Astronomy: Looking at the skies - Feb 2011

Read the full article here :  Keep Looking Up by Merrill Butler, III: Feb. 1st – Feb 8th

by Magis Center of Reason and Faith on Wednesday, 02 February 2011 at 15:27

 

Extract:

There are some interesting alignments of moons of Jupiter and Saturn. These alignments allow one to see all four of Jupiter’s largest moons and Saturn has a similar display.

Jupiter
On the night of February 5th at approximately 9:30pm look at Jupiter in the West.

Take your telescope and look to the south east of the planetary disc. You will see all four of the Galilean moons lined up in a diagonal. The names of those moons are, starting from the closest in to furthest out are Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Calisto.  Remember that Europa is the moon with an ocean encased by ice and JPL is in the planning stages of designing a mission to land there.  While looking at Jupiter don’t forget to look for the south equatorial band that is still missing. It has been missing before but not this long.

Saturn
On the night of February 4th and 5th take a look at the Solar System’s showpiece, and on both nights you find a triangle of three moons, which lie to the southeast of the planet. They are Dionne, Tethys (upper corner), and Rhea. In addition if you look directly above Saturn’s disk you will see that famous red-orange dot better known as Titan: The moon with an atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane.

Comet Hartley
Comet Hartley is now exiting (left) and will not be visible to amateur astronomers for 12 years.

It did put on quite a show and now the EPOXI mission, which photographed in its unusual shape, is publicizing some scientific results (it is shaped like a potato). 

The results show that the comet’s nucleus contains frozen water and carbon dioxide. The outgassing, which the EPOXI Mission saw in great detail, was driven by the carbon dioxide which sublimated or converted itself from solid to gas! That was confirmed by looking at the dust that was being distributed.  See picture provided.

* Personally I think its shaped exactly like a chicken drumstick - don't you?   LOL!