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Face
South again and look straight up. You will see the mighty Jupiter.
It is extremely bright; in fact it is the brightest thing in the
sky at the moment, so you cannot mistake it. Remember, planets do
not twinkle, stars do. So concentrate for a few moments and you
will realise that this is a non twinkling……… planet!
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Jupiter
and the Beehive
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Look
very slightly to its right and you will see a faint cluster - binoculars
will help here. You should see a group of stars that is called the
Beehive, although it has never looked much like a beehive to me.
What do you think it looks like?
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Jupiter
and one of its moons!
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It
is actually a group of, one could say, teenage stars just about
to leave home. They were made in that part of the sky and are now
gradually moving apart. In a few million years you won't see them
as a cluster - they will have moved away to become a part of all
the other stars in the sky.
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Gemini
and Castor
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Now
look further to your right and you will see a pair of stars. This
is the Constellation Gemini, or the Twins. The top star is Castor.
It looks like one star to the naked eye, but in fact it is a surprising
multiple star with six different stars making up the light that
we see.
If you have a powerful enough telescope, you can split Castor into
two stars, but both of these two stars are each a binary, or a pair,
of stars. This makes four stars. The same telescope will show you
a near companion that is also a binary. This makes up the family
of six stars. They are all about 45 light years away. (I will explain
a light year later on in the year.)
The lower star is Pollux. It is brighter than all six of Castor
because it is so much closer to us. It is only 36 light years away.
It is a Red
Giant at the end of its life-cycle. Considering that about 20
light years from us is the safe limit, it's close enough!
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Saturn
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If
you look even further to your right, at about the same height, you
will see another very bright 'non twinkling' star. This of course
is Saturn, still with us - as is Jupiter - after nearly three months,
and they will still both be seen for another month.
Finally, if you look just above the western horizon in the evenings,
you will see Mercury. This is the best opportunity for years, so
do try to find it - but hurry, it only stays above the horizon for
about 30 minutes. Start on 1st April at 8.23pm. It will gradually
get one hour later by 1st May.
DID YOU KNOW...
Earth is about 4˝ million years old. The Sun will die in about 5,000
million years, but in 1000 million years, it will be too hot for
us to survive. However, in just 100 million years we will have been
wiped out by an asteroid. So we have just 100 million years to stop
bickering and find ourselves a new home. There is no doubt that
we shall need it one day.
Just to keep in with that happy theme, an asteroid big enough to
flatten the whole of London is due somewhere on Earth within the
next 150 years. The last one was only in 1908!!
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