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Venus - Blog Posts
— Aphrodite is iridescence, like the shimmer of pearls and seashells, like glittering jewels in the sea
𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎 𝐎𝐁𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ༄⋆✧`° II .⋆♧︎︎︎
heheh this is part II!! and yes, these are still based off people around me so if this doesn't resonate just move on <3
✧ fire sun, moon and rising, how does it feel to be the energy in a room? but can you also quiet down, everyone needs a lil quiet sometimes <3
✧ venus trine mars, oh? you fight with your heart on your sleeve? it's okay, that's just your raw emotion babes
✧ capricorn rising, don't kill me first.
✧ sagittarius mars, please stop having a bitch when youre not right
✧ sagittarius mars, also please stop looking at people as though they're beneath you
✧ why does every water moon like dipping sauce with herbs in it. it's kinda freaky. (coming from a scorpio moon)
✧ aquarius suns, PLEASE SHUT UP, WE GET IT. YOU LIKE TO DO UNCONVENTIONAL STUFF.
✧ when someone's mars is your moon it is extremely fucking sexy.
✧ aquarius moons, don't shut up, i want to hear about your weird traits
✧ libra dominants, fucking kiss me and let's run away togethet
✧ aries sun are actually really quiet
✧ pisces moon, stop being the victim.
✧ libra jupiter, look at you being the aesthetic but also kinda useless queen (sorry)
✧ scorpio plutos, YOURE NOT THAT COOL.
✧ gemini mercury, i love you, hmu
✧ cancer men, why do you always feel the need to defend yourself. it's okay.
✧ aries men, i love you being competitive but please calm down. you're not leonardo dicaprio or johnny depp. your not that cool.
✧ water sun + water moon, stop being a manipulative piece of shit
✧ libra men, can you please date me
✧ taurus and capricorn men, can you please runaway with me and we get married in europe
✧ aries venus. teach me how to fucking be a fashion icon.
⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 !
✧ earth mercury, why do you all have deep voices and can you please choke me with your really veiny hands
✧ moon square chiron, open up. it's okay.
✧ mercury conjunction uranus, you are so creative holy fucking shit. you should also be in the creative arts department
✧ dear lilith in aries, can you please fuck m-
heheheheh <3
love yall
minisvle© 2022, do not steal or copyright
Being magnetic✨
I started thinking and I'm not the type to approach people, friends kinda come easily to me not to say I always had *a lot* of friends but I always had at least one because people just come to me. Especially when I was younger. And since getting into astrology and learning about magnetic placements I realized this might be why I get approached more. Because I'm shy and hate approaching especially guys because of my fear of rejection 😭 so I just don't. But it's my senior year in highschool and I was convinced I would be alone but a girl approached me and now we sit together at lunch 😭 and she brought more people. I do have Saturn aspecting my Venus, asc, and conjunct my 10th house so some do find me intimidating I think men especially do (but that's just my opinion).
Anyway here are some placements I have that I think make me ✨magnetic✨
Scorpio rising
Venus square pluto
Mars trining asc
Sirène conjunct asc
Sun, Venus, Pluto, and Jupiter dominant sun being the highest
Jupiter in first house
Pisces Venus in the 5th house
Idk if this is much (just thought it was interesting) but Lilith semi square my asc
8th house moon
Sun opposing asc
And if we're talking sidereal
Bharani sun
Mrigashira moon
Swati rising
And the same house placements from above idk what my dominance is for sidereal I think mars but sometimes it's like even if I try to be alone I can't.
Hi lovely! I loved your most recent post and I found it really cool about how you used I think your Virgo placements and Pisces Venus to figure out your style (maybe Lilith and Aphrodite placements too if I read correctly). I really want to figure this out myself and I think it be cool if you were to make a post about it? Like fashion/style that looks good for each of the signs if that’s okay.
