Ryan, those three stars in a row. There's plenty of other bright stars around it, which some call a circle, some call a hexagon, but I call it the winter football because it's shaped like a football and I got playoffs on my brain. But you got Orion out there with the Orion Nebula, which is an awesome site to see through a telescope. You got the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades Star Cluster, which make a nice site. there's another one that I want to throw out there to challenge for folks called M35.

It's this open star cluster in the constellation Gemini. It's not visible to the naked eye, but when you find it with a telescope, it is awesome. You got to have a clear sky on that one. Absolutely. Yeah, the darker, the sky, the better. And I hate to say it, the bigger the telescope, the better, too. Have you found that the haze from those terrible forest fires in Los Angeles or other places have been getting in the way of seeing the stars in the place?

planets? I think a little bit, especially for folks on the west side of the country, that they are kind of affecting this. And they're also affecting a lot of the communication sites like the jet propulsion laboratory there in California is having some issues with the, you know, they had to evacuate a lot of places. So we're getting a few reports about that. The smoke hasn't drifted extensively yet that we've noticed at least here in the Midwest. And what about these thousands of starlings? satellites that SpaceX and others are putting up. Starlink has now 7,000. They're aiming for 12,000. China is competing with them now and they're trying to orbit up to 15,000 eventually. Are they affecting what people see in the night sky? Wow. Yeah. Talk about a controversial subject.

This is something everybody's got kind of an opinion on in the astronomical world. Astronomers by and large dislike this because more satellites up in the sky, the more times their telescopes and cameras are going to pick up the satellites when they want to pick up things that are much farther away. It hasn't been a large-scale disruption of scientific research yet, but it's definitely on people's minds because thousands and thousands of satellites create thousands of reflective objects and also could potentially lead to thousands of things falling from the sky. So this competition of, you know, between the countries, there's not a lot of collaboration. That's the other problem. So everybody that can send a satellite up can do it. Right.

All right. Let's look a little bit into the future for other big astronomical events that you're excited about. Any lunar solar eclips is coming up this year? Yeah, we got two of them in March, which is pretty exciting. The bigger one of the two, I think, is going to be the total lunar eclipse. That's going to be on the night of March 13th into March 14th. So this is when the moon goes into the shadow of the earth and turns that eerie blood red color. This is going to be pretty awesome because it's going to be visible across the entire United States.

Almost everywhere we'll be able to see that total lunar eclipse that night. So, and this is for people that saw this total solar eclipse back in 2024, this isn't quite the same deal. It's not as mind-blowingly awesome as others. So yeah, this total lunar eclipse is going to be. kind of a long affair. It takes several hours to go through the partial stages and totality. The only problem with totality for this total lunar eclipse in March is going to be the timing. It'll be 226 to 3.31 a.m. Eastern time,

but it might as well stay up late for it. It's going to be cool. Yeah, yeah. And what's the best way to look at it to, to, you don't need a telescope for this, right? Or binoculars? Absolutely not. For a total lunar eclipse, you just want to kind of sit back.

back and watch the show. It's one of those like it's a chill astronomical event because it takes so long. And my advice is when you get to the totality part, you can watch it and then you have some friends and family out there, get some drinks. Then every time you look back at the moon during totality, it's slightly different. The shade slowly changes and makes a really cool site. Dean, you briefly mentioned a partial solar eclipse this year. Let's talk about that. Oh yeah. So this is going to be on March 29th. So we got that total lunar eclipse on the 13th, 14th, and then the partial solar eclipse on the 29th of March. This one is only going to be visible from the extreme northeastern part of the United States where just a little bit of the sun will be blocked out by

the moon. So no total eclipse for the United States on that one, but still something cool to see if you're in the northeast. Yeah, I love when that happens and then you have the leaves and you see all those little suns on the ground. Yeah, absolutely. So if you're in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, that's the best spots to see it. And even then, it's only going to be about halfway eclipse. The sun will be. But, you know, again, I'm heading up there to see it. So I can't wait.

