Earth continues its travel around the Sun, playing catch up with the outer visible planets – Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They all appear further to the west of the Sun than in February and are more easily seen in the morning before sunrise. For us on the Sunshine Coast though, we have two problems in viewing all this action. First, the topography limits our view to the southeast unless you can get right along the south-facing part of the Coast. The second problem is that the ecliptic – the path of Sun and planets through the sky – is tilted with respect to the Earth’s equator by about 23.5 degrees. At this time of year, however, the Sun is still south of the celestial equator and the outer planets to the west of the Sun are even farther south and are still low to the south by sunrise. Venus, however, is well east of the Sun on the northern part of the ecliptic and is much higher in the sky. The result is great evening views of Venus high in the southwest after sunset but for the outer planets before sunrise, not so much.
As a matter of interest, I mentioned last month the occultation of Mars by the waning Moon on the morning of Feb. 18 at about 4:30 a.m. Ignoring my pessimism about visibility, two intrepid Astronomy Club members set up equipment at the foot of Mason Road in West Sechelt and saw the Moon rise above the low cloud layer at 4:42 a.m. Then Mars emerged from behind the Moon starting at 4:47 and completed by 4:50 a.m.
Another celestial event but with terrestrial consequences happens March 9. The moon is at perigee – its closest approach to Earth for 2020 – which results in the largest full Moon this year. That means predicted tide ranges for a few days will be about 25 per cent larger than normal with a range of almost four metres between maximum and minimum. Plan your beach parties accordingly.
On the 17th through the 19th of the month, the waning moon will make some interesting close passes to the morning planets low in the southeast but the coolest action before sunrise in March will be watching Mars. It starts the month well to the right (west) of Jupiter but is heading east and passes Jupiter and Saturn on the 20th and 31st, respectively. Mars is moving at about 53,000 miles per hour around the Sun, twice that of Jupiter and gains about 600,000 miles per day on it. The visual separation between Mars and the other two planets at closest approach will be a bit more than the width of the full moon – about the size of your little fingernail at arm’s length. If you have school age kids (and can drag them out of bed by 6 a.m.) you can all watch Mars scoot past the planets day by day and see why the Greeks named them ‘planḗtēs’ or “wanderers.”
For more information about the sky this month, the public is welcome to attend the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club meetings the second Friday of each month at the Sechelt Library at 7 p.m.
Remember, all of the movements of moon and planets described can be checked out on the web at: www.heavens-above.com
– By Richard Corbet
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