Thank you a thousand if you choose to reply! Have a wonderful day/night. 💗💗💗
Aw thank you!!! I love that idea I'll see if I can make that happen it might take awhile/be a bit hard to accomplish but I'll try, maybe I'll even use different asteroids like Aura, Eros, Lilith, and Aphrodite
hey sweetie! how are you? so i have a question about an observation you wrote. you said how having a planet in your first house can be more prominent than the sign. i have mars in 1st (libra), venus and jupiter conjunct ascendant (12th house + libra). how would you think that affects my appearance? how would you think i looked with that mixture of planets?
Hello! I'm great thanks for asking. I'm not the best at this but I'll try 😅.
Mars- you might have red undertones in your hair/skin you might have an athletic body or you can gain muscle easily. Might have thick brows or prominent ones maybe even a big forehead or head in general.
Jupiter- could indicate being tall, thicker, and nice legs (might be long). You could have bigger features a big forehead is common with this placement. Nice smile might be a big one think of a horse which ik it sounds weird but it's not a bad thing I'm jupiter rising so ik a lot about this placement.
Venus- might have a prominent cupids bow or small pouty lips. Symmetrical face, very pretty. You might look friendly especially with jupiter people might feel comfortable approaching you. Your appearance is cohesive. Might look like a model. Curvy body and have you ever thought of getting a septum? I notice venus people look good with them especially with Taurus influence.
Remember other things influence your appearance and some of these placements contradict one another like venus makes you seem friendly but mars might make you intimidating. Thanks for the ask and support! <3
I FINALLY MADE AN OFFICIAL BANNER! :D Idk if the quality looks accurate in post form, I've heard that tumblr can be annoying when it comes to art quality.
Either way I'm super happy because I've been working on this thing for the past few days and it turned out so much better than I ever hoped! :D
Gonna draw Venus aligning her Chakras. I been doing a lot of meditation lately
Main story VENUS
She is a werewolf that is a fallen angel she got her wings ripped out swag.mov style she is now watched over by a butterfly to make sure she stays in check
Jars full of lost souls
The butterfly can’t see the souls making it look seemingly empty
She tries to help the overworld souls by talking to them each day and taking them places to help heal
She has a soulrealm form where she tracks out souls to help them pass to the other side her steps ripple like water in this form
She can walk on water. She always finds water quiet calming and can be seen lounging by springs
Possible ideas
Howls lullabys it calms the surrounding air
Voice was vanished from angels she can no longer speak words all she can wimper out is instrumental sound (thinking piano along the lines of meditation sleep videos)
Relations ships
Sheep girlfriend
Size difference Venus is significantly smaller than her girlfriend. Her girlfriend finds it’s hard to make way through Venus’s house. While Venus is quite roomy in hers
Venus collects herbs and trinkets for her
Soul realm form
Walks on water
Nightmare form
Way bigger than her normal form her arms are abnormally large compared to the rest of her body
Extremely angry and lost her mind
Bring her to a body of water to calm down
Planet people
glory or wisdom? love or power? violin or piano? fire or water? air or earth? forest or river? black or white? left or right? heads or tails? theatre or cinema? give or take? dawn or dusk? gold or silver? art or music? morning or night? venus or mercury?
I’m not a fan of whatever this is referencing (not familiar with the series,) but like the quote and aesthetic a lot. SO… I’m re-posting. 😁
“and if i must be damned then so fucking be it”
Our Amazing Solar System
(:
Cosmic Smiley Face (:
Here’s an HDR (High Dynamic Range) version I made, along with a wide single shot of the lunar conjunction with Venus and Saturn (gear in tags)
astronycc
These asses. Goddamn, female curves are just from another world.
Thanks for all the support.
Have a great weekend.
Shocking Blue
Venus
1969
Exploring Hell... up for the challenge?
Venus is an EXTREME world, and we’re calling on YOU to help us explore it! NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is running a public challenge to develop an obstacle avoidance sensor for a possible future Venus rover.
With a surface temperature in excess of 840 degrees Fahrenheit and a surface pressure 92 times that of Earth, Venus can turn lead into a puddle and crush a nuclear-powered submarine with ease. While many missions have visited our sister planet, only about a dozen have made contact with the surface of Venus before succumbing to the oppressive heat and pressure after just about more than an hour.