Half is better than nothing, right? Oh, man, just the rush of seeing an eclipse of any kind is really cool. And so it's going to be a busy year. It looks like, you know, there is a total solar eclipse coming up, what, next year? If you want to plan for that Absolutely. I mean, it's on my calendar. By the way, I have eclipses on my calendar through 2079. So I'm good.

I know where I'm going to be, but 2026 is the next total solar eclipse. And for people that saw the one in 2024, you're probably hooked. And the places to see it in 2026 are Iceland and Spain. So take your pick. I'm thinking Spain, but I'm going to start playing. in very soon. Well, we'll plan along with you, Dean. Thank you, as always, for being our sky-guided, the nighttime sky. Absolutely. And keep looking up. Dean Regis, astronomer and host of the podcast, looking up with Dean Regis. Dean is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Speaking of looking up, if you get the timing right, you might just be able to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station zooming by above. And if you've ever wanted a peek inside, we have something for you. Houston Station on. Heads up. We are 20 seconds out from the start of the event. We're ready.

Earlier this week, SciFry connected young listeners directly with astronauts living on the ISS. ACR, this is Mission Control of Houston. Please call station for a voice check. Astronauts Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore took time out of their astronaut duties

to answer questions sent in by students from around the country. And there are some stellar ones that we just had to share. Hi, my name is Richieel. And my question is, what is the most surprising experience you've had while living and working in the International Space Station? And how has it changed your perspective on Earth? Wow, Rochelle, that'd be a hard question to answer with a one, only one comment.

Because every day is different. Such a variety, looking out the window, different sites you see at different parts of the day and night cycle, hands in a microscience gravity workbox, doing science there, science throughout the space station. So you really cannot pick a single thing. It's all fascinating. Hi, my name is Tyson. My question is, how does it affect your body when you go into space? The body does do very many changes.

They say, you know, and you can kind of feel it a little bit, that your internal organs kind of shift up into your body a little bit, which is good because it makes you feel thinner. Also, goodness, there's so many, like, also 20, 25% of the food weed actually turns to gas, unless you're Don Pettit, maybe it's a little more. Good question. And I'd like to add that we change the effective level of gravity by a factor of one million.

That's what microgravity means. And you change any other environmental factors. Say you change temperature by a million. You'd be turned into a little carbon shard, a different kind of crisper. And the fact that human beings can go into space with a fact that. After a one million change in gravity and so basically continue on, I find is an amazing robustness that we as human beings have. Hi, my name is Aligria.

My question is, can you describe what the sunrise looks like when you're on the International Space Station? Absolutely. When the sun just starts to come up, you get a blue strip across the horizon. And as it continues to get closer and closer to the horizon, you're going to be closer to the horizon, you start to see the color, just like a prism, breaks down the light. The atmosphere breaks down the white light into the various colors like a prism. And then it's just before, just as the sun is peaking above the horizon,

the entire International Space Station turns to an orange color for five or six seconds. It's pretty amazing. Wonderful to see. And on Earth, because the Earth's rotation in orbit around the sun, it takes two minutes for the... disc of the sun to slip below the horizon on space station because of our orbital velocity, it takes seven and a half seconds. So you go from full daylight to full darkness in seven and a half seconds. If you like me just cannot get enough astronaut content, please head to sciencefriety.com

slash downlink where you can watch Don Pettett and Butch Wilmore, Bob around the ISS and hear more from Earthbound astronauts Katie Coleman, Ellenacoa, and Nicole Stott, who kept that space chat going. Thanks to NASA and all the astronauts for taking time to chat with us, and thanks to SciFRI's Sandy Roberts for leading the charge. Oh, and one thing more before we go. The SciFri Book Club has just pulled its latest book off the shelf. Book Club Captain Diana Plasker has the title. Thanks, Ira. Maybe your New Year's resolution is to read more books in Well, we can help with that. This February, the Cyfry Book Club is reading Origin, a genetic history of the Americas

by Jennifer Raff. You can join our online community of book lovers and enter to win a free book at ScienceFriday.com slash book club. That's about all the time we have for now. A lot of people help make this show happen. Emma Gomez. Sandy Roberts. Robin Casmer.

Melissa Mayers. I'm Ira Flato. Thanks for listening.