The “Exploring Hell: Avoiding Obstacles on a Clockwork Rover” challenge is seeking the public’s designs for a sensor that could be incorporated into the design concept. The winning sensor could be the primary mechanism by which the rover detects and navigates around obstructions.
Award: 1st Place - $15,000; 2nd Place - $10,000; 3rd Place - $5,000
Open Date: February 18, 2020 ––––––––– Close Date: May 29, 2020
Celestial Mechanics Around the Solar System During December 2019
The dance of planets, moons and spacecraft around the solar system creates a host of rare alignments in late December 2019. Here's what's coming up.
Dec. 21: Winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere
Dec. 21 is the 2019 winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. A solstice marks the point at which Earth's tilt is at the greatest angle to the plane of its orbit, also the point where half of the planet is receiving the longest stretch of daylight and the other the least. There are two solstices a year, in June and December: the summer and winter solstices, respectively, in the Northern Hemisphere.
The winter solstice is the longest night of the year, when that hemisphere of Earth is tilted farthest from the Sun and receives the fewest hours of sunlight in a given year. Starting Dec. 21, the days will get progressively longer until the June solstice for those in the Northern Hemisphere, and vice versa for the Southern Hemisphere.
Dec. 26: Annular solar eclipse visible in Asia
On Dec. 26, an annular solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Asia. During an annular eclipse, the Moon's apparent size is too small to completely cover the face of the Sun, creating a "ring of fire" around the Moon's edge during the eclipse.
Credit: Dale Cruikshank
Solar eclipses happen when the Moon lines up just right with the Sun and Earth. Though the Moon orbits Earth about once a month, the tilt in its orbit means that it's relatively rare for the Moon to pass right in line between the Sun and Earth — and those are the conditions that create an eclipse. Depending on the alignment, the Moon can create a partial, total or annular solar eclipse.
On Dec. 26, the Moon will be near perigee, the point in its orbit when it's farthest from Earth. That means its apparent size from Earth is just a bit smaller — and that difference means that it won't completely cover the Sun during the Dec. 26 eclipse. Instead, a ring of the bright solar surface will be visible around the Moon during the point of greatest eclipse. This is called an annular eclipse.
It is never safe to look directly at an annular solar eclipse, because part of the Sun is always visible. If you're in the path of the annular eclipse, be sure to use solar viewing glasses (not sunglasses) or another safe viewing method to watch the eclipse.
Dec. 26: Parker Solar Probe flies by Venus
After the eclipse, more than 100 million miles away from Earth, Parker Solar Probe will pull off a celestial maneuver of its own. On Dec. 26, the spacecraft will perform the second Venus gravity assist of the mission to tighten its orbit around the Sun.
During the seven gravity assists throughout the mission, Parker Solar Probe takes advantage of Venus's gravity to slow down just the right amount at just the right time. Losing some of its energy allows the spacecraft to be drawn closer by the Sun's gravity: It will fly by the Sun's surface at just 11.6 million miles during its next solar flyby on Jan. 29, 2020. During this flyby, Parker Solar Probe will break its own record for closest-ever spacecraft to the Sun and will gather new data to build on the science already being shared from the mission.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
A Tour of Storms Across the Solar System
Earth is a dynamic and stormy planet with everything from brief, rumbling thunderstorms to enormous, raging hurricanes, which are some of the most powerful and destructive storms on our world. But other planets also have storm clouds, lightning — even rain, of sorts. Let’s take a tour of some of the unusual storms in our solar system and beyond.
Tune in May 22 at 3 p.m. for more solar system forecasting with NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green during the latest installment of NASA Science Live: https://www.nasa.gov/nasasciencelive.
1. At Mercury: A Chance of Morning Micrometeoroid Showers and Magnetic ‘Tornadoes’
Mercury, the planet nearest the Sun, is scorching hot, with daytime temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 450 degrees Celsius). It also has weak gravity — only about 38% of Earth's — making it hard for Mercury to hold on to an atmosphere.
Its barely there atmosphere means Mercury doesn’t have dramatic storms, but it does have a strange "weather" pattern of sorts: it’s blasted with micrometeoroids, or tiny dust particles, usually in the morning. It also has magnetic “tornadoes” — twisted bundles of magnetic fields that connect the planet’s magnetic field to space.
2. At Venus: Earth’s ‘Almost’ Twin is a Hot Mess
Venus is often called Earth's twin because the two planets are similar in size and structure. But Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, roasting at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) under a suffocating blanket of sulfuric acid clouds and a crushing atmosphere. Add to that the fact that Venus has lightning, maybe even more than Earth.
In visible light, Venus appears bright yellowish-white because of its clouds. Earlier this year, Japanese researchers found a giant streak-like structure in the clouds based on observations by the Akatsuki spacecraft orbiting Venus.
3. At Earth: Multiple Storm Hazards Likely
Earth has lots of storms, including thunderstorms, blizzards and tornadoes. Tornadoes can pack winds over 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour) and can cause intense localized damage.
But no storms match hurricanes in size and scale of devastation. Hurricanes, also called typhoons or cyclones, can last for days and have strong winds extending outward for 675 miles (1,100 kilometers). They can annihilate coastal areas and cause damage far inland.
4. At Mars: Hazy with a Chance of Dust Storms
Mars is infamous for intense dust storms, including some that grow to encircle the planet. In 2018, a global dust storm blanketed NASA's record-setting Opportunity rover, ending the mission after 15 years on the surface.
Mars has a thin atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide. To the human eye, the sky would appear hazy and reddish or butterscotch colored because of all the dust suspended in the air.
5. At Jupiter: A Shrinking Icon
It’s one of the best-known storms in the solar system: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s raged for at least 300 years and was once big enough to swallow Earth with room to spare. But it’s been shrinking for a century and a half. Nobody knows for sure, but it's possible the Great Red Spot could eventually disappear.
6. At Saturn: A Storm Chasers Paradise
Saturn has one of the most extraordinary atmospheric features in the solar system: a hexagon-shaped cloud pattern at its north pole. The hexagon is a six-sided jet stream with 200-mile-per-hour winds (about 322 kilometers per hour). Each side is a bit wider than Earth and multiple Earths could fit inside. In the middle of the hexagon is what looks like a cosmic belly button, but it’s actually a huge vortex that looks like a hurricane.
Storm chasers would have a field day on Saturn. Part of the southern hemisphere was dubbed "Storm Alley" by scientists on NASA's Cassini mission because of the frequent storm activity the spacecraft observed there.
7. At Titan: Methane Rain and Dust Storms
Earth isn’t the only world in our solar system with bodies of liquid on its surface. Saturn’s moon Titan has rivers, lakes and large seas. It’s the only other world with a cycle of liquids like Earth’s water cycle, with rain falling from clouds, flowing across the surface, filling lakes and seas and evaporating back into the sky. But on Titan, the rain, rivers and seas are made of methane instead of water.
Data from the Cassini spacecraft also revealed what appear to be giant dust storms in Titan’s equatorial regions, making Titan the third solar system body, in addition to Earth and Mars, where dust storms have been observed.
8. At Uranus: A Polar Storm
Scientists were trying to solve a puzzle about clouds on the ice giant planet: What were they made of? When Voyager 2 flew by in 1986, it spotted few clouds. (This was due in part to the thick haze that envelops the planet, as well as Voyager's cameras not being designed to peer through the haze in infrared light.) But in 2018, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped an image showing a vast, bright, stormy cloud cap across the north pole of Uranus.
9. At Neptune: Methane Clouds
Neptune is our solar system's windiest world. Winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the ice giant planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour) — about nine times faster than winds on Earth.
Neptune also has huge storm systems. In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 spotted two giant storms on Neptune as the spacecraft zipped by the planet. Scientists named the storms “The Great Dark Spot” and “Dark Spot 2.”
10. It’s Not Just Us: Extreme Weather in Another Solar System
Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope made a global map of the glow from a turbulent planet outside our solar system. The observations show the exoplanet, called WASP-43b, is a world of extremes. It has winds that howl at the speed of sound, from a 3,000-degree-Fahrenheit (1,600-degree-Celsius) day side, to a pitch-black night side where temperatures plunge below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius).
Discovered in 2011, WASP-43b is located 260 light-years away. The planet is too distant to be photographed, but astronomers detected it by observing dips in the light of its parent star as the planet passes in front of it.
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Greatest Hits — Craters We Love
Our solar system was built on impacts — some big, some small — some fast, some slow. This week, in honor of a possible newly-discovered large crater here on Earth, here’s a quick run through of some of the more intriguing impacts across our solar system.
1. Mercury: A Basin Bigger Than Texas
Mercury does not have a thick atmosphere to protect it from space debris. The small planet is riddled with craters, but none as spectacular as the Caloris Basin. “Basin” is what geologists call craters larger than about 186 miles (300 kilometers) in diameter. Caloris is about 950 miles (1,525 kilometers) across and is ringed by mile-high mountains.
For scale, the state of Texas is 773 miles (1,244 kilometers) wide from east to west.
2. Venus: Tough on Space Rocks
Venus’ ultra-thick atmosphere finishes off most meteors before they reach the surface. The planet’s volcanic history has erased many of its craters, but like almost any place with solid ground in our solar system, there are still impact scars to be found. Most of what we know of Venus’ craters comes from radar images provided by orbiting spacecraft, such as NASA’s Magellan.
Mead Crater is the largest known impact site on Venus. It is about 170 miles (275 kilometers) in diameter. The relatively-flat, brighter inner floor of the crater indicates it was filled with impact melt and/or lava.
3. Earth: Still Craters After All These Years
Evidence of really big impacts — such as Arizona’s Meteor Crater — are harder to find on Earth. The impact history of our home world has largely been erased by weather and water or buried under lava, rock or ice. Nonetheless, we still find new giant craters occasionally.
A NASA glaciologist has discovered a possible impact crater buried under more than a mile of ice in northwest Greenland.
This follows the finding, announced in November 2018, of a 19-mile (31-kilometer) wide crater beneath Hiawatha Glacier – the first meteorite impact crater ever discovered under Earth’s ice sheets.
If the second crater, which has a width of over 22 miles (35 kilometers), is ultimately confirmed as the result of a meteorite impact, it will be the 22nd largest impact crater found on Earth.
4. Moon: Our Cratered Companion
Want to imagine what Earth might look like without its protective atmosphere, weather, water and other crater-erasing features? Look up at the Moon. The Moon’s pockmarked face offers what may be humanity’s most familiar view of impact craters.
One of the easiest to spot is Tycho, the tight circle and bright, radiating splat are easy slightly off center on the lower-left side of the full moon. Closer views of the 53-mile (85 kilometer)-wide crater from orbiting spacecraft reveal a beautiful central peak, topped with an intriguing boulder that would fill about half of a typical city block.
5. Mars: Still Taking Hits
Mars has just enough atmosphere to ensure nail-biting spacecraft landings, but not enough to prevent regular hits from falling space rocks. This dark splat on the Martian south pole is less than a year old, having formed between July and September 2018. The two-toned blast pattern tells a geologic story. The larger, lighter-colored blast pattern could be the result of scouring by winds from the impact shockwave on ice. The darker-colored inner blast pattern is because the impactor penetrated the thin ice layer, blasting the dark sand underneath in all directions.
6. Ceres: What Lies Beneath
The bright spots in Ceres’ Occator crater intrigued the world from the moment the approaching Dawn spacecraft first photographed it in 2015. Closer inspection from orbit revealed the spots to be the most visible example of hundreds of bright, salty deposits that decorate the dwarf planet like a smattering of diamonds. The science behind these bright spots is even more compelling: they are mainly sodium carbonate and ammonium chloride that somehow made their way to the surface in a slushy brine from within or below the crust. Thanks to Dawn, scientists have a better sense of how these reflective areas formed and changed over time — processes indicative of an active, evolving world.
7. Comet Tempel 1: We Did It!
Scientists have long known we can learn a lot from impact craters — so, in 2005, they made one themselves and watched it happen.
On July 4, 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft trained its instruments on an 816-pound (370-kilogram) copper impactor as it smashed into comet Tempel 1.
One of the more surprising findings: The comet has a loose, “fluffy” structure, held together by gravity and contains a surprising amount of organic compounds that are part of the basic building blocks of life.
8. Mimas: May the 4th Be With You
Few Star Wars fans — us included — can resist Obi Wan Kenobi's memorable line “That’s no moon…” when images of Saturn’s moon Mimas pop up on a screen. Despite its Death Star-like appearance, Mimas is most definitely a moon. Our Cassini spacecraft checked, a lot — and the superlaser-looking depression is simply an 81-mile (130-kilometer) wide crater named for the moon’s discoverer, William Herschel.
9. Europa: Say What?
The Welsh name of this crater on Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa looks like a tongue-twister, but it is easiest pronounced as “pool.” Pwyll is thought to be one of the youngest features we know of on Europa. The bright splat from the impact extends more than 600 miles (about 1,000 kilometers) around the crater, a fresh blanket over rugged, older terrain. “Fresh,” or young, is a relative term in geology; the crater and its rays are likely millions of years old.
10. Show Us Your Greatest Hits
Got a passion for Stickney, the dominant bowl-shaped crater on one end of Mars’ moon Phobos? Or a fondness for the sponge-like abundance of impacts on Saturn’s battered moon Hyperion (pictured)? There are countless craters to choose from. Share your favorites with us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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What’s Up For September 2018?
Outstanding views Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars with the naked eye!
You'll have to look quickly after sunset to catch Venus. And through binoculars or a telescope, you'll see Venus's phase change dramatically during September - from nearly half phase to a larger thinner crescent!
Jupiter, Saturn and Mars continue their brilliant appearances this month. Look southwest after sunset.
Use the summer constellations help you trace the Milky Way.
Sagittarius: where stars and some brighter clumps appear as steam from the teapot.
Aquila: where the Eagle's bright Star Altair, combined with Cygnus's Deneb, and Lyra's Vega mark the Summer Triangle.
Cassiopeia, the familiar "w"- shaped constellation completes the constellation trail through the Summer Milky Way. Binoculars will reveal double stars, clusters and nebulae.
Between September 12th and the 20th, watch the Moon pass from near Venus, above Jupiter, to the left of Saturn and finally above Mars!
Both Neptune and brighter Uranus can be spotted with some help from a telescope this month.
Look at about 1:00 a.m. local time or later in the southeastern sky. You can find Mercury just above Earth's eastern horizon shortly before sunrise. Use the Moon as your guide on September 7 and 8th.
And although there are no major meteor showers in September, cometary dust appears in another late summer sight, the morning Zodiacal light. Try looking for it in the east on moonless mornings very close to sunrise. To learn more about the Zodiacal light, watch "What's Up" from March 2018.
Watch the full What’s Up for September Video:
There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
What’s Up For August 2018?
The summer Perseids are here!
The Perseid meteor shower is the best of the year! It peaks on a Moonless summer night from 4 p.m. EST on August 12 until 4 a.m. EST on August 13.
Because the new Moon falls near the peak night, the days before and after the peak will also provide nice, dark skies. Your best window of observation is from a few hours after twilight until dawn, on the days surrounding the peak.
Unlike most meteor showers, which have a short peak of high meteor rates, the Perseids have a very broad peak, as Earth takes more than three weeks to plow through the wide trail of cometary dust from comet Swift-Tuttle.
The Perseids appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, visible in the northern sky soon after sunset this time of year. Observers in mid-northern latitudes will have the best views.
You should be able to see some meteors from July 17 to August 24, with the rates increasing during the weeks before August 12 and decreasing after August 13.
Observers should be able to see between 60 and 70 per hour at the peak. Remember, you don't have to look directly at the constellation to see them. You can look anywhere you want to-even directly overhead.
Meteor showers like the Perseids are caused by streams of meteoroids hitting Earth's atmosphere. The particles were once part of their parent comet-or, in some cases, from an asteroid.
The parade of planets Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars--and the Milky Way continue to grace the evening sky, keeping you and the mosquitoes company while you hunt for meteors.
Watch the full What’s Up for August Video:
There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
What’s Up - June 2018
What’s Up For June?
Jupiter and Venus at sunset, Mars, Saturn and Vesta until dawn.
First up is Venus. It reaches its highest sunset altitude for the year this month and sets more than two hours after sunset.
You can't miss Jupiter, only a month after its opposition--when Earth was directly between Jupiter and the Sun.
The best time to observe Jupiter through a telescope is 10:30 p.m. at the beginning of the month and as soon as it's dark by the end of the month.
Just aim your binoculars at the bright planet for a view including the four Galilean moons. Or just enjoy Jupiter with your unaided eye!
Saturn is at opposition June 27th, when it and the Sun are on opposite sides of Earth. It rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. Great Saturn viewing will last several more months. The best views this month will be just after midnight.
All year, the rings have been tilted wide open--almost 26 degrees wide this month--giving us a great view of Saturn's distinctive rings.
The tilt offers us a view of the north polar region, so exquisitely imaged by the Cassini spacecraft.
Near Saturn, the brightest asteroid--Vesta--is so bright that it can be seen with your unaided eye. It will be visible for several months.
A detailed star chart will help you pick out the asteroid from the stars. The summer Milky way provides a glittery backdrop.
Finally, Mars grows dramatically in brightness and size this month and is visible by 10:30 p.m. by month end.
The best views are in the early morning hours. Earth's closest approach with Mars is only a month away. It's the closest Mars has been to us since 2003.
Watch the full What’s Up for June Video:
There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook. Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
What’s Up - March 2018
What’s Up For March?
Several Planets and the Zodiacal Light!
This month, at sunset, catch elusive Mercury, bright Venus, the Zodiacal Light, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter between midnight and dawn!
Both Venus and Mercury play the part of "evening stars" this month. At the beginning of the month they appear low on the western horizon.
The Moon itself joins the pair from March 18th through the 20th.
The Moon skims by the Pleiades star cluster and Taurus's bright red star Aldebaran on the next few evenings, March 21 through the 23rd.
Jupiter, king of the planets, rises just before midnight this month and earlier by month end.
Even through the smallest telescope or average binoculars, you should see the 4 Galilean moons, Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede.
The March morning sky offers dazzling views of Mars and Saturn all month long.
Through a telescope, you can almost make out some of the surface features on Mars.
Look a little farther into Mars' future and circle May 5th with a red marker. When our InSight spacecraft launches for its 6 month journey to the Red Planet, Mars will be easily visible to your unaided eye.
Keep watching Mars as it travels closer to Earth. It will be closest in late July, when the red planet will appear larger in apparent diameter than it has since 2003!
You are in for a real treat if you can get away to a dark sky location on a moonless night this month -- the Zodiacal Light and the Milky Way intersect!
The Zodiacal light is a faint triangular glow seen from a dark sky just after sunset in the spring or just before sunrise in the fall.
The more familiar Milky Way is one of the spiral arms of our galaxy.
What we're seeing is sunlight reflecting off dust grains that circle the Sun in the inner solar system. These dust grains journey across our sky in the ecliptic, the same plane as the Moon and the planets.
Watch the full What’s Up for March Video:
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What’s Up November 2017
What’s Up For November?
Dawn pairing of Jupiter and Venus, Moon shines near star clusters, meteor activity all month long!
This month binoculars will come in handy--to view the moon, star clusters, and a close pairing of Venus and Jupiter.
You can’t miss bright Venus in the predawn sky. This month Venus pairs up with Jupiter on the morning of November 13th.
The Leonids peak on a moonless November 17th. Expect no more than 10 meteors an hour around 3:00 a.m., the height of the shower.
The Northern and Southern sub-branches of the Taurid meteor shower offer sparse counts of about 5 meteors per hour, but slow, bright meteors are common.
The nearby November Orionids peak on the 28th. In contrast to the Taurids, the Orionids are swift. But don’t expect more than 3 meteors per hour.
The moon glides by three beautiful star clusters in the morning sky this month, and a pair of binoculars will allow you to see the individual stars in the clusters. Aim your binoculars at the Pleiades and the moon on the 5th.
Then aim at the Messier or M-35 cluster and the moon on the 7th and the Beehive cluster and the moon on the 10th.
Meanwhile, at dusk, catch Saturn as it dips closer to the western horizon and pairs up with Mercury on the 24th through the 28th.
Also, Comet C/2017 O1 should still be a binocular-friendly magnitude 7 or 8 greenish object in November. Use Polaris, the North Star as a guide. Look in the East to Northeast sky in the late evening.
Watch the full What’s Up for November Video:
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Solar System: Things to Know This Week
Go for Venus! Fifty-five years ago this week, Mariner 2, the first fully successful mission to explore another planet launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Here are 10 things to know about Mariner 2.
1. Interplanetary Cruise
On August 27, 1962, Mariner 2 launched on a three and a half month journey to Venus. The little spacecraft flew within 22,000 miles (about 35,000 kilometers) of the planet.
2. Quick Study
Mariner 2's scan of Venus lasted only 42 minutes. And, like most of our visits to new places, the mission rewrote the books on what we know about Earth's sister planet.
3. Hot Planet
The spacecraft showed that surface temperature on Venus was hot enough to melt lead: at least 797 degrees Fahrenheit (425 degrees Celsius) on both the day and night sides.
4. Continuous Clouds
The clouds that make Venus shine so bright in Earth's skies are dozens of miles thick and permanent. It's always cloudy on Venus, and the thick clouds trap heat - contributing to a runaway "greenhouse effect."
5. Night Light
Those clouds are why Venus shines so brightly in Earth's night sky. The clouds reflect and scatter sunlight, making Venus second only to our Moon in celestial brightness.
6. Under Pressure
Venus' clouds also create crushing pressure. Mariner 2's scan revealed pressure on the surface of Venus is equal to pressure thousands of feet under Earth's deepest oceans.
7. Slow Turn
Mariner 2 found Venus rotates very slowly, and in the opposite direction of most planets in our solar system.
8. Space Travel Is Tough
Mariner 2 was a remarkable accomplishment, considering that in 1962 engineers were still in the very early stages of figuring out how operate spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. The first five interplanetary missions launched - by the U.S. and Soviet Union, the only two spacefaring nations at the time - were unsuccessful.
9. Not Ready for Its Close Up
Mariner 2 carried no cameras. The first close-up pictures of Venus came from NASA's Mariner 10 in 1974.
10. Hot Shot
The first (and still incredibly rare) photo of the surface of Venus was taken by the Soviet Venera 9 lander, which survived for a little more than a minute under the crushing pressure and intense heat on the ground.
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What’s Up for May?
This month, Jupiter is well placed for evening viewing, Saturn rises before midnight and the moon dances with Venus, Mercury and Mars.
Jupiter climbs higher in the southeast sky earlier in the evening this month, instead of having to wait until midnight for the planet to make an appearance. You can even see with just a pair of binoculars--even the four Galilean moon!
You can even see with just a pair of binoculars--even Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto--the four Galilean moons--as they change position each night!
Our moon appears near Jupiter in the nighttime sky from May 5-8.
The moon joins Venus and Mercury in the eastern sky just before sunrise on May 22 and May 23.
Later in the month, our moon pairs up with Mars in the west-northwest sky on May 26.
Saturn will be visible before midnight in early May, rising about 11:30 p.m. and by 9:30 p.m. later in the month. The best time to see Saturn Saturn is when it’s higher in the sky after midnight near the end of the month.
Using a telescope, you may be able to see Saturn’s cloud bands, or even a glimpse of Saturn’s north polar region--views that were beautifully captured by our Cassini spacecraft